“Why did you refuse to talk to the police again?” I asked.

“That man scared me.”

“What man?”

“I don’t know his name. He called me and said he knew I’d stolen something from the apartment. He said if I didn’t give it back he would kill me. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. He said I had a day to give it back.” She was crying in earnest now. “He told me someone would come to my house to pick it up. I swore to him I didn’t steal anything. I didn’t! I went to Claudia’s apartment, or whatever her name was, and the door wasn’t latched. I went in and found her in the bath. I screamed and screamed and a neighbor heard me. She came in and we called the police. I swear to you, I didn’t steal anything.”

“Then what happened?”

She snuffled again and I felt like giving her a tissue. “I kept the house dark and hid in the basement. I really thought he’d kill me. Then he called back and told me I was off the hook, that somebody else had taken it. But he said if he ever found out I talked to the police, he’d slit my throat while I slept at night.”

CHAPTER 29

Tariq and I didn’t speak for most of the drive back to the city. Just before the driver took us into the Midtown Tunnel, Tariq spoke. “Are you so appalled that you cannot even look at me anymore?”

I watched his reflection in the window. “Why did you kill that woman in Claudia’s apartment on New Year’s Eve?”

In the glass I saw his full mouth tighten into an angry line. “Now you think that I murdered her?”

“I’ve just seen you in action. I know how far you’ll go to find Claudia. You’d kill anyone who got in your way. It may have been an accident”—I remembered what Bruxton had said about the woman’s weakened heart—“but it was you.”

“How could I do that, Lily? I was out of the country.”

“Maybe you had one of your thugs do the dirty work. To make it look like she killed herself.” I turned to look him in the eye.

“That is really what you think?” He watched me, the reflection of the tunnel lights shimmering in his eyes like ghosts. It was uncomfortably intimate to sit next to him, the knowledge of what we’d both just done hanging in the air between us. “I suppose I cannot blame you, but I promise you, I do my own dirty work.”

“You’ve killed people,” I blurted out before I could censor myself. “Claudia told me.”

“Did she?” His voice was quiet but flat, without any trace of emotion. “Did she tell you the reason why?”

“No.”