“Alexa.”
“Mr. Cain,” she answered, her voice a glassy calm.
“I want you to take a couple breaths,” he said, but whatever storm he’d thought she’d entered had already dissipated.
Alexa lay still, her face half buried in a pillow.
“I’ve been breathing the whole time,” she said.
“Still,” he said. “Go ahead. Shut your eyes, if you want.”
“I want you to go away, Mr. Cain.”
“I will, if you tell me one thing.”
He didn’t want to waste his important questions here. He didn’t like to ask those until he was holding enough information. Right now, he had nothing, and if he started asking the wrong questions, Alexa would see right through them. He thought of a question that wouldn’t hurt to ask. It would sound like a throwaway, but it wasn’t.
“Did you love your father? Even knowing about the photo and the handcuffs?”
Alexa sat up. The strap of her nightgown had fallen off her shoulder. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and then her cheek glistened.
“Did I love him?”
“That’s all I want to know.”
“When I was thirteen, he took me to London. Just the two of us. You probably already know he lived there when he was a kid. He showed me their house. The Official Residence, he called it. He took me shopping. I was thirteen, and I thought shopping in London was so glamorous. He bought me a gold bracelet.”
“You still have it?”
“Of course I have it.”
“Can I see it?”
“If I show it to you, will you leave?”
“We’ll go.”
She got up and went behind the dressing screen. She knelt again and opened another drawer. When she came out, she was wearing the bracelet. It glittered from her wrist, a golden honeycomb. Her father had taken her to the Imogene Bass shop, on Victoria Street. He’d bought her the exact bracelet the girl had worn in the photos. Alexa sat at the foot of her bed and wrapped her right hand around her wrist, so that her fingers covered the bracelet. She held it close to her chest. She hadn’t answered his question. Maybe this gesture was as close as she could come.
“If you want, I can get someone to sit with you,” Cain said. “I could have a female officer come.”
“I’d rather have my mom. Can you do that?”
“I can try,” he said.
But he had no intention of trying. Mona Castelli knew exactly where her daughter was. They had each other’s cell numbers. If they wanted to see each other, they didn’t need him to arrange it.
Fischer waited until the doors closed and the elevator started moving, carrying them down to the lobby.
“The weirdest thing about that—she didn’t start acting even halfway normal until you told her Castelli was dead.”
“Halfway?”
“A quarter, an eighth. Whatever.”
“What do you think she’s on?”
“She’s nineteen, and rich,” Fischer said. “What else do we need to know? She’s probably into things we’ve never even heard of.”
“He bought her the same bracelet,” Cain said. “What do you make of that?”
“Does she know?”
Cain shook his head.
“The picture she gave me—the girl’s cuffed to the bed. They must’ve taken the bracelet off. It’s only in the shots when she’s still dressed.”
“Then as far as Alexa knew,” Fischer said, “her dad took her to a shop and bought her a bracelet. It didn’t mean anything else to her. It was just a present.”
“If she’s telling the truth.”
“You think she’s seen the other pictures?”
“But where?”
“And the part about the handcuffs—”
“I know.”
“—that didn’t sit right,” Fischer finished.
The elevator doors opened and they went across the lobby. The security guard rose from behind his desk to meet them.
“You told her?”
“She knows,” Cain said. He gave the man his card. “If anyone else comes to see her, give me a call. Same if there’s trouble—any sort of trouble.”
“She’s okay?”
“Just give me a call if you see anything.”
“You got it.”
They went under the chandelier and out the front door. The wind was blowing from Market Street, carrying steam from the subway vents. Three stretch limos went past, and then there was a break in traffic. They crossed New Montgomery, headed for Fischer’s car.
“I was saying, about the handcuffs,” Fischer said. “I believed her on the bracelet. I believed the tears. But when she told you about the handcuffs, my bullshit meter spiked.”
“So what do you think?”
She dug her keys from her purse, then checked her watch.
“We better get to the autopsy,” she said. “That’s what I think.”
“I called Grassley and Chun.”
He’d called them from the Petrovics’ bathroom. They’d already heard the news about the mayor, but they needed to know their new assignment. And Grassley, in particular, needed to know the rules. They couldn’t say anything to Fischer about the girl from El Carmelo unless Cain cleared it.
“You’ll like them,” he added.
“If you trust them, I’m fine.”
19