Free Die for You by Lisa Unger

called her mother, told her she’d be late picking up her son, Benjamin. He found himself thinking that it was the one small mercy in his failed marriage—no kids. He saw how Breslow struggled with her on-again, off-again husband and the child they shared. You’re bound forever by that life you created. As it was, there was nothing to bind him to his ex, nothing at all. They split what little money there was and that was that. He’d wanted kids, a lot of them. But she hadn’t—maybe one, eventually. She was concerned about her career, didn’t want to be a stay-at-home mom like her mother, not on a cop’s salary. His mom had raised four on far less than he made, had never even had a job. She’d gone straight from her parents’ home to her husband’s. Bringing this up didn’t make things better.
    “Those were different times, Grady” she’d countered. “Besides, you think your mother’s happy? I’ve never heard your parents exchange one kind word—hell, I’ve never even seen them kiss each other.”
    She was always talking about “happy” like it was a lottery she was waiting to win. As far as Grady was concerned, happiness was just where you decided to lay your eyes. You see three people dead in a downtown office, their faces contorted in such a way that you understand they died in agony, you feel bad. You go home and find the woman you love and your kids waiting for you, you feel happy. That simple.
    “Obsessing about your ex again?” asked his partner, examining her cuticles.
    “How could you tell?”
    “You make this kind of tiny chewing motion with your jaw, like you’re biting on your tongue a little. You do that whenever you’re working some kind of problem in your head.”
    “You don’t know everything,” he said.
    “No. I don’t. But a year sitting here and I’m getting to know you . My advice: If you can’t let it go, get help. It’s turning you into a sour pain in the ass. You talk about it constantly and you think about it more. Move on, Crowe.”
    “Thanks, Dr. Phil.” He knew she was right. He was a dog with a bone; he just couldn’t stop worrying it, looking for that last bit of marrow.
    Apparently satisfied that she’d made her point, she went back to business. “I put the information we had on Marcus Raine—date of birth, Social Security number—into NCIC and Vi-CAP. I’m waiting to see what comes back.”
    “The wife seems convinced that he’s a victim in this. She’s seriously rattled by that phone call, thinks it was him screaming.”
    “What do we believe?” she asked, really just thinking aloud.
    “Could go either way. We need to dig deeper.”
    T HEY PULLED UP to Isabel Raine’s building and parked in the half-circle drive. The doorman was expecting them, gave them a key and told them to take the elevator to the ninth floor. Crowe was a little surprised by the lack of questions, but the doorman was as stoic and grim-faced as a gargoyle, his silver hair slicked back so perfectly it looked shellacked. He apparently had his orders from Isabel Raine and wasn’t interested in anything further. Crowe could see he was an old-school New York City doorman, served the tenants of the building, kept his mouth shut except for niceties, and collected his big Christmas tips.
    “When was the last time you saw Marcus Raine?” Crowe asked him, after writing down his name, telephone number, and address. Charlie Shane lived up in Inwood, the northernmost neighborhood in Manhattan, almost the Bronx.
    “Yesterday morning, just after nine,” Shane answered immediately. “He was heading off to work, I assumed. His departure was only notable because it was later than usual. Generally, he’s gone by seven. Mrs. Raine works from home and comes and goes during the day unpredictably.” Something about the way he leaned on that last word told Grady that, in Shane’s world, unpredictability was not a good thing.
    Crowe was about to ask about Shane’s schedule but the doorman