She laughed again, though this time there was a brittle edge to the laughter. It was a stall. She was preparing a lie. “All the big banks were fighting for a piece of that deal. Why would LBC need dirty money? Why are we talking about this?”

He didn’t trust her, but he had to keep her talking. “LBC uses a Russian real estate investment company to hide their interest in buying up the property they need. And I’m convinced that they’re laundering cash for Russian gangsters.”

“I doubt that very much. Those guys are too smart to leave a million bucks on the table.” She stood and swayed into the kitchen. “I’m making some decent coffee.”

He couldn’t read her. Was she hiding something? Covering for someone?

He heard the sounds of her changing the pod in the coffee machine, followed by the click and hiss of it brewing. He was about to call out to her when it hit him—she was playing him, letting him stew alone while she regrouped. Ted was ready for her.

Cheryl’s face appeared in the doorway. Her expression and body language were textbook bored. But her eyes showed something else. “Tell me what you think you know.”

Ted tossed out a wild card: “Who’s the giant?”

“What?”

The question had rattled her.

“The big guy?” Ted said. “Sharp dresser? He’s got a voice like Alvin and the Chipmunks. He stalked me. Threatened me.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

Ted remembered the detective’s warning about her. Cheryl had grown up in a family of grifters. Lying would be a skill she’d been taught since birth. But she was frightened, and the mask had slipped.

“I saw him leaving the building,” he said. He tried a feint. “His razor is in your bathroom.”

“He’s a friend,” she said in a tone meant to end the discussion.

“It’s good to have friends,” he said. “Does this one have a name?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because I don’t think he wants me to quit. He was very insistent that I collect that money for you.”

Her eyes burned at him. “I said drop it.”

Ted tried a different tack. “So why did you fire me? What are you afraid of now?”

“Who says I’m afraid?” She was back in full form, ready for a fight.

“And now you no longer care about Richie’s killer.”

“I didn’t say I don’t care. I told you to back off.”

“Do you care? Really? Why do I not believe you?”

He had touched a nerve. “I loved him. Once.”

“There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of it around here. You’ve scrubbed every sign he ever lived here. How long has he been gone? A week?”

“Almost a year,” she said.