The Key by Jennifer Sturman Page A

fact, they’d arrived at my decision well before I had. They probably hadn’t wasted as much time trying not to hyperventilate and getting rid of spy phones.
    “How’s our favorite fugitive from justice?” Jane said by way of greeting.
    “Assuming there’s actually a warrant out for Rachel’s arrest, which is probably premature, let’s remember that technically neither Rachel nor anybody here knows she’s a fugitive from justice,” warned Luisa. “Otherwise, we’d be harboring a fugitive. And this isn’t my area of expertise, but I’m fairly confident that would be against the law.”
    “So you’ve heard the whole story?” I asked.
    “Matthew called me,” Emma explained. “Peter called him from a pay phone, apparently being very cloak-anddaggers about the whole thing. He was concerned enough about his call being traced, even from the pay phone, that he didn’t want it to go to any of our cell phones or homes. I guess he thought Matthew’s clinic was the best option—he even dialed the switchboard rather than Matthew’s direct extension as an extra precaution. If anyone were actually tracing the call, it would probably take awhile to figure out that Matthew was the person he called and that his girlfriend was your college roommate.”
    At least I wasn’t the only one being paranoid about phones. I’d been scared to even use a pay phone. Not that there was one on the bus.
    “And then Matthew called Emma, and Emma called us,” said Luisa. “We figured you’d come either to my apartment or here, but since my building has a doorman, we thought you’d choose here.” Luisa’s family practically owned a small South American country, and their New York apartment had more than a doorman—it had a staff that included a butler, a cook, and assorted other uniformed attendants. It was a great place to hang out if you wanted your every whim catered to, but it probably wasn’t the place to be if you wanted to minimize personal interactions.
    “We’ve been waiting for you,” said Jane. “But we thought you’d be here sooner—we were starting to worry.”
    “And for Peter to get so worked up, when he’s usually so calm—we knew that whatever was happening had to be serious,” added Emma.
    “Little did we know that you’d cooked up such a clever disguise, Rach. It’s a good look on you. Is it Mary-Kate or Ashley that you’re going for?” asked Hilary.
     
    In addition to the warmth, comfort and availability of certain caffeinated beverages, I’d chosen Emma’s apartment because I knew it was the most likely to yield another important part of my plan. If the police thought I’d killed Gallagher and attempted to kill Dahlia, they would be focusing all of their efforts on finding me and further building their case against me.
    Which meant that nobody was trying to find out who the real murderer was. And not only was unmasking the killer a prerequisite for clearing my name and returning to business as usual, it seemed to be the only way to guarantee that he or she—and a lot of what I knew implied that it could very well be a she—wouldn’t strike again.
    However, tracking down a killer wasn’t going to be easy when I was a fugitive. I needed help.
    There was Peter, of course. But even if I hadn’t been so awful to him, and even if I had been able to deliver a decent apology, it wasn’t possible to turn to him in this situation, when the police were probably tracking his movements and communications in the hope that he’d lead them to me.
    No, I knew who I needed, and that unusual twist of events that had brought all of my friends to the city this week now seemed especially fortuitous. And, fortuitously, they all seemed eager to come to my aid. In fact, they were surprised that I bothered to ask.
    “Why do you think we’ve spent the entire afternoon cooped up here, waiting for you to show?” Hilary replied.
    Emma called in an order to a restaurant around the corner. “I’ll pick it up