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“I’m sorry—” he started to say, and then he paused.

Kate waited. Maybe he wasn’t quite sure if he had anything to apologize for; or maybe he couldn’t decide which of so many things he was most sorry about.

“I’m sorry this happened while I was away. You don’t deserve this.”

Kate hadn’t been looking for an apology—definitely not of this sort. “That’s nobody’s fault.”

Detective Anderson politely interrupted and handed Gamble a business card. “I’m with Major Crimes,” he added.

“Is suicide a major crime?”

“We do have certain steps and procedures that have to be followed. Your daughter has been a tremendous help.”

“I hope you have everything you need,” he said.

“Almost,” said the detective. “I’d like to ask you a few questions, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“I’d prefer to spend some time alone with my daughter.”

“It’s okay,” said Kate. The phone call to her father in Millennial Park had continued through the halfway point of his flight home, which was immediately followed by the detective’s interrogation. “I’ve been talking nonstop for the last two hours. I could use a moment to myself.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. It’s better for you, too, to just get this over with. I’ll wait in the kitchen.”

Her father didn’t argue. Kate went to the kitchen and sat on one of the barstools, which looked like a director’s chair, which made her think of Irving Bass—which didn’t help matters. She wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but she couldn’t help but overhear the voices from the dining room.

“First, I want to say how sorry I am for your loss, Mr. Gamble.”

Kate’s mind wandered as the detective ran through the same litany of questions she’d just endured. Her gaze drifted toward the terrace, which she would never use. The thought of stepping out there, walking to the rail, and looking down gave her chills, even though the street had been cleared. Or so she’d been told. She hadn’t actually looked—not even from the penthouse; not even at the moment of discovery. The torn dress told her all she needed to know. She’d stood in the open doorway, frozen, and dialed 911. “What is your emergency?” the dispatcher had asked. There was none, really. It was too late. The deed was done. Rather than look over the rail and sear the nightmare intoher memory forever, Kate, in her mind’s eye, had traveled back to her undergraduate course on the history of photography and retrieved the iconic black-and-white photograph of Evelyn McHale, who, in 1947, had leapt from the Empire State Building’s eighty-sixth-floor observation deck and landed on the roof of a United Nations limousine parked on the street below. The crushed car top had cushioned her fall, so that the young and pretty Evelyn lay on her back as if sleeping.Lifemagazine had captioned her death “the most beautiful suicide.”

Kate wondered how beautiful it had been to Evelyn’s family.

Her attention shifted back to Detective Anderson’s questions, which seemed to be annoying her father.

“Mr. Gamble, pardon my digression, but I read somewhere that your company was actually involved in tracking down Osama bin Laden. Is that true?”

“I can only tell you what I tell everyone else: if we were involved, it would not be among our most impressive accomplishments.”

“The old ‘neither confirm nor deny’ routine, eh?”

“Detective, I’m not here to talk about the company.”

“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to pry. It was my awkward way of pointing out the common ground between us. You might say that you and me both are in the information business, right? I gather and organize information to do my job. You do the same.”

“Can we get on with this, please?”

“Sure. What were you doing in Chicago?”

“That’s confidential business information. And what difference does it make here?”

“None, I suppose. Lemme shift gears. I didn’t notice any security cameras in the penthouse or on the terrace. Your daughter said she didn’t know if there were any.”

“The building has a security guard in the lobby twenty-four/seven. We have a dedicated private elevator that won’t move unless it recognizes your retinal scan. If a credible threat arises, I post another security guard outside the door.”

“So no cameras in the apartment?”

“No.”

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