Harp shakes her head. “I feel like I keep answering the same question over—”
“No,” says Louise. “Mr. Ghadiali asked you if you knew who the confidential informant was. And your answer was ‘It’s confidential.’ ”
“Which is true,” says Harp.
“Yeah, but Mr. Ghadiali’s question was a simple yes-or-no. And youseem pretty good at giving one-word answers when it suits you, Harp. This time, you didn’t answer yesorno.”
“This is ridiculous.” Harp throws up her hands. “By definition, a confidential—”
“Do you know the identity of the confidential informant?” asks Louise. “Yes or no?”
Harp wets her lips, struggles a moment. “Um…”
Louise feels a smile spread across her face.
“Ms. Harper? Who tipped off the state police about Trinity Casto’s car?”
Harp takes a long moment with that one. Her mouth opens, but words don’t come out. Then she smiles, gives one begrudging shake of her head, and drops her hands on the table.
“I did,” she says. “I was the confidential informant.”
“At whose direction?” asks Louise. “Who told you to tip off the state police?”
Harp closes her eyes, grimaces, as if swallowing a bitter pill.
“Allison Brice,” shesays.
Five Weeks Before April Fools’Day
21
Allison
I smack my phone to snooze the alarm. 5:30 a.m. I sit up in the darkness. For a heartbeat after waking, I’m weightless, orienting myself, then the guilt settles over me again, heavy as a blanket. Today is Monday. Luke will meet with Mortimer’s chancellor and learn his fate—for something that was not his fault but mine.
I throw on workout clothes, a thick running jacket, stocking cap and gloves, and prepare to brave the frigid late-February temperatures of our sleepy suburb. From the bedroom window, the world outside looks muted and far away, the snowfall drifting past the glass in lazy spirals. The rooftops blur under a growing white blanket.
Before I leave, I send a text message to Grayson, as I do every morning, ostensibly words of wisdom, but really just letting him know, without hovering, that I’m thinking of him. Today:Speak less than you know. Silence builds respect faster than words.
Now I’m ready for my daily routine, a 1.5-mile walk to Conger’s, our local grocery store on Main Street in Grace Village, which opens at six. I exercise to stay fit, to stay healthy—Mom again:To stay thin!—but this week, the workouts have helped still my nerves as well.
It’s not just nerves, either. It’s been exhausting, talking with Lukeover this last week as if I don’t know what really happened. First, he wants to plead guilty and take the blame. Then he suspects Finley. If only he’d relax and trust me, I’ll get him through this.
I grab two nylon recyclable bags from the bunch in my mudroom. They’re from Treasure Island, the grocery store we frequented when we lived in Chicago. The Treasure Island stores are long shuttered, but my memories remain, back when Fin and I were newly married, when things between us were great, when I was giddy with love, when I was sure we’d be forever.
Now I know better. If I hadn’t learned that already with Anna Cortese, I did last month, when I crossed under Lake Shore Drive and saw it with my own eyes, when I watched my husband sneak into the rear of our condo building with his new mistress, Trinity Casto.
It was bad enough when Finley ran around on me with a woman from the country club whom I barely knew. But Trinity? Someone who’d been so close with Luke, who knew that Luke loved her, who’d been in our home?
These were my options. One, take the high road: confront Fin, divorce him, and move on. I preferred door number two: doing all that plus burning Trinity to the ground.
But I wasn’t going to put myself at personal risk. I didn’t want a repeat of Anna Cortese—guns, gas cans, lit matches. I would hurt Trinity from a distance.
A new idea began to form—as it turned out, from an old one. I’d been sincerely wary of Max, a former drug dealer, and by extension Trinity—her weekday trips to see him, how easily a business owner could launder money, how commonly drugs move through gyms. I was nevercertainof my suspicions. But after watching Trinity traipse into my condo building with Fin, I decided that it didn’t matter if my suspicions were true. I wouldmakethem true.
I prepared, of course. I always prepare. I could claim this was ingrained from years of trial work, but the truth? I’ve always been this way. It wasn’t trial work that made me good at disciplined preparation. It was disciplined preparation that made me good at trial work.
After I saw Trinity and Finley together, I put my plan into action. I went to Luke’s townhouse in Grace Park when I knew he wasn’t home. I had a key and knew the alarm code.
