Free The Trophy Wife by Diana Diamond

Friday,” Hogan reminded him. “On Friday, we go to the chairman with whatever we have. That’s when you can talk to your kids.”
    Walter nodded. “I’ll think of some way to stall them. Even if we have to go beyond Friday, I can probably come up with a plausible story …”
    â€œFriday!” Hogan cut him off. “There’s no way I can let you send that money.”
    â€œOf course. Of course,” Walter agreed. “Just so long as we
try
to do something.”
    Andrew Hogan found himself wondering why Walter made saving his wife sound like window dressing rather than a matter of life and death. But still, he was enjoying the moment. It was wonderful to see one of these privileged citizens begging for a cop.
    Helen Restivo had once been Andrew Hogan’s lover. She had been valedictorian in her class from the John Jay School of Criminal Justice at the same ceremony where then-Captain Hogan had been the guest speaker. Hogan had made police work sound so important that Helen had changed her career plans right on the spot, withdrawing her application for a position in social work and entering the police academy. With more than a little self-interest in mind, she had told Hoganhow he had influenced her choice when he came to visit the academy. Later, when Hogan looked her up on her first patrolman’s assignment, they had both felt a magnetic attraction.
    At first, neither of them worried that she might be bestowing favors on a man who could influence her career and that he might be taking terrible advantage of a woman who couldn’t afford to incur his displeasure. They were simply two people in love. But then, their relative positions became an embarrassment. Hogan knew he was jeopardizing everything in his fondness for a woman twenty years younger than he. And Helen knew that she had little future in the department if word got out that she was bedding down with a very senior officer. It was easy for each of them to wonder if the other might be on the make. Maybe they could have overcome the difficulties, but they slipped apart rather than address the problem.
    They had avoided each other for nearly two years when Hogan heard that a street punk wielding a linoleum knife had cut up a woman officer named Restivo. He had rushed to the hospital and found her in serious condition with a slash across her face that threatened her eyesight and with three fingers missing from her right hand. His solicitude during her recovery had been much more than the police tradition of “taking care of our own.” But it wasn’t the same passionate love he had felt for her two years earlier.
    Helen had been retired on full disability, the department figuring that she couldn’t be a cop without a trigger finger on her shooting hand. At that point, Andrew had asked her to marry him, but she understood that the proposal was born in nostalgia and sympathy and promptly turned it down. He did the next best thing he could by helping her launch her own investigative agency and sending her any problems that shouldn’t involve the department. Helen now presided over a very large and successful security service and listed InterBank as one of her major accounts. She was the obvious choice when Andrew knew he couldn’t use the police or bank personnel in looking for Emily Childs.
    Helen had immediately assigned one of her investigatorsto keep tabs on each of the senior vice presidents. She had sent her best forensic people out to Short Hills to meet Andrew at the victim’s home. Then she had assigned herself to Walter Childs and now stood across the lobby from the executive elevators in InterBank’s building.
    She had picked Childs for herself because she considered him the most likely suspect. The sad truth about domestic crimes was that someone in the household was generally involved. More often than not, wives who accidentally shot their husbands thinking they were blowing