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  She wondered what her mother or Raina would say about her allowing him to come over, even if it was a plot line found in multiple Lifetime movies and romantic comedies: needing comfort post tragedy, leading lady finds herself falling into some other man’s arms. Hollywood had made millions, probably billions, on the concept. So why couldn’t she benefit from it as well?

  The three loud bangs on her front door startled her. She had given Lane a key in anticipation of a situation like this.

  She wrapped herself in her bathrobe and fixed her hair as she passed the hall mirror.

  It wasn’t Lane at the door.

  “Raina? What’s the matter?” Raina looked a mess. Her hair stuck to her forehead, framing her mascara-smeared face. Layers of caked on MAC products gathered in the corners.

  “You’re my best friend, Ara, you know that. You are the sister I never had, and I love you.”

  Ara wrapped her arms around her, Raina’s wet face finding a place on her shoulder. Only she could get this drunk on a weekday. “What’s this about? Of course, we’re sisters. Forever, remember?”

  “You are going to hate me one day, and I’m going to have no one.” Her hysterics kicked up as she snorted through her nose to breathe, unsteady on her feet.

  “Why would I hate you? Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have a reason to, now do I?”

  Unsure what to say other than that, Ara let her cry. She had learned years ago that when Raina was wasted, it was best not to provide any real advice or concern. Raina would rile herself up and then pass out, only to wake tomorrow angry that her eyes were puffy.

  “Promise me you will never hate me.”

  “I can’t think of a reason why I would.”

  Raina didn’t look up as she walked her over to the sofa, covering herself with the softest blanket. Ara went to the kitchen, returning moments later with a glass of water, only to find Raina had slipped out, leaving behind nothing but mascara trails on Ara’s throw pillow.

  Typical. Ara took a sip of the water and went back to the bedroom. She sat on the end of the bed, brushing her hair over her shoulders. The front door slammed and Lane appeared in her bedroom doorway.

  “What, did you miss me?” he said. Ara stood, her loose tank top slipping off her shoulder, nearly revealing her right breast. It didn’t need to be said, the truth was she did miss Lane. But her words, those were still Brad’s for now.

  “Are you all right?”

  She took a few steps toward him and reached her arms around his waist. He stood stock still at first, then wrapped his arms tightly around her as she let her fingertips trace lines up his back. She felt his body tense with anticipation of what could come. Lane leaned down and lightly kissed the nape of her neck.

  “We can talk if you want,” he said softly, but she didn’t need to talk.

  She needed the attention he was willing to give her. Each touch left her wanting to explore a little bit more of him. They turned and he sat on the bed, pulling her in. Not understanding everything she was feeling, she held the back of his head and kissed him. Hard and despairing. Maybe it was the wine, or the depressing thought of being alone, but Lane felt exactly like what she needed right now. She caught a glimpse of them in the floor-length mirror hanging on the opposite wall. Not wanting to feel any ping of guilt, she said through heavy breaths, “Can you get the light?” Once blanketed in darkness, Ara pulled him into her bed, and he followed willingly, lying down behind her, wrapping a single arm around shoulders. Ara with her back against him, closed her eyes.

  “It will all work out,” Lane whispered before kissing her one more time at the base of her neck in between her shoulders.

  “I hope so, Lane,” she said, before finally falling asleep.

  CHAPTER 13

  With a single step off the Path train, Ara was overcome by the stench steaming from the city streets. Oh, how she’d missed New York. The very essence of so much success and failure compacted into one small island invigorated her. At any moment you could turn down a new street and walk straight into a new life. Taking in one more smog-filled breath, she started toward her office, which sat comfortably near Rockerfeller Center on Sixth Ave.

  “You are simply not ready to go back,” her mother said in the calls they shared prior to today. But two months seemed plenty long for Ara. She knew if the situation were reversed, her mother would wallow in the pity of others as long as it lasted and then some. “Moving on sure, but back to work?” she said. “It may just be too much, sweetie.” But thankfully, Ara could stand on her own two feet. Raina, of course, tried to fight her mother’s battle on this side of the continent, but Ara knew how to handle both of them. Instead of allowing them the drama, she simply continued along her morning routine, pulled her long hair back into a sophisticated knot, and was on her way back to the life she once knew.

