57

On Thursday afternoon, after her breakdown in her office, Zan let Josh take her home. Emotionally exhausted, she went straight to bed, allowing herself a rare sleeping pill. On Friday morning, feeling heavy and drugged, she stayed in bed, arriving at the office at noon.

“I thought I could handle it, Josh,” she said, as they sat at the desk and ate the turkey sandwiches he had ordered from the local delicatessen. Josh had brewed coffee in the coffeemaker, making it extra strong, as she had requested. She reached for her cup and sipped from it, savoring the flavor. “It’s a lot better than what Detective Collins served at the station house,” she said wryly.

Then, seeing how concerned Josh was, she said, “Look, I know I fell apart yesterday, but I’ll be all right. I’ve got to be. Charley warned me not to talk to the media, and now I’m sure they’re twisting what I said about Matthew being alive just the way those detectives did when they questioned me. Maybe next time I’ll listen to him.”

“Zan, I feel so useless. I just wish I could help you,” Josh said, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice. But there were still some questions he needed to ask, too. “Zan, do you think we should report the airplane ticket to Buenos Aires that was charged to your credit card? And the clothes at Bergdorf’s and all the stuff that was ordered as if we got the job for the Carlton Place apartments?”

“And the fact that my bank account has been virtually cleaned out?” Zan asked. Then she added, “Because you don’t believe that I didn’t order any of it, or have any part in those transactions, do you? I know that. And I know Alvirah and Willy and Charley Shore all believe that I’m mentally ill, and that’s putting it kindly.”

She did not give Josh a chance to answer. “You see, Josh, I don’t blame you a bit. I don’t blame Ted for what he’s saying about me, I don’t even blame Tiffany who, I just learned from the detectives, thinks that I sedated her so that she would fall into a drugged sleep on a blanket in Central Park, and I could take my own child to that damn town house and leave him tied up and gagged in the storeroom — unless, of course, I’d already murdered him.”

“Zan, I love you. Alvirah and Willy love you. And Charley Shore wants to protect you,” Josh said, feebly.

“The saddest part is that I know all that is true. You, Alvirah, and Willy love me. Charley Shore wants to protect me. But none of you believe that someone who looks like me has taken my child, and that person, or whoever hired her, is trying to destroy my business as well.

“To answer your question, I don’t think we should give these detectives any more so-called evidence that I’m a mental case to help them when they continue their inquisition.”

Josh looked as if he wished he could deny what she had told him, but Zan could see that he was honest enough not to try. Instead she waited until she had finished her coffee, silently handed him the cup to refill, and then waited until he came back before she spoke. “I was obviously in no state to talk to Kevin Wilson when I got back here yesterday, but I heard what he said to you. Do you think he really means it, that he’ll take on the obligation of paying our suppliers?”

“Yes, I do,” Josh answered, relieved to get onto a safer subject.

“That’s more than decent of him,” Zan said. “I can’t imagine what the media would have made of it, if he’d said in public that he had never okayed any of the designs I had submitted. In all, the orders amount to tens of thousands of dollars. He wanted top-of-the-line and we gave him top-of-the-line.”

“Kevin said he liked our—I mean your—plans better than Bartley Longe’s,” Josh told her.

“Our plans,” Zan emphasized. “Josh, you’re gifted. You know that. You’re like me nine years ago when I started working for Bartley Longe. You had a lot of input when I was discussing those model apartments with you.”

She picked up the second half of her sandwich, then put it down. “Josh, you know what I think is going to happen? I may be arrested for kidnapping Matthew. I believe in my heart he is alive, but if I am wrong I can assure you that the state of New York won’t have to prosecute me for his murder to put me in prison. Because if Matthew is dead, my life will be a prison anyway.”