Page 30 of Murder on the Upper East Side

In the living room – a long, narrow room with an exposed brick wall on the street side and tall windows overlooking West Broadway – Dad and Yoko weresnuggled together on the deep navy sectional sofa that had followed them from Pittsburgh, a bowl of pretzels between them. The sofa was too large for the space, a bit comically so, but no one really wanted to replace it. Something that looked like an art heist documentary played on the flat screen.

‘Hi, girls.’ Yoko paused the documentary and gave them a warm smile. ‘Come join us?’

‘No, thanks.’ Ami shrugged off her coat and tossed it on the sofa cushion closest to her. ‘I’m going to listen to music in my room.’

‘Hang that up, please!’ Dad called after her, but Ami had already shimmied her way around the sofa and disappeared down the hall.

Hannah sighed, then scooped up Ami’s coat. ‘I’ll get it.’

‘How was the dinner?’ Dad asked.

‘Fine. Kind of intense.’ She opened the small hallway closet and wrestled a hanger off the rail. ‘I’m going to try Grace in a bit. I missed her call yesterday.’

Hannah stuffed her sister’s coat inside, then checked her phone. Two new messages from Oliver.

She studied them, lip sucked between her teeth.

‘I can still stay out until midnight, right?’

Dad glanced at his watch. ‘Yeah. Guess it’s still early.’

Hannah closed the closet door, coat still on. ‘Thanks. Oliver just texted me. He’s hanging at Gemma’s.’

Dad and Yoko exchanged a look. They’d received an abbreviated version of the scandal over the pastfew weeks, and while they certainly didn’t approve of an adolescent boudoir shoot, they’d been sympathetic to Gemma’s plight – and horrified to learn she’d been bullied out of school.

‘It’s right on the Lower East Side,’ Hannah added, sensing their hesitation. ‘I can walk there.’

‘Text us the address, please?’ Yoko asked. ‘And Gemma’s parents are there, I assume.’

‘Okay. And yes, of course they are.’

Yoko nodded, and Dad sighed, giving in. ‘Home by midnight.’

‘Thanks!’ Hannah darted over to give them each a quick kiss, and then she was out the door, pounding down the stairs. Ami would be mad she’d gone back out without her, but maybe Ami should have been a little more grateful Hannah had kept her out of trouble tonight. And besides, Ami hadn’t been invited.

The Phipps lived in a former garment factory turned boutique, three-unit complex on Orchard Street, fifteen minutes by foot from the Millers’ building in Soho if you hustled. In the weeks following Gemma’s exile from Prescott, Hannah had occasionally joined Oliver and Gemma after school for bubble tea or video games at Oliver’s apartment, but this would be her first time as a guest at the Phipps’. She pressed the third button on the shiny silver panel in the vestibule.

‘Hannah Miller?’ she said into the camera’s shiny black eye.

A silent elevator whisked her up to the third floor, opening directly into a living area, a wide-open space with blue-tinted concrete floors and floor-to-ceiling windows outfitted with blackout smart blinds. The room was lit by a series of LED coves along the high walls.

‘In here!’ Oliver’s voice came from the next room and she followed it into the kitchen. Oliver and Gemma sat at the waterfall-edge island beneath a massive multi-coloured light fixture, casting shades of pink then green then blue on the white quartzite below. Between them were four open pints of Ben & Jerry’s.

‘Hi.’ Hannah shed her coat and climbed onto an empty barstool. The seat was warm beneath her thin dress. ‘Is this heated?’

‘Yup.’ Gemma grinned and passed her a spoon. ‘My mom’s concept. The temperature controls are on the left side if you want to adjust.’

‘Your mom designs chairs?’

‘Not exactly. My parents work in smart home tech; they’re entrepreneurs. The barstools are a bit of a side venture.’

‘Oh wow.’ She dug her spoon into a pint of Americone Dream.

‘Gemma helped her mom design those barstools,’ Oliver added. ‘Watch, she’ll be running Phipps Co. in a few years.’

Gemma waved her hand in the air. Long, sapphire blue nails caught the light. ‘But enough about Mark and Katerina, who are probably’ – she checked hersmart watch – ‘on their third club of the night in Berlin right now. Tell us everything about the Lenox Club.’

‘Wait, they left you here alone over Thanksgiving?’ The less Dad and Yoko knew, the better.