Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

Oops. No nightgown. Covered her breasts with the sheet, shy in front of him, though she didn’t know why. “So he really is dead?”
    “What did you think?”
    She shrugged. “Is the FBI going to say I’m involved?”
    “You’d better talk with Clo Hightower.”
    “I hate this!”
    He sat down on the bed, moved the assertive Izz from his lap. “I’ve got to get to work.”
    “Me, too.” She touched his thigh. “Don’t say it.”
    “You’re wrong this time. I’m not going to try to stop you.”
    “Good. Will I see you later?”
    “If you want to.”
    “I do.”
    “Good.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her, a slow, exploring kiss. The sheet slipped away.
    “Morning mouth,” she said.
    “I’m tough.” He sat back, watching her.
    “Are you admiring my tits or do you have something else to tell me?”
    “Both.”
    “Am I going to be upset?”
    “I don’t know.”
    She closed her eyes. “Lay it on me.”
    “Agent Blue called me about an hour ago. Your friend Laura Lee has surfaced.”

39
    S HE’S ALIVE ! Laura Lee’s alive! Wetzon sang it as she dressed. The wheres and the hows? The bare bones was all that Silvestri knew at the moment, but he was going to try to find out more.
    Yikes! The skirt of her favorite basic black Donna Karen suit was now a full size too big. She covered the gaping waistband with a gray cotton tee shirt and a wide belt, brushed her hair smooth into her dancer’s knot, and made up her eyes.
    “There you are,” she told her reflection. Her skin had a pink flush. Blame sex in the morning.
    In the kitchen, she sat on a stool and read the Journal , grumbling aloud about its “new look,” and groaning as always over the far-right editorials. But there was much to savor of the familiar things, coffee and bagel, toasted to hell and slathered with cream cheese. Heaven. She gave the last bit of the bagel to Izz, who was doing her pathetic, phony please-feed-the-starving-dog act, and filled the Maltese’s bowl with fresh water.
    Two quick phone calls reinstated delivery of the Times and the Journal beginning tomorrow. Oh, joy. After fast-forwarding all the blank date pages in her Filofax to today’s date, tucked her cell phone into her briefcase. The Wall Street warrior was back! Laura Lee was alive!
    And as if that brought her luck, when she stepped out of her building, her downstairs neighbor, who worked for HBO, was standing on the sidewalk while the doorman unloaded two suitcases from the trunk of a cab.
    Good mornings were exchanged, and Wetzon got into the cab. “Second Avenue and Forty-ninth Street,” she said.
    Smith and Wetzon, the partnership, owned a brownstone on Forty-ninth Street, between First and Second Avenues, closer to Second. When they first went into business together, she and Smith had rented the ground floor, garden included, but after the owner put the building on the market several years later, they’d bought it at a bargain price. At the time, the real estate market in the City was sagging. And not long afterward, as it always did, it had come roaring back.
    The tenant on the second floor, a rare book dealer, moved to another location and while Wetzon cautioned they should wait to see what the climate on the Street would be, Smith pushed ahead with a renovation that would relieve their cramped quarters and give them a spacious duplex office. And as usual, Smith had been right. They’d hired a new associate, stealing her from Tom Keegen, their biggest competitor. A chubby diamond mine, Smith had called Darlene Ford. They’d had a very good year and were able to write off the business expenses.
    But the chubby diamond mine had turned out to be a mole for Keegen and left them in the lurch, her parting gift, a thorough cleaning of their files.
    A surge of excitement hit Wetzon as she unlocked the door. It was wonderful to be back, to know who she was and what she was doing.
    She was the first in—no one, not even Leslie Wetzon, ever got to the office at seven-thirty in the morning. But she wanted to acclimate herself without Smith standing over her.
    Their reception area was a neat, compact space with four Knoll chairs and the reception desk, which was Max’s territory. Max Orchard was Smith and Wetzon’s receptionist and part-time cold caller. He worked four days a week, from eleven to four. A retired accountant in gum-soled shoes, Max was a thorough, if anal, worker. Smith had fought Wetzon tooth and nail against hiring