Anthony Yilmaz was not their man. Yes, they would check with British Airways to see if his daughter, Rabia, really had arrived that night at Logan Airport, but Jane already knew it would only confirm what the Yilmazes had told them. This man did not kill Sofia Suarez. But he had revealed a piece of information that might be relevant, something she hadn’t heard before.
She took out her cell phone and called Det. Thibodeau in Maine. “I have a question,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Lily Creighton. Did she have some kind of heart surgery?”
“Why’s this coming up?”
“I just spoke to one of Professor Creighton’s students, and he remembered the little girl had had surgery. I’m wondering if it was at Eastern Maine Medical Center.”
“Well, I’m not sure how that’s relevant, but yeah. Hold on, let me check Tremblay’s notes.” She heard the click of his keyboard as he typed. “Yeah, here it is. She had a diagnosis of atrioventricular defect, whatever that is. Had open-heart surgery at EMMC two months before she was taken. Why?”
“Sofia Suarez worked as a critical care nurse at EMMC. It could be a connection.”
“Maybe. But I’m not seeing how it all fits together.”
“I’m not sure I see it either,” Jane admitted. “But it’s another link between these cases. There’s got to be something here.”
Thibodeau grunted. “Call me when you figure it out.”
She had always loved shopping for new shoes. She loved their curves, the way they gleamed like works of art on their little Plexiglas pedestals, and when she stepped into the shop on Newbury Street she inhaled deeply, smiling at the scent of polished leather. It had been months since she last visited a shoe store—or any store, for that matter. This was the first week she’d finally set aside her cane and even though she wasn’t ready to wear high heels again, what was the harm in simply admiring the new arrivals?
Slowly she circled the displays, pausing every so often to pick up a spike-heeled masterpiece, admire its silhouette, and fondle the curves. Because this was Newbury Street, of course the prices were ridiculous, extravagant enough to make her mother whisper put it back, if she were here. But this evening Amy was on her own, no longer the invalid and happy to be out of the house. She held one jewel-toned shoe up to the light and imagined how nice it would be to slip her foot into that narrow cradle. How it would accentuate her calf and lengthen her leg and add a fetching curve to her lower back, as high heels did. Both of the saleswomen were helping other customers, which left Amy free to wander the shop without anyone hovering over her. She was just looking anyway, with no plans to buy. Not at these prices.
She wandered over to the display in the window, where her eye went straight to a silver evening shoe with a four-inch heel. It was a shoe fit for a ballroom or the opera and she certainly didn’t need it, but she picked it up anyway and considered the narrow toe box. Such a pretty shoe, but would the pain of wearing it be worth it? Maybe. But not today.
She was about to put the shoe back on the pedestal when she noticed through the window a man in a raincoat standing across the street. He was looking straight at her. She froze, still clutching the shoe, her gaze fixed on his face, a face she’d seen before. She remembered a stormy morning, the air charged with the static of an impending thunderstorm. A cardinal singing in a tree. And a man smiling at her, a man with drooping shoulders and gray eyes in a gray face.
“Would you like to try that shoe on?”
Amy flinched and turned to the saleswoman, who had chosen just that moment to finally offer her assistance.
“I’m—I’m just looking…” She turned back to the window and looked across the street. She saw people strolling past, a couple holding hands. The man. Where was he?
“A different evening shoe, maybe? Some new Manolos have just come in, and they’re really cute.”
“No. Thank you.” Amy was so rattled that when she tried to set the shoe down, it missed the pedestal and clattered to the floor. “Oh. Sorry.”
“No problem,” the saleswoman said, picking up the shoe. “If there’s anything I can help you find, just let me know.”
But Amy was already heading out the door.
Standing outside on the busy sidewalk, she looked up and down the street but she didn’t spot the man in the evening crowd. Had he rounded the corner? Stepped into one of the shops?
Maybe he was never there at all and she’d imagined him. Or he was someone else, someone who merely looked like the man at the cemetery. Yes, that had to be it, because how could he know that on this particular evening she would step into that particular shoe store? No, it had to be a mistake. She’d been under so much stress these past two months. The accident. Her time in the hospital. The weeks of pain and rehab as her pinned femur healed and she learned to walk again. Plus all the worry about how she’d catch up at school after missing the final weeks of class. She still hadn’t finished her senior thesis on Artemisia Gentileschi, something she’d been putting off because it seemed unimportant in light of everything else that had happened to her. Instead of shoe shopping, she should be at home right now, working on those revisions.