Free If Looks Could Kill by Kate White Page A

wanted Janice to know about. Interestingly, Cat had remarked yesterday that Heidi
     had seemed detached lately.
    But if she had a new guy, why wasn’t she with him Saturday night? Maybe he was out of town or unavailable for some reason.
     Maybe she
had
been with him and hadn’t wanted to tell Janice about her plans. She could have lied to Janice and gone out on a date, though
     there seemed to be no reason she would have also lied to Cat, telling her she was staying in. Maybe the mystery man came to
her
place that night. Did he know anything about what had made Heidi fatally ill?
    Point C: And why, if there really was a new man in her life, keep it a secret? Sure, there was the chance she was embarrassed
     to introduce him to Janice, but Cat hadn’t been in the loop, either. Maybe
he
wanted it kept a secret. He was older and didn’t want anyone knowing he was dating someone who was practically jail bait.
     Or he was married. That would certainly explain the need to keep it under wraps. And not only would he want discretion because
     of his situation, but Heidi would want it, too, knowing that Cat would have no tolerance for the situation. This could also
     explain why Heidi was apparently alone Saturday night.
    A married man. New York was overrun with them. Heidi could have met one while she was out pushing Tyler in the stroller. She
     could have met one at a bar, his wedding band stuffed in his pocket. She could even have met one at Cat’s house, at one of
     her many shindigs.
    As I neared the corner of Park and 91st Street, I froze on the sidewalk. What if she
had
fallen for a married guy she’d met at Cat’s house? What if it was the married guy in residence, the one who belonged to Cat?

CHAPTER 6
    I SHOOK THE thought of a Heidi/Jeff liaison out of my head for the time being because (1) it seemed fairly preposterous; and (2) what
     I needed to focus on now was dodging any press lurking outside of Cat’s. As the cab sped down the block, however, I saw that
     it was deserted in front of the town house. I paid the driver, and before springing up the stoop, I paused to stare at Heidi’s
     apartment. A strip of yellow police tape was stretched across the iron gate.
    I climbed the stoop and rang the doorbell. It was answered by Carlotta, Cat’s housekeeper from Guatemala, a woman of around
     fifty who wasn’t a hair over five feet tall. She kept the chain on the door until she saw who it was.
    “The reporters aren’t here anymore, Carlotta?” I asked as she let me in.
    “No more, Miss Bailey. They go already. Yesterday it was not berry nice.”
    “Is Cat here? She asked me to drop by.”
    “She know. She ask you go to her office. You know, the third floor?”
    I’d been in the upper part of the house only a couple of times in the four years Cat had owned it. On the third floor were
     a large master bedroom and bath and a small study for Cat. On the fourth and top floor were Tyler’s room, a guest bedroom,
     and a darkroom/office for Jeff, though as far as I knew he did all of his work in his studio downtown.
    As I stepped onto the third floor landing, I spotted Cat standing in her study, with her ear to a cordless phone. She was
     wearing a pair of flat-front khaki pants in some sort of stretchy-looking fabric and an orange top with an off-center zipper
     in the front. How was it that she could carry off orange so well? The few times I’d tried it, I’d looked like a crossing guard.
     She also had on a pair of faux cheetah-print heels. Cat was a notorious shoe slut, and she especially liked the kind that
     showed off what she called “toe cleavage,” which this pair certainly did.
    I fell into the kilim-covered armchair and glanced around the room. The walls were a hunter green, and the color, combined
     with the dark shutters on the windows and the wooden overhead fan, could make you feel as if you were in a novel by Somerset
     Maugham. Cat hadn’t said a word into the phone since I’d entered the room,