75

When Zan opened the door for Kevin at 1:45, he looked at her for a long minute, then, feeling as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to do, he put his arms around her. For long seconds they stood still, her hands at her side, her eyes searching his.

Kevin said firmly, “Zan, I don’t know how good your lawyer is, but what you need is a private detective agency to turn this situation around.”

“Then you do believe that I’m not a wacko?” Zan’s tone was tentative.

“Zan, this is me. I trust you. Trust me.”

“I’m sorry, Kevin. My God, you’re the first person to say you believe me. But it goes on. The Mad Hatter’s tea party goes on. Look around you.”

Kevin looked around the warm and tastefully decorated living room with its eggshell walls, roomy pale green sofa, striped chairs, and deep green and cream geometric carpet. Both the couch and the chairs had open boxes on them from Bergdorf’s.

“These just arrived this morning,” Zan said. “They’re charged to my account. I didn’t buy them, Kevin, I didn’t buy them. I spoke to a salesclerk in Bergdorf’s I know pretty well. She said she didn’t handle the sale Monday afternoon, but she recognized me and was a little hurt that I hadn’t asked for her. She said that I bought the same suit a few weeks ago. Why would I do that? The one I have is in the closet. Alvirah thought she saw me on the security camera in the church on Monday evening wearing a black suit with a fur collar. I didn’t wear that suit Monday evening. I wore it the next day, when I met you.” Zan threw up her hands in a gesture of despair. “Where does it end? How can I stop it? Why? Why?”

Kevin covered her hands with his. “Zan, hang on. Come on. Sit over here.” He guided her to the couch. “Have you ever noticed anyone following you?”

“No, but Kevin, I feel as if I’m living in a fishbowl. I’ve been arrested. Someone is impersonating me. The media is hounding me. I feel as if someone is walking in my footsteps, shadowing me, imitating me. That person has my child!”

“Zan, let’s go back. I saw the photos of the woman you swear is not you in the paper, taking your son out of the stroller.”

“She was wearing the same dress that I have, the same everything.”

“That’s my point, Zan. When did you wear that dress on the street where you could be seen?”

“I went out on the street with Tiffany. Matthew was asleep in his stroller. I grabbed a cab to Sixty-ninth Street to go to the Aldrich town house.”

“That means even if someone saw you, and wanted to look like you, in the space of an hour or so, she would have had to find a dress that was exactly like yours.”

“Don’t you see? One of the columnists brought that up in the newspaper. They said it would be impossible for anyone to do that.”

“Unless someone saw you while you were getting dressed, and already had a dress identical to the one you chose to wear?”

“There was absolutely no one in the apartment except Matthew while I was getting dressed.”

“And this identical clothing continues to this day.” Kevin Wilson stood up. “Zan, do you mind if I look around the apartment?”

“No, take your time, but what for?”

“Just humor me.”

Kevin Wilson walked into the bedroom. The bed was made and piled with pillows. A picture of a smiling child was on the night table. The room was orderly, with a single dresser, a small writing desk, a slipper chair. The valance of the large picture window matched the blue and white pattern on the bed.

But even though Kevin’s subconscious was aware of the pretty bedroom, his eyes were darting around the room. He was thinking of the time three years ago when a client had bought a condo after a bitter divorce between the sellers. When the workmen started to pull out the wiring, they had discovered a spy camera in the bedroom.

Was it possible that Zan might have been under scrutiny when she chose the dress she was wearing the day Matthew disappeared? And was it possible that she was still under scrutiny from an unknown observer?

With that in mind, he went back to the living room. “Zan, have you got a stepladder?” he asked. “I need to take a look around this place.”

“Yes, I have one.”

Kevin followed her to the hall closet, then reached past her and took the ladder from her hands. She followed him into the bedroom as he stood on it and slowly, carefully, began to examine and run his finger over the crown molding on the bedroom walls.

Directly opposite her bed, and over the dresser, he found what he was looking for, the tiny eye of a camera.