Chapter 70

IT TOOK ME ALMOST AN HOUR in bumper-to-bumper traffic to get out to Brooke's house in Sunnyside.

I left my unmarked police car double-parked as I trotted to the front door with Scott's work possessions. This visit definitely wouldn't be sweet, but I was determined to make it as short as humanly possible. After I rang the doorbell, I noticed a child's chalk drawing of an American flag on the driveway. I rang the doorbell a second time.

It took me another three minutes of ringing to decide nobody was home. I was tempted to leave the box at the back door with a note, but I couldn't be cruel to Brooke. I decided to head back to my Impala for a little sit-and-wait, when I heard something muffled and indistinct.

It was coming from inside the house near the door. I finally identified the noise. Sobs. Somebody was crying in there. Oh, God, not this.

I knocked on the door this time.

"Brooke?" I called out. "It's Lauren Stillwell. I'm here with Scott's things. Are you all right?"

The weeping only increased in volume. So I turned the knob and let myself in.

Brooke was on the stairs curled up into herself. She looked like she was in shock. Her eyes were open, but her face was expressionless. Tears were running down her cheeks.

I panicked for a second. Had she hurt herself? I looked around for an empty pill bottle. At least there wasn't any blood.

"Brooke," I said. "What is it? What's going on? It's Detective Stillwell. Can you talk to me?"

I kind of patted her tentatively at first, but after a minute of the muted sobbing, I put down Scott's box and hugged her tightly.

"There. C'mon. It's going to be okay," I said. It wasn't, but what else could I say?

The house, I could see, was messy on a level only toddlers could achieve. The toy-strewn living room looked like a page out of an I Spy book. I knelt down on the floor. I spy with my little eye a woman in the midst of a complete nervous breakdown, I thought.

It took another couple of minutes for Brooke to snap out of it. She finally took a deep breath that probably relieved me more than it did her. I went and found a box of tissues in the pantry.

"I'm sorry," Brooke finally said, taking one. "I was napping on the couch. I woke up when you pulled in, and then I looked out and saw you holding his things and… it was like it was happening all over again."

"I can't imagine your pain," I said after a pause.

Brooke's tangled blonde hair fell in her face as she bowed her head.

"I don't… I don't know how I'm going to do this," she said, beginning to cry again. "My mom took the kids, and I still can't function. I can't leave the house, answer the phone. I thought the panic attacks would stop after the funeral, but they seem worse now."

I struggled for something to say, something that might help her. "Have you looked into group therapy?" I tried.

"I can't get into all that," Brooke said. "My mother-in-law and step-mom help with the kids so much as it is and -"

"I'm not a psychologist, Brooke," I said. "But maybe you need to be with people like you, who have lost a spouse. Nobody else can understand what you're going through. How could they? And don't worry about leaning on people in order to get better, honey. You're a parent. You have to heal yourself in order to be there for your kids."

I don't know if Brooke bought my little pep talk, but at least she'd stopped crying and her eyes were focused.

"Is that what you would do?" she said. Her desperate gaze seized me, pinned me to the wall. "Please tell me what to do. You're the only one in this whole thing who seems to remotely understand."

I swallowed the lump in my throat. Brooke Thayer was looking to me for guidance? How could I go on and on fooling this woman? How could I just stand there, continuing to keep my mouth closed about what had really happened? What was I made of? Talk about scraping the bottom.

"I'd get the therapy, Brooke," I said.

Who are you kidding? I thought. You're the one who needs therapy.

Brooke glanced at the cardboard box I'd brought.

"Could you take those things downstairs into Scotty's office for me?" she said. "I haven't been able to go in there yet. I can't deal with all that now. I'm going to put some coffee on. Will you have some with me, Detective?"

I wanted to say no. With a bullhorn. Brooke and I were the last two females on Earth who needed to bond. But like any red-blooded American woman given the choice between her sensible desires and a guilt-laced obligation, I, of course, agreed.

"That would be really great. I could use some coffee. And please, my name is Lauren."

Chapter 71

I BLINKED AS I MADE MY WAY down the Thayers' creaky, musty basement stairs. Wasn't the point of love affairs to have no strings attached? I had to get out of here before I was put in charge of sorting Scott's grammar school pictures, and then his underwear drawer.

I walked past a water heater and the laundry room and finally opened a plywood door covered with a Giants poster featuring Michael Strahan.

I stood still on the threshold after I turned on the light.

After the dark, oily-smelling outer basement, I was expecting to enter a typically male basement office. Tools scattered on a plywood desk. Maybe a dot-matrix printer on top of piles of Sports Illustrated in the corner.

So when I feasted my eyes on what looked like Don Corleone's office from The Godfather, I have to admit, I was a little surprised.

The walls were paneled in dark-stained oak. The antique mahogany desk looked like something made from an old ship. On top of it sat an Apple PowerBook.

There was a black leather couch and, on the wall to my right, a 42-inch Plasma TV. On top of a low bookshelf behind the desk, I counted three cell phones and a BlackBerry busily charging.

Oh brother, I thought, dread plunging through my nervous system as I put down the box beside the laptop. First, the money in Scott's locker, now this fancy hideaway in the basement of his house.

I'd chosen a real multifaceted guy to sleep with, hadn't I?

Maybe between stuffing dirty money under his footwear and sleeping with married cops, Scott was Batman.

I sank into the leather office chair and closed my eyes for a few seconds. Discovering Scott's executive den made me more than a little concerned. Could he have made an itinerary of where he was heading the night he was killed? In my mind, I pictured a leather-bound calendar book with Lauren 11PM written right under the date of his death. Stranger things had happened in homicide cases.

I hastily looked through the laptop, BlackBerry, and cell phones but, thankfully, didn't find my name or number anywhere.

After I was done, I noticed a file cabinet and an armoire-size metal locker standing in the left-hand corner of the room.

I listened for Brooke's footsteps on the stairs as I stepped toward them.

Both, of course, were locked.

I tossed Scott's desk before I found a tiny key ring among the contents of the pencil holder. The key opened the cabinet but not the locker.

My sweaty fingers nearly slipped off the handle as I rolled open the first heavy drawer.

I was partially relieved when I saw that the files looked like typical home office stuff. Folders marked "Income Tax," "Credit Cards," "Car Repairs," "Dentist."

"Lauren?" I heard Brooke call down from the top of the stairs. "Are you all right?"

I hope so, I thought.

"Just a minute," I called, riffling through more files. "I'm almost finished, Brooke."

I turned to leave after closing the last file drawer. But then I had to stick my hand under the top drawer of the desk, a nasty Homicide cop habit.