Dead by Any Other Name by Sebastian Stuart Page A

no-way no-how, not now. I was a big girl, I’d gotten this far, built a decent life for myself, and I was going to protect it. That’s just the way it had to be. I had a lot to give, but I couldn’t give it all. Then what would be left for me?
    I took my time getting around the block, used it to compose myself. When I arrived back at the table, Josie’s desserts were untouched. I sat down and looked at her.
    â€œNot today,” I said. “But we’ll keep the dialogue open. Now that you’ve got a cell it will be a lot simpler.”
    Josie looked down, her jaw tightened, then she looked up at me and nodded, “Fair enough.”
    She was making it easy for me. I should have known she would.
    â€œHey, your ice cream is melting.”
    She picked up the dish and began to slowly swirl the hot fudge into the vanilla ice cream.
    I watched her for a minute, then turned and signaled for the check.

twenty
    Even though it’s got a pretty serious case of the cutes—you know, all historic and gift shoppy—there’s no denying that Cold Spring is a charming village with a fantastic location. It sits on a little peninsula that juts out into the river, smack in the middle of the Hudson Highlands, mountains that rise straight up from the river on both banks and are famous as the home of West Point. The Highlands are gorgeous, mostly protected land; they kind of squeeze the Hudson, creating its narrowest point, so narrow that during the Revolutionary War the good guys strung heavy iron chain across it to stop the British ships from getting upriver.
    These days Cold Spring is a hopping little burg that lives on tourists who train up from the city for a day of shopping and strolling. Natasha’s memorial was being held at a place called Glynwood, a farm a few miles out of town.
    I turned down Glynwood’s drive—the place was so bucolic it made me want to kill myself. Apparently it was originally some rich guy’s toy farm and now it was a center working to help save farms all up and down the valley. Tip of the hat there, huh? I parked and walked to the large old barn where the memorial was being held. The people milling around were pretty much divided into two groups: youngish hipster/musician types, no doubt Natasha’s buddies; older sophisticate/media types who were her parents’ crowd. I semi-recognized a few semi-famous faces.
    Then I spotted Howard and Sally Wolfson outside the barn greeting people. I’d Googled them and knew he was late-fifties, she ten years younger, in person they both looked groomed and botoxed and nip-tucked, not quite real in that way celebrities do in person. He was a handsome guy, had a fatherly schtick going: gray-hair, friendly, going a little soft around the middle. She was working a Martha Stewarty vibe, with highlighted hair in a soft cut, expert make-up, pretty in a nonthreatening way, wearing tasteful black separates. They both looked like they were in mild shock, their faces taut with grief—or some reasonable facsimile.
    I knew from my Googling that the Wolfsons had another daughter and there she was, Natasha’s younger sister, Julia, stand ing a few feet away from her parents. She was tall, blonde, pretty in an upper-middle-class way, but too thin, jumpy, sweaty around the edges, her eyes scanning the arrivals, wearing a short black dress and too-high heels. Her phone rang, she answered it, said a few words, and hung up.
    I made my way toward the parents.
    â€œHi, I’m Janet Petrocelli, a friend of your daughter.”
    â€œThank you for coming,” Howard said.
    â€œIt means a lot to us,” Sally said.
    â€œNatasha was a lovely young woman. I wanted to mention that I owed her some money, and I have some jewelry that belonged to her.”
    Sally’s eyebrows went up. And the sister, ears twitching, stepped closer.
    â€œI’m Julia Wolfson, Natasha’s kid sister. She had such cool jewelry. Can