CHAPTER NINE
It took just a single call to the bureau and less than five minutes of searching before they were able to get a lock on where to find Vincent Godfrey—at work, in his rather large office at the architecture firm he had co-owned for the past ten years.
The drive across the city took about twenty minutes.
Sloane took the surface roads rather than the highway, which gave the route a slightly different texture.
The passed through older neighborhoods, taking them by a park Kate recognized from years of driving past it.
The park had a small playground on one end and a wide open grass section on the other, with a concrete path looping through the middle.
At this hour of the morning it was mostly empty.
Mostly.
An older couple was near the far end of the path, moving slowly.
Between them, a small child in a red jacket was walking with the unsteady deliberateness of a two-year-old who had recently decided that being carried was beneath her.
The woman had her hand out at hip height, hovering close but not touching,.
The man was talking to the child, crouching slightly as he walked, saying something that made the girl stop and point at something.
The woman laughed and the man scooped the girl up and swung her once, and the girl's arms went wide.
Kate watched it until the park fell behind them.
She didn't say anything for a moment. She felt something wash through her… a happy sort of sadness, maybe, or a muted regret. She wasn’t sure, honestly.
Kate thought about the morning she had dropped Michael off at preschool for the first time, holding his hand up the steps.
She recalled how she and Allen had stayed in the parking lot for three minutes after she left before she could make herself pull out.
She had told herself it was due to the traffic.
Allen had seen right through it when she’s tried using it as an excuse, and had been tactful enough to say nothing.
There were days, lately, when she thought about what it might look like to simply stop.
Not out of exhaustion, but out of a genuine consideration of what was available to her if she chose it.
Allen was well; he was also closing out the last remnants of his working years, and he was healthy.
Michael was entering the long stretch of childhood that she knew, from what her own parents had said, went faster than you believed it could when you were in the middle of it.
She had a house she liked and a neighborhood she knew.
She had a husband who had waited out a lot of years of long nights and distant silences just to share a life with her—a man who treated her like a queen.
She had the memoirs, if she ever resolved the questions around them.
She had all of that, right there, available to her every morning when she woke up.
And then there was this. The car, the badge, and the next address.
The specific sharpness of standing in a room where something terrible had happened and beginning the process of understanding it.
She had never been able to explain to anyone's satisfaction (including her own) what the job gave her that she couldn't seem to get elsewhere.
It wasn't simple. It wasn't just something she was proud of and that meant so much to her.
She watched the last of the park go past the window.
She thought about Donna Holt on the floor of her living room, still in the dark green blouse from her date.
About Carol Paige in the navy dress. About the fact that both of those women had been hopeful, and what that hope had cost them in the end.
The pull of the job had an answer to that too, one she didn't much like, but couldn't argue with.
Some things couldn't be left alone, and Kate knew that she was not built for walking away from an open question.
These thoughts carried her the rest of the way to the address.
The architecture firm came up on the right and Sloane turned in.
The firm occupied the top two floors of a refurbished building in the East End, the kind of conversion that had been done well enough that it no longer looked converted at all.
The lobby was high-ceilinged and quiet, all pale concrete and glass, with a reception desk set at an angle and a woman behind it who looked up at them before they had cleared the door.
Sloane held up her credentials as they approached. Kate did the same. Sloane took note of how Kate stayed a few steps behind, wanting to make sure she didn’t overstep and letting Sloane know this was her case and that she, Kate, was just along for the ride.
"Special Agents Sloane and Wise," Sloane said. "We're here to see Vincent Godfrey."
The woman took a careful look at both badges without touching them.
She was young and composed, and she processed the information without any visible alarm.
"Of course. Let me let him know you're here.
" She reached for her phone and dialed an extension, turning her chair a few degrees.
She then spoke quietly for about ten seconds.
Sloane caught the words "federal agents" and then a brief pause before the woman said, "I'll bring them right up. "
She came around the desk and led them to the elevator without asking them to wait, which Sloane noted. Godfrey had said to send them up directly. That was either the behavior of a man with nothing to hide or a man who knew that hesitating would look worse than cooperating.
The elevator opened onto a wide corridor with polished concrete floors and walls hung with large-format prints of completed buildings.
The firm had clearly done well for itself.
The space was quiet and ordered, with the low, focused energy of people absorbed in detail work, and it smelled faintly of paper and fresh coffee.
The office they were brought to was large and clean-lined, with drafting tables along one wall and a long conference table at the center of the room.
The windows overlooked the street below, and the late-morning light came through them flat and gray.
A framed architectural rendering hung near the door, a building she didn't recognize.
Vincent Godfrey stood up from behind his desk when they came in.
He was in his early sixties, with dark eyes and a close-trimmed beard going gray at the edges.
He was dressed well but without formality, a button-down with the sleeves rolled to the forearm.
When he extended his hand in greeting, Sloane looked for any sign of alarm or nerves but saw none—aside from the slight confusion of taking two visitors from the FBI so early in the morning.
"Agents," he said. "Please, sit down."
They did, and he sat across from them, hands loose on the desk, and looked from one to the other with an expression of mild puzzlement. "I have to say, I'm not sure what I can do for the FBI. What brings you ladies here this morning?”
Sloane glanced at Kate, who gave her the briefest nod.
"Mr. Godfrey," Sloane said, keeping her voice level and steady, "we're here because of Donna Holt."
He received the name with a small, reflexive smile. "Donna? We had dinner last night. Is she all right?"
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," Sloane said. "Donna was found dead this morning."
The smile went out as if someone had flipped a switch. He looked at Sloane for a long moment and then to Kate, as if checking whether he had understood correctly. His mouth came open slightly and closed again. He put both hands flat on the desk and leaned forward the slightest little bit.
"She was—" He stopped. "What do you mean, dead? Like an accident? Did something happen on her way home?"
"She was found at her residence," Sloane said. "We're currently investigating the circumstances of her death."
The color had drained out of his face. He sat back slowly in his chair.
"I don't—" He shook his head once, and a look of pure disorientation moved through him, raw and unperformed.
"We had dinner last night. We only just—" He pressed his fingers to his mouth briefly and then lowered his hand.
"She was alive. She was perfectly fine when we said goodnight. She was fine."
"We understand," Kate said quietly.
He was quiet for a moment, processing it. "Was it—did someone hurt her?"
"We're not able to share the details of the investigation," Sloane said. "But anything you can tell us about your evening together would be very helpful."
Godfrey nodded slowly, gathering himself.
He pulled in a breath and straightened in his chair.
"Okay. Yes. Of course." He looked at the desk for a moment.
"We met at Robert Alexander’s. On Farrow Street.
I made the reservation. We'd agreed on seven-thirty.
" He paused and looked up for a moment. Sloane could see that he was still processing the news even as he did his best to talk his way through the night.
"We'd been talking online for about three weeks.
Texting, mostly. Some video calls. We were both a little hesitant about actually meeting in person, honestly.
I think she felt the same way I did. You exchange messages with someone for a few weeks and you don't always know what to expect when it becomes real.
" He gave a small, pained shrug. "It went very well.
Better than I'd expected. She was funny and easy to talk to, and we seemed to have a lot in common.
I don't usually say things like that because it sounds generic, but it's true. "
“Did you meet on an app?” Kate asked.
“No… no. This was a blind date sort of thing. A friend of a friend gave me her number when they learned I was wanting to start dating again.”
“Was she open to speaking to you right away?” Sloane asked.
“Yes, it seemed like it.”
"How long had the two of you been in contact before last night?" Sloane asked.