  She whisked through the lobby, pausing only to scan her ID badge before continuing through the turnstile and onto the elevator. Before she knew it, she was on the thirty-seventh floor, where she had spent most of her time over the past few years. But when the doors opened, she wasn’t greeted by a warm smile from Kara, the receptionist, whose presence had always been a comfort to her in yesteryears, but instead by the sight of Detectives Maro and Ameno casually leaning on a desk in the left corner of the entryway. Kara bustled about, trying not to notice the obviously unwelcome detectives, and awkwardly struggled to avoid eye contact with Ara.

  “Ms. Hopkins,” her boss, Ryan, said through the glass doors. “A word, please.”

  Once in his office, Ara suddenly felt uncomfortable with his anything but welcoming demeanor. She barely understood a word he said, the words moving in one ear and out the other, until she heard the ones she was dreading.

  “We are so sorry, Ara, we really are,” he said. “We just can’t have this much attention on the network right now. With the merger and all. Not to mention the time you took off.” His eyes held a heavy glaze of disapproval and maybe even a hint of flat out disgust. Ara wished he would just be straight with her, instead of his feeble attempt at compassionate conversation. Tell her she was a possible suspect in the city’s hottest murder investigation and that they needed to create distance to avoid scandal at the network.

  Prior to Brad’s death, Ara had a wonderful working relationship with Ryan, and everyone else at her job, for that matter. They had moved up together for years, him a rung ahead on the corporate ladder. Countless times he talked her off a ledge when an ad buy she was handling ran during the wrong programming. Ryan was at the network longer then her, but not long enough to actually be out of her professional league, they always seemed to be in the mud together. No matter how bad it was, or how ridiculous a client or sales representative acted, Ryan helped Ara laugh off the stresses of the advertising world. Typically, with a cat meme or twerking viral video.

  But now, in her lowest of lows, he seemed disgusted to be associated with her. And sitting in his office, Ara could not help but feel the sting of his disapproval. Innocent until proven guilty, my ass. The media should have just crucified her in Times Square during Christmas time. Everyone thought she was guilty anyway, why not put on a show.

  Unaware of the protocol, Ara stood, “I guess I’ll get my things then.”

  “Kara has a box out front for you. We had her pack up your desk yesterday to avoid a scene. I’m sorry, Ara, I really am.”

  The box was waiting at Kara’s desk when she came back into the welcome area. All of her belongings from years of hard work, tucked away in a single printer paper delivery box. Maro looked more than satisfied that her hope of returning to her life and job had been squashed.

  Ara looked over at Kara and saw a single tear briefly fall from her eye and down her cheek before she quickly brushed it away and regained the perfection required for a New York City receptionist.

  Of all the things that Ara thought could have went wrong today, this was not one of them. She’d worried that maybe she would forget what train to take, or that sh
e’d cry when her computer loaded to reveal the image of her and Brad on her Mac desktop monitor. She never in a million years imagined not even making it to her desk. But, apparently, this was the madness she called life lately, laden with one surprise after the other.

  “Looks like you may have some free time, Ms. Hopkins,” Maro said.

  Not knowing a single excusable reason to say no, she agreed to go with the detectives back to the station.

  The streets seemed less opportune as each detective walked on either side of her as they exited the building. The buzz that just a few moments ago offered excitement now seemed to be swallowing her whole. Emotionless faces pushed past her without acknowledging that she was obviously having a worse day than your average Starbucks addict.

  Ara wanted to kick and scream, really cause a scene and make these men work for their paychecks. But her mother didn’t raise her that way. Instead she perched her head firmly on the center of her shoulder blades and looked straight ahead. What a day to get fired.

