“I’m going to have to buy a new wardrobe if I keep eating with you,” Grant grumbled at Frankel.

After lunch, Frankel and Grant further split up the lists and spent the rest of the day in their offices contacting as many former felons as possible. Meanwhile, Rachel didn’t emerge from her cocoon in the basement until seven o’clock, when she appeared in her father’s cubbyhole.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

“We’ve gotten in touch with maybe seventy-five, eighty percent,” Grant informed her. “No dead bodies yet.”

“I guess that’s a good thing.”

“What’s happening with you and the good sergeant?”

“We’re working our way through—I think I’ve narrowed it down to fifty or so. I told him to head home; it’s past midnight over there. I think he’s put in a long enough day.”

“We all have,” agreed Grant. “You should be heading home yourself.”

Rachel indicated Grant’s luggage on the floor behind him. “What about you? Any luck finding a hotel?”

Grant searched his desk and found a piece of paper he’d scribbled on. “A place called the Holland in Jersey City said I could check in tonight and stay indefinitely.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can.” She reached over and crumpled up the piece of paper and tossed it in the trash can. “You’re not staying in Jersey, Dad. You’ll never get back into the city this time of year.”

She crossed over and picked up his bag. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Go? Go where?”

“You’ll stay with me. My apartment’s not much bigger than this but I’ve got a fold-out couch. And it sounds better than Detective Frankel’s place.”

Over lunch, presented with Grant’s housing predicament, Frankel had said he wished he could help him out. “But after Julia left, all I could afford was this studio apartment in Murray Hill with a Murphy bed. When you open it, there isn’t even room for me to stand up, let alone a houseguest.”

Given the state (or nonstate) of their relationship the past couple of years, Grant would never have presumed to ask his daughter to put him up— let alone put up with him.

But once she made the unexpected offer, he certainly wasn’t going to refuse.

Perhaps there was hope for the two of them yet.

If he ever did come face-to-face with the killer, Grant realized, he might very well have something to thank him for.

Chapter 14

14

Rachel lived on Ninety-Seventh Street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive. The neighborhood had undergone a total face-lift and now boasted a condo conversion rate that was off the charts. Many buildings that had once been destined for demolition or considered eyesores now had five-year waiting lists.