Page 11 of Holmes, Margaret and Poe

“What about security cameras? Can you take a look at whatever footage you have around that time, three days ago, ten a.m., while we check the apartment?”

“What’s going on?” the guard asked.

Bree was about to say Asher was missing when she caught Elena shaking her head. “We’re just trying to figure out a few things,” she said.

They went to the elevator. Jackson used a key to unlock the penthouse button.

“When was the last time you saw or talked to her?” Bree asked the assistant.

The elevator began to rise. “On Friday, seven in the morning, by phone,” Jackson said. “We went through her schedule because I couldn’t come in. I had an appointment with my oncologist to get some tests done.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

She smiled. “I’m not. The tests came back negative, so I’m good. No cancer.”

“Congratulations,” Bree said. “Who was the last person to hear from Leigh Anne?”

Jackson said Chandler Ellison, Amalgam’s chairman of the board, spoke to Asher by phone around eleven on Friday morning.

“After she came here?” Elena said as the elevator slowed.

“Apparently,” Jackson said.

“Tell me about her,” Bree said.

“Leigh Anne? Smartest person I’ve ever known.”

“I’ll second that,” Elena said. The elevator stopped and the door slid back, revealing a round foyer that was being plastered.

“A genius, then?” Bree said, following them to a door on the far side.

“We hire geniuses every day of the week at Amalgam,” Jill said. “From the Ivy League, MIT, Stanford. But Leigh Anne is like no one else at the company. She knows every detail of the business, from the new technology to customer service. Keeps it all in her head. Knows everyone who works at Amalgam by name, and there are five hundred and sixty-eight employees at the moment.”

They went through a door and into a cavernous room with dramatic floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked Roosevelt Island and the Potomac River. “I hate to ask this,” Bree said, “but could you ever see her hurting herself?”

Elena said, “Never. Leigh Anne is at peace.”

“What do you think?” Bree asked Asher’s assistant.

“Leigh Anne is the most chill person I know. And honestly, in the past couple of weeks, I’ve never seen her so happy.”

“How so?”

Jackson shrugged. “She had a lot to be happy about. The IPO. This incredible penthouse to live in. But it felt like it was more than that.”

Elena frowned. “In what way?”

“She was glowing. You know, the way you do when you’ve met someone special and you want to keep it a secret.”

CHAPTER 12

CAPTAIN MARION DAVIS DIDnot wake up until Johnny Unitas leaped onto the bed and landed on his chest.

Captain Davis groaned at his cat. “C’mon, Johnny, there’s food in your bowl.” Davis’s head felt like it was going to explode. And his gut felt turbulent, churning with toxins.

The cat, a Bengal, meowed loud enough for him to at last crack an eyelid open.

Johnny Unitas looked like a miniature leopard as he glared at the captain from two inches away. He meowed again, a high-pitched roar.

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