by K. A. Tucker
CHAPTER 15
Maggie
“And that is why I hate elevators,” I mutter, balancing the glass of merlot on my stomach, the heat from the fire next to me chasing the cold winter air away.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like that happen before. Have I?” Grady’s face twists in thought as he peels a chestnut he’s been roasting over the flame for the past half hour. “Nope. Can’t say I have.”
“And yet it happened to a severe claustrophobic.” I didn’t mention what actually happened in the elevator. Namely, Jace. I’m still shaken up by it, having never been one to lose control over a guy—a guy I don’t even particularly like, though I’ll admit I do feel a “thing” between us. Some connection that now brings with it deep shame.
Grady’s arm tightens around me, reminding me of the last time I was lying in this hammock with him. And that leaves me severely perplexed. A part of me—a big part—could easily allow that to happen again. If for nothing else but to help shake my discomfort.
When I got home from that disaster, I immediately climbed into a nice hot shower. I stood under that stream of water until all the old sweat from my panic attack dissolved. Unfortunately the dirty feeling from my moment of weakness didn’t wash away so easily.
There was no question that I was going to come up here tonight, regardless. I enjoy the peaceful space and the company, a damn deal more than I do sitting in Celine’s belongings. And I hoped that an hour with a guy who actually doesn’t make me feel vile—who I’m growing more and more fond of each day—would make the rest of my day fade away.
It hasn’t. And for now, I think I need a break from male companionship, under duress or otherwise.
“Should you maybe answer that?” he asks as my cell phone goes off for the third time.
I’ve already ignored two calls from Jace. This caller, though, is unknown, and I’m thinking it could be Doug.
I’m right.
“Hey, Doug.”
“I’m coming by tomorrow at nine a.m. for a site visit.”
Site visit. “Okay.”
“Great.” The phone clicks without another word and I shake my head.
“Who’s that?”
“A very strange little man.” I sigh. “There are a few loose ends about Celine that I want tied up before I leave. He’s going to help me with them.”
Grady frowns. “What is he . . . an investigator?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what he is. Supposed to be good. I guess we’ll find out.”
“Huh. That’s cool.” The guy is always so even and relaxed. I’d say it might be because he’s always high, but I actually haven’t seen him smoke anything since that first night up here. “What’s he gonna do for you?”
“Just look into a few people. Dig