Page 67 of Murder on the Upper East Side

‘I need a favour.’

Three minutes later, Hannah and Theo were back in the staff stairwell, headed to the second floor.

‘You’ve been avoiding me,’ Theo murmured. ‘Ever since we…’

‘It’s not because of that.’ It was, of course, a little bit. Theo looked at her imploringly.

‘I’m sorry, okay? I’ve been a little bit busy trying to find Madison’s murderer.’

‘About that.’ They’d arrived at the top of the stairwell, but Theo paused, hand on the door. ‘When I was in with Wellesley and Crews, giving my statement, they asked me a few questions. About you.’

Hannah sighed. ‘That seems to be a theme.’

‘They wanted to know about your science background. Crews kept asking who you’d studied with at Prescott, did you take AP Chem, what science did you study in college.’

‘But – I took AP Bio senior year, not chemistry. They think I was, what, mixing poison in my bathtub?’

Theo shrugged. ‘I told them that. About bio, and how you’d probably taken some core science class at NYU, but you’d majored in journalism. He acted like that proved something, but they’re fishing.’

‘Of course they are.’ Hannah chewed her lip. ‘But if I can’t deliver something real, I’m the one who’s going to be walking out of here tonight in cuffs.’

Theo pressed his finger to his lips, then slid open the door. They stepped out into the empty hall. She knew nothing about poison,obviously, but hadn’t Bruno mentioned some kind of chemistry major at Columbia? The details had gotten lost in everything else he and Ethan had been flinging around about each other, but maybe that was something. She drew out her notebook and paused to jot down a question by his name.

‘What’s up?’ Theo whispered.

She tucked her notebook and pen back into her bag. While her gut said to trust Theo, she couldn’t completely.Not until she asked about Instagram. ‘Oliver told me something tonight,’ she whispered. ‘About Madison’s brand partnership with Concord Hospitality?’

‘Oh, that.’ His voice had an uncharacteristically hard edge. They followed the hall to the MacAllister Room, where a crack of light was still visible at the threshold. Then they walked past it, to the room next door. Theo turned the key in the lock, and they slipped quietly inside the empty guest room.

The door clicked shut behind them, and Theo secured the lock. For a moment, they stood in the dark. The small hairs on Hannah’s arms bristled. She’d needed Theo to get her in here, so she could eavesdrop on Elle and Bash, but perhaps raising his public feud with Madison the moment they’d entered a locked room – a room to which no one else knew she’d gone – hadn’t been her smartest move tonight. She was getting tired. And sloppy.

‘Madison only ever looked out for herself,’ he said after a moment. He switched on a lamp, and Hannah exhaled. He looked annoyed, but not angry. ‘She knew I was counting on her reach to help secure funders for the foundation. But of course, when Henry asked for a favour for his old high school friend, she didn’t think twice about ending the partnership. It’s not like George Sinclair needed the business.’

‘Oliver said you and Madison weren’t on speaking terms.’

Theo sank down on the bed. ‘True, but I’d neverkillher over it – I just needed some space while Isearched for a new brand partner. Which I still haven’t found, by the way. But like I told the detectives, killing my former brand partner in cold blood would be instant death to the foundation, and Concord Hospitality. Whoever killed Mads tonight planned it in advance. They brought poison to the party. They got into the lighting system. This wasn’t an act of heat-of-the-moment rage. And planning her murder would be the stupidest possible thing I could do for business right now. Believe me?’

His face was open, his voice earnest. Hannah sank down on the bed beside him. She still didn’t entirely trust Theo Fitzgerald, but she needed him. ‘I believe you.’

Then she looked to the wall separating their room from the MacAllister Room. ‘This place is sealed like a sound booth. How exactly do I listen in?’

‘Privacy, preserved, right? It’s been the club’s motto since 1896, but like I promised, there’s a workaround.’ He got up and walked to the closet door. ‘In here. There’s a vent. It’s the only way you can eavesdrop.’

Hannah opened the door and slipped inside. ‘I’m not going to ask how you know that.’

Theo grinned. ‘It’s more innocent than you think. I spent a lot of time here as a kid, playing hide and seek, getting in the staff’s way.’

Hannah pressed the two plush,LCmonogrammed robes hanging inside the closet to the end of the rail, then knelt down and pressed her ear to the vent,bracing herself for the possibility that whatever she heard was going to be more than she’d bargained for.

But it was the opposite. Bash and Elle were mid-argument.

‘She told me in good faith,’ Elle was saying, obviously upset. ‘She knew you’d be too proud to ask me yourself.’

‘Beatrice had no right,’ Bash snarled. ‘That was my call to make.’

Hannah glanced at Theo, still hovering in the closet doorway. She was pretty sure he wasn’t a threat to her, but she wasn’t sure she wanted him here for this. ‘You should get out of here. Plausible deniability and all that.’

‘Fuck no.’ Theo stepped inside and crouched down by the vent. ‘Shove over.’