He threw his hands up in a gesture of mock surrender. “Okay. Maybe it was a dumping. But can you let a guy hold on to at least a shred of dignity?” He said this as if he was joking, but his cheeks were flushed. With a start I realized he was blushing.

“Sorry,” I said, somewhat chastened. I hadn’t meant to embarrass him.

“No, no, you’re right. It’s just that the truth hurts sometimes. And I guess, if you had to lay everything out in black and white, she did pretty much dump me. Only it was couched in the old ‘I-hope-we-can-still-be-friends’ brush-off.” He looked up at me with the now-familiar rueful smile. “I get that one a lot. That and ‘I-love-you-like-a-brother.’”

“But how could she go out with him after going out with you?” Jake was handsome and charming. Gallagher had been neither, and he’d been a couple of decades older than Annabel to boot.

“I can think of several million reasons.”

“Yuck.”

“It happens.”

“But why didn’t you say anything? You never even mentioned that you knew her.”

“Look, when Gallagher moved over from Ryan Brothers, the last thing I wanted was people at the firm gossiping about him having stolen away my girlfriend. I mean, everybody already knew that I couldn’t make my marriage work. I didn’t want to be branded a complete loser. Could you blame me?”

“But you and Annabel stayed in touch?” I asked.

“She actually meant it when she said she wanted to stay friends. And it’s probably pathetic, but for a while I hoped I’d win her back. In fact, I made a real ass of myself.”

I couldn’t believe it. He was blushing again.

What was it with men these days? First Peter, and now Jake. I thought only women were supposed to blush. But the blushing did restore my trust. It wasn’t possible to fake that sort of thing.

“So what happened?” I asked.

“Nothing happened. They got married, and around the same time I met my ex-wife and moved to Chicago. When I came back to New York and realized I’d be working with Gallagher, we agreed not to let anyone at work know our history. Gallagher knew, obviously, but that was it.”

I could understand why he’d want to keep it private, but it still seemed odd that he’d never mentioned it to me, at least, especially given everything I’d told him. “You could have told me.”

“You were the last person I wanted to tell.”

“What do you mean?”

He shook his head, not meeting my gaze. Then his eyes fell on my ringless hand.

He looked up at me, his expression quizzical. There was a long and awkward moment of silence. Then he opened his mouth to speak, but I beat him to it.

“So, what’s Annabel’s take on this entire situation?” I asked, before he could ask me any questions I wouldn’t know how to answer.

“What? Oh. Annabel. Well, the murder has her pretty upset, obviously. I don’t know how much she’ll miss Gallagher, but she’s convinced herself that Naomi killed him and is a homicidal maniac just waiting to take her out next. Plus, she’s not used to being interrogated by the police.”

“Welcome to my world,” I said.

“But nobody really believes you did it.”

“There seem to be a lot of people with various types of warrants who would disagree.”

“Well, nobody who knows you believes you did it. But it’s probably a good idea that you’re making yourself scarce. The police do seem to be really gunning for you right now.”

I told him about the alternative investigation my friends and I had launched. Now that I knew he and Annabel had more than a passing acquaintance, it didn’t seem right to tell him that she was one of our primary suspects, but I did tell him about my concern, however far-fetched, that he and Mark could be targets, too. He raised his eyebrows but agreed that he’d be careful and would warn Mark to do the same. In fact, he even said he’d do some digging around for me at the office.

I also told him about my most recent exchange with Man of the People. “I think the guy’s a crackpot. I don’t know what he’s trying to accomplish, sending me random pictures from the Princeton alumni magazine. Speaking of which, does the name Flipper Brisbane mean anything to you?” I asked.

“Flipper? That’s really the guy’s name?”

“Apparently. You’re sure you’ve never heard of him?”

“I think I’d remember somebody named Flipper.”

Maybe it was a dead end. Maybe Flipper Brisbane, whoever he was, just happened to be in that photograph by chance. If so, Man of the People had proven himself to be pretty much useless. I vowed to be more selective in my choice of anonymous correspondents going forward.

I gave Jake my new e-mail address. “You can use that to get in touch if you hear anything interesting. I’ve been staying away from my usual phone numbers and e-mail.”

“Do you need anything? Are you okay for cash? Do you have a place to stay?”

“I appreciate your willingness to aid and abet.”

“It must be the blond thing.”

“Thank you for offering, but I’m fine. I’m staying with a college friend. She has a loft downtown.”

“Emma the artist?”

There was a photo of my friends and me pinned to my bulletin board at work, one we’d taken a couple of summers ago, at Jane and Sean’s house on Cape Cod. I’d forgotten that Jake had asked me about it once when he’d been in my office. “You have a good memory.”

“The Furlong name is pretty famous, even if you don’t know much about art. Besides, she looked cute.”

“She is cute. In fact, she’s beautiful. But taken.”

“They always are.”

There was another long and awkward pause.

“I should probably get going,” I finally said.

“Me, too. I’ll e-mail you, okay? And get in touch if you think of anything I can do.”

“Thank you, Jake.” He wrapped me in a hug, holding on for an extra beat.

I let Jake go before me, intending to wait a few minutes before taking off myself. The door had barely swung shut when a man at the next table got up to leave.

His chair had been hidden behind a display of mugs and packaged coffee beans when I’d been sitting across the room, and once I’d slid into Annabel’s vacated seat Jake had blocked any view of him. His back was to me now as he walked away, but I recognized him from the suede jacket and the set of his shoulders. It was the same black-haired stranger who had been at the St.Regis the other night. The one Hilary wished had been buying her drinks.

We were only a couple of blocks from the hotel; it was possible he worked in the area, and that was why I kept seeing him.

But just in case, I rushed to follow him as soon as he was out the door. I looked to the right and to the left when I reached the street, and I spotted him jogging west. Soon he was twenty feet or so behind Jake, and he slowed his pace to a walk, dropping in behind him.

Then Jake turned the corner, and so did the stranger.

There had been a lot of people in Starbucks, and there were a lot of people on the street, and there were any number of reasons somebody would go west on 57th Street and then turn on to Park.

But maybe my concern that Jake could be a target, too, wasn’t so far-fetched.

Either way, by the time I reached the corner myself, I’d lost sight of them both.

I debated for a moment whether I was giving in to baseless paranoia before finding a pay phone and dialing Jake’s cell phone. His voice mail picked up, but I left a message, warning him to be on the lookout for dark-haired men in suede jackets.