  Back at the station in New Jersey, Maro seemed more and more frustrated as Ara sat at the table in the interrogation room without saying a word. Over the past few months, she had mastered locking into her own mind and ignoring her surroundings.

  “There are four different prints on the gun. His. Lane Bene’s, and yours,” he said, “Should we get Detective Bene back in here?”

  Ara knew they weren’t going to do that. NYPD and Jersey cops competed like a set of twins, two of the same cut from the same gene pool, constantly trying to outdo each other. She almost felt sorry for Detective Maro. He seemed obviously obsessed with the case, proving in her mind that he had no one to go home to.

  Earlier on in the investigation, her mother had probed as far as her upper class New Yorker connections allowed her into Detective Maro’s life. A social lioness, Arabelle armed herself with the comfort of juicy gossip that could easily be used to her advantage if needed. And juice she’d found. Not only was Detective Maro a miserable two-time failure at marriage, the second one had not only cost him the right to see his children but almost his career. Ara tried, unsuccessfully, to remember the unsavory personal details about Detective Maro her mother had filled her in on. She really should pay attention more when people spoke to her.

  “Your husband had a lot of secrets, Ms. Hopkins. More than enough to give you motive,” Maro said.

  Ara decided to play ball with the fiery detective.

  “You’ve lifted every out of place rock in my life. If he did have secrets, you would know better than me,” she said, moving her eyes back to the plain white walls of the interrogation room, painting them with images of her happy place, places that soothed her, wherever those might be.

  She knew she was a horrible liar. The very definition of a realist, she could hardly fake her way through high school, let alone entertain the idea of joining a sorority. However, as of late, lying was just another skill she’d unfortunately had the luxury to fine-tune.

  “You’re right, Ara. I would know. And I do,” Maro said. “And what’s worse, you know her, too. Actually, you two are quite close.”

  Ara felt the blood rushing to her face as she rubbed her damp hands back and forth, pulling on each of her left fingers, stopping only for a brief moment to examine her wedding band. “You don’t know anything. You just think you do, Detective.”

  “We’ll see about that. Before we let you dig in, a date stuck out to us when reading over these ourselves so we did a little digging. How did you and Brad spend New Year’s Eve?”

  The room instantly felt blistering hot. That was the day Brad picked her up from the hospital. The forty-eight-hour evaluation she’d received at his suggestion—concerned that she was noticeably feeling down. He didn’t know at the time he was sending his pregnant wife in for a pysch evaluation. He was concerned, or so he said, that her depression was coming back.

  “I do not want this to get back to the way it was again,” he had told her. “You being at your best is most important to me. All I ever want is for you to be happy.” You could have stopped sleeping around, she thought now. That would’ve made me damn happy.

  She’d been reluctant at first but had eventually surrendered since her offices were closed between Christmas and New Year anyway, and quite frankly, she could’ve used the relaxation.

  “Lane told me about a new treatment program at Four Winds out in Westchester. I guess some cops go out there after a trauma. He said it’s practically a vacation!” Brad’s cheery tone should have made her wonder. He was clearly selling her; why hadn’t she seen it?

  Snapping her attention back to the detectives she stumbled more than she would have liked to collect her words.

  “Brad was concerned, thought I may be getting depressed again. Said that he heard about a place out in Westchester, said it would be like a vacation.”

  “Why not go on a real vacation, wouldn’t that be more typical of a happy husband and wife? Jet off to the Bahamas or choose someplace like it to spend the holiday?”

  Ara touched her lip, not knowing what to say. “I think I need my lawyer, Detective.”

  Maro interrupted, “You were pregnant, and in a facility weeks before your husband was shot dead, clearly you were vulnerable at the time.”

  “I would like to speak to my lawyer, Barry Goldberg. I’m sure you know the name.” Her and Brad’s family had friends in high places. And money. A lethal combination in this country. Her mother was right, this was going to be a goddamn circus, and she did need Barry Goldberg, recognized year over year as a winning defense attorney. Ara knew this guy was not someone Maro wanted sitting across the table from him. The way Barry was known to wear down his opposition; it was never death by a single blow. With him, it was death by a thousand paper cuts.

