Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

the magnet,” David said. “To them, one human is like every other, and then the mime comes along.”
    The exercise had been exhausting. She could hardly put one foot in front of the other as they returned to David’s loft. She’d get her jacket and take the makeup off at Zoey’s.
    But David was insistent. “Sit and rest and I’ll take off the paint.” He rolled a paper napkin around her collar and began to remove the greasepaint. “You have it, T.J. You’re a quick study. Don’t speak yet.” Gentle fingers brushed her cheeks with the cotton balls, once with cream, once to wipe up. He tilted her chin to look for places he’d missed. Finally, he removed the paint from around her mouth.
    His kiss was a glancing caress.
    She sprang from the stool, toppling it. “No, I can’t, you’re not playing fair.” She grabbed the ski jacket and ran. He didn’t follow her.
    In front of the building she paused for a moment to catch her breath but the panting continued. An anxiety attack, that’s what it was. She looked around to see if anyone was watching. People were wrapped up in their own lives and weren’t paying any attention to her. Across the street a man was trying to walk a rambunctious little white dog that kept howling and tugging on its leash.
    See, she told herself, starting to walk, no one has even noticed you.
    Zoey was awake and the apartment smelled of coffee. The television was blaring. “Hey!” Zoey was leaning over the tv set.
    “I got a job,” she told Zoey, hooking her jacket on the doorknob. “At the Big Dipper. Evenings.”
    “That’s great, but you’ve got to hear this. They just promo’d breaking news about Mary Lou Salinger. Maybe they found the real one.”
    It was too much. T.J.’s knees gave out on her and she slumped down on the sofa, shaking. What could it be? She was sure it would only complicate, compromise the little peace she had.
    Zoey sat down beside her and held her hand. “Don’t be afraid.”
    “The mystery only deepens,” the newswoman Roz Abrams said. She quickly retold the story of the explosion, the missing financier and his assistant, Mary Lou Salinger, and the woman assumed to be Ms. Salinger who appeared to have amnesia and had fled from the Mount Sinai psychiatric wing two days earlier.
    “They’re just rehashing the same old shit,” T.J. said, beginning to unwind.
    “Shsh,” Zoey said. “Here it comes.”
    A glamorous woman with short dark hair and glossy red lips came on the screen, sitting at a table, a microphone in front of her. She fluffed her hair several times, obviously enjoying the attention. T.J. studied her. Was this someone from her past? She hoped not. This woman loved herself.
    “Boy, is she gorgeous,” Zoey said.
    Roz Abrams spoke again. “I’m here at the Mark Hotel on Madison Avenue where someone has come forward claiming to have information about the missing witness, Mary Lou Salinger. This press conference was called by Xenia Smith, principal of the executive search firm Smith and Wetzon. She is about to give her statement.”
    “Do you know her, T.J.?”
    “No.” Do you want to know her, T.J.? No.
    The woman looked directly into the camera. She held up the newspaper with Mary Lou Salinger’s picture. “This is not Mary Lou Salinger. I don’t know who Mary Lou Salinger is and I don’t care. I know that this is a picture of my partner, who has been on a leave—”
    “Your partner, Ms. Smith?” a voice called out. “How long have you been in a personal relationship with—”
    Scorn, outrage marred the beautiful face. “Oh, for pity sakes, not that kind of partner. Do I look like one of them ? I certainly do not. When did the word partner lose its legitimate meaning?” She stabbed at the picture on the newspaper with her perfectly manicured red talon. “This woman is my business partner, Leslie Wetzon.”

19
    “L ESLIE ?” T.J. rolled the name on her tongue. It was the same name that cop had used. “What was the last name?” Her lips were numb.
    “Wesson, I think. Something like that. Isn’t that the name that cop at the senior center mentioned?” Zoey tilted her head. “Are you Leslie, dude?”
    The camera had shifted to Roz Abrams. “There you have it. The mystery deepens. Tune in at five for more on this new development in the case of the missing witness to the explosion at Teterboro Airport.”
    Zoey pressed the off button. “Leslie?”
    “I don’t know. But that awful woman. She’s