The Woman Wearing Diane’s Face
Chapter 07 - The Woman Wearing Diane’s Face
The police cruiser lights painted the wet street outside Diane’s building in bruised red and blue.
Her apartment sat above a nail salon, a laundromat, and a Dominican bakery that smelled like sugar every morning except when the fryer broke. Diane had lived there long enough to know which stair creaked, which neighbor fought on Sundays, and which radiator hiss meant winter was coming hard.
Now the front door hung open under crime scene tape.
A cold feeling settled behind her ribs.
Ravi stood beside her under a black umbrella held by one of his men. He had changed nothing since the gala except removing the crooked bow tie. Somehow the ruined tuxedo looked more expensive with rain on it.
The police officer who had escorted them from the hospital spoke to a detective near the stoop. Diane caught fragments. Female suspect. Dark hair. Waitress uniform. Entered with key.
“With a key?” Diane said.
The officer avoided her eyes.
Ravi’s gaze sharpened. “Who filed the report?”
“My neighbor Mrs. Alvarez called it in,” Diane said before the officer could answer. “She watches everyone.”
“Good woman,” Ravi said.
“She once reported a raccoon for loitering.”
His mouth moved again, that almost-smile she did not want to notice.
The detective approached. He was middle-aged, heavyset, and damp around the collar. “Miss Harper? Detective Rourke. You understand why this looks bad.”
Diane let out a humorless laugh. “Do I? Because I was at a charity ball being framed by a woman in diamonds while someone dressed like me robbed my apartment?”
Rourke’s eyes flicked to Ravi. “And you are?”
“Her attorney until counsel arrives.”
“I didn’t hire you,” Diane said.
“You will send me a dollar later.”
Rourke looked annoyed. “Are you an attorney, Mr. Greedy?”
“No. I own several.”
Diane closed her eyes. “That is not better.”
A voice came from the doorway. “Dianita?”
Mrs. Alvarez stood in a faded housecoat under a policeman’s jacket, her gray curls flattened by rain. She pushed past the detective and took Diane’s face in both hands.
“Gracias a Dios. I told them it was not you.”
Diane gripped her wrists. “You saw her?”
“I saw your clothes. Your hair. But she walked wrong.”
Ravi leaned in slightly. “Wrong how?”
Mrs. Alvarez eyed him with instant suspicion. “Who is this funeral groom?”
Despite everything, Diane almost smiled. “Long story.”
“Hm.” Mrs. Alvarez looked Ravi up and down. “Too handsome for a short one.”
Ravi accepted this as if it were a parking ticket.
“She walked wrong,” Mrs. Alvarez repeated. “Too straight. Like a dancer or a thief. You, Diane, you walk like you are carrying groceries and bad news.”
Diane did not know whether to laugh or cry.
“Did you see her face?” Ravi asked.
“A scarf. Sunglasses. At night, can you imagine? But she had a key.”
Diane’s mind raced. “I lost my spare last month.”
“You thought you lost it,” Ravi said.
She turned on him. “Please do not say obvious things like they are revelations.”
Inside, the apartment looked less destroyed than violated. The sofa cushions had been moved. Drawers pulled open. Clothes scattered. Not random chaos. A search.
Diane went straight to the bedroom closet.
The top shelf was empty.
Her mother’s sewing box was gone.
She stood staring at the dust outline where it had been.
Ravi appeared in the doorway but did not cross the threshold. For all his power, he understood rooms that belonged to grief.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Diane pressed a hand over her mouth.
It was not just a box. It was her mother’s fingers, her mother’s bent needles, her mother’s habit of saving buttons from coats too worn to donate. It was proof that Margaret Harper had once sat by a window in the same apartment, mending the small rips life made.
And now Catherine had taken even that.
Diane lowered her hand. “Find her.”
Ravi’s eyes changed.
“Catherine?”
“The woman dressed like me. Catherine wouldn’t risk breaking in herself. Find the one she used.”
Ravi stepped into the room then. “That may be possible.”
“How?”
“The building across the street has a private camera on the second floor.”
Diane stared at him. “How do you know that?”
“I notice cameras.”
“Of course you do.”
Detective Rourke entered behind them. “Miss Harper, we need to ask why someone would impersonate you to rob your own apartment.”
“Because they needed witnesses to say I destroyed evidence,” Diane said.
Rourke looked skeptical. “Evidence of what?”
Ravi answered before she could. “A possible homicide, financial fraud, and obstruction connected to the Voss Foundation and the death of Joseph Greedy.”
Rourke stared at him.
Then, to Diane’s surprise, the detective’s face lost color.
“You should not be saying that name in this room,” Rourke said.
Ravi went still. “Why?”
Rourke looked toward the hallway, then lowered his voice. “Because the last detective who reopened Joseph Greedy’s file ended up retired, divorced, and drinking himself to death in Staten Island.”
Diane felt the room grow colder.
“What was his name?” she asked.
Rourke hesitated.
“Morales,” he said finally. “Elena Morales.”
Ravi’s head lifted.
“That is impossible,” he said.
Diane looked between them. “Who is Elena Morales?”
Before anyone could answer, Ravi’s phone rang.
May you like
He looked at the screen, and all the blood seemed to leave his face.
The caller ID read: ELENA MORALES.
