“We’ve been over this already. If Letty Carnahan doesn’t cooperate, I take her back to New York with me, and hand her over to the New York cops. Maya goes to child protective services. And you, Officer DeCurtis, will face charges of obstruction of justice, harboring a fugitive, and whatever other crimes I can come up with. Even if the charges don’t stick, your law enforcement career is over.”

Joe exhaled slowly and pushed his chair away from the table. “I’ll talk to her,” he said.

“You do that,” Agent Hill said. “I need an answer by noon tomorrow.”

29

THE LIGHTS WERE STILL ON inside unit 11. Joe tapped lightly at the door, and a moment later she opened the door a crack with the chain lock still engaged.

Letty didn’t look happy to see him. “What now?”

“I know you’re still pissed at me about the pool furniture, but we really need to talk,” he said, keeping his voice low.

She glanced backward into the apartment. “Can’t it wait until morning? I just got Maya to sleep.”

“Sorry, it really can’t. This is important.” He paused. “We need to talk about Evan Wingfield.”

Her eyes widened. “Okay, come on in. We can sit out on the patio and talk without disturbing Maya.”

She was dressed in loose-fitting pajama pants and a T-shirt, and her hair was mussed. She clasped her hands around both knees, perched uneasily, like a bird, on the rusty metal chair.

“How long have you known?”

“I knew something was up with you the first night you got here. But I didn’t figure out that you were her sister until later that first week. That’s when I found out about Tanya’s death and the fact that Maya was missing.”

“Why didn’t you arrest me, or turn me in?”

“I would have, at first. But Ava insisted you were good people, right from the start. She would have kicked my ass. Plus there was Maya. And then you jumped Mrs. Ben Dover in the parking lot and kept her from splitting my head in half. And you saved Harry Bronson’s life, making him chew that aspirin. I decided to wait and see what happened. Mostly, I guess, I was trying to figure you out.”

“Let me know when that happens. I’m still trying to figure me out too.” She paused. “I didn’t kill Tanya.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Back in New York, I had a standing Sunday-morning playdate with Maya. We’d go to the park, or out to breakfast. Just the two of us. But that morning, Tanya texted me that Maya’d had a rough night, and she wanted her to sleep in. She also mentioned Evan was coming over.”

“Was that unusual?”