Page 108 of Fifty-Fifty

There. I saw it. Playing out in my mind like a nightmare.

Beyond Harper’s hallway was a set of French doors leading to a kitchen. Her laptop lay open on the kitchen table. I’d seen it when I came in. Although I hadn’t registered it at first. I was too busy looking at the blood on the floor.

They took the money. Left her necklace. Smashed her phone but left the laptop.

My head shot up to the video. I played it again from the beginning. Harper’s death had not been part of a robbery. She had no defensive wounds. She’d been

stabbed as soon as the killer had stepped into the house. If it had been a robbery, the phone would’ve been fenced for a hundred dollars, and the laptop five hundred, easy.

This was no robbery. It was just supposed to look like one.

Sofia had gotten a copy of this video. So had Alexandra.

What if Harper had seen something? Something none of the rest of us had seen. Something implicating the killer.

What if the killer had known this?

I clicked the track pad and started the video again.

When I was done, I scanned most of the Avellino case, started composing an email and then attached the file and the video, and hit send.

There was one person in the world who I trusted to look at this. Maybe she could see something I couldn’t.

THIRTY-SEVEN

KATE

The house in Edgewater, New Jersey, felt both familiar and new. Kate remembered the house when Bloch’s father had filled every corner with Christmas lights and refused to take them down until Easter. Every time Kate saw him he had a smile on his face, a ready joke and candy in his pocket. Every single time. Until he got busted out of the NYPD and then all of that changed.

Now, instead of lamps scattered around the rooms, Bloch had put up strings of fairy lights. Said it reminded her of her father, and besides, there weren’t enough plug sockets for adequate lighting and the overhead bulb was too harsh. Bloch liked the fairy lights. Kate said she liked them too.

What remained of an extra-large pizza had grown cold as it lay in the takeout box in the center of Bloch’s dining table. Beside it was the Avellino trial bundle.

Kate popped another Diet Coke, Bloch pulled the cap on a Michelob. They saluted each other with fresh drinks, didn’t say cheers, but each swallowed a mouthful and eased back in their seats at the table.

‘You okay?’ asked Bloch.

It took some time for Kate to find the right words. ‘I’ve never seen anyone die. I can’t get that sound out of my head. When his face hit the road …’

‘I’ll look into the pharmacy murders some more. A biker, female, all in black.

Tinted visor. It could’ve been the same person.’

‘You think it was Sofia?’ asked Kate.

Bloch shook her head, ‘I don’t know, to be honest. This is a whole new ball game. I don’t think Alexandra is a killer, and I would be surprised if I was wrong, but I can’t say for certain. She said she went straight home after court when I called her. I can’t verify that, and we have no way of knowing where Sofia was at the time Cohen was murdered.’

That last statement drew a heavy silence into the room. The temperature seemed to drop. If Hal Cohen, a witness in the case, was targeted, then it meant he must’ve had information that could nail the killer. Neither Bloch nor Kate knew what that might be. The events of that day had rocked Kate. She was going

to stay at Bloch’s house tonight – work on the case – try to sleep. She felt safe here.

‘I don’t sleep much,’ said Bloch. ‘If you want to turn in, the spare room is ready.’

‘It’s okay. I don’t think I’ll sleep much either.’

Since the murder of Hal Cohen, and Bloch’s revelation that the figure in black leathers had been outside her apartment building, Kate decided there would be safety in numbers. As long as the other number was Bloch. No point in denying

it, she felt safe around her. Two nails above the front door held a twelve-gage pump-action shotgun. Bloch would need to stretch for it, but it was within reach.