  Maro shifted his weight back and forth between each leg and moved a little closer to Ara. Pausing to stare directly into her eyes, he placed a stack of printed out sheets of paper in front of her, tapping the top page. “Here’s a little light reading for you. While you wait.”

  Maro turned on his heel and was out of the interrogation room as quickly as he had picked her up, Ameno following like a sad, attention-seeking puppy.

  CHAPTER 14

  Sometimes Ara dreamed about the time spent in Dr. Dan’s office, though it was hardly a dream, it was just as real as her husband’s murder. Three quarters of the doctor’s office décor comprised neutral, metallic pallets, while the fourth wall, the one directly behind where he sat to host sessions, exploded with color and mismatched patterns. It was as if he was trying to tell his young patients that they could be whoever they wanted to be in his office. There was no need to hold back, that there was beauty in being different.

  After years of insecurities stemming from her parents’ expectations of perfection, Ara found the doctor and his crazy decorating habits more than refreshing. He taught her to think freely and injected life back into her.

  Little by little, Dr. Dan cracked the shell that Ara had cocooned herself within, exposing the woman Ara desperately wanted to be: confident, beautiful, and happy.

  When she was younger, their meetings were much more casual and consisted mostly of Ara playing games on his laptop computer for the length of the overpriced sessions. When Ara would worry that her father, stepmother, or, even worse, her bicoastal mother, would find out about their lack of actual by the book therapy, Dr. Dan would ease all concern promising that their relationship was private, sacred even, like one between lifelong friends. A friendship such as theirs had more much value in life than any sort of therapy he could provide.

  It wasn’t long after her father died that they started sleeping together, solidifying their freakishly inappropriate bond of an adult doctor and seventeen-year-old patient.

  Ara had positioned it just right, setting the tone of their session by confessing to urges she felt she could no longer control. She was testing the grounds of her sexual nature and was exhilarated by it. Dr. Dan had walked over to her side of t
he office and sat beside her on the leather couch. At first keeping a good foot or so between them, then inching closer and closer, and finally so close she could feel his breath gently at the nape of her neck.

  “And what are these feelings you can’t ignore?” Dr. Dan had asked, placing one hand on her leg and the other arm behind her, just brushing below her shoulders. Tilting her head to the side, she’d pursed her lips slightly like she saw women in the movies do, and said, “I think you know what they are.”

  “I’m not so sure that I do know.” He retreated slightly, regaining his more professional composure. Suddenly feeling rejected and like she was losing him, Ara reached for his hand and slipped it up her loose-fitting sundress, pressing it hard against herself. “Then I’ll show you what I want.”

  Somewhat shocked by her action, Dr. Dan’s professionalism had wilted, revealing a man bulging with want, for her and only her. Before she knew it, he was pressed up against her, forcefully kissing her lips and neck, stealing nibbles here and there all over her body. Ara didn’t know what it was that she was feeling, but what she did know was that she had never felt anything like it. It was as if her body was bursting from within. Maybe it was freedom for the very first time, or maybe she had instantly aged ten years. By the time he’d slipped her panties off, she couldn’t even fathom what she had started at the beginning of her three o’clock appointment.

  “You are absolutely sure, right, Ara?” Dr. Dan had said, gasping for air. But before she could answer, he’d pulled her onto him and began moving her hips up and down.

  Was she sure? Moments earlier, she’d known she was. Like most curious, hormone-filled teenagers, she’d dreamed of her first time being perfect. The imperfections of this situation were becoming all too real. Suddenly overtaken by the pain of losing her youth, her confidence diminished and was replaced with childlike disappointment. As she’d watched their reflections in the glass casing of an adjacent bookshelf, she’d hardly recognized the girl straddling her therapist. Despite her being on top, he’d thrusted harder and harder, as if reminding her how very little control she actually had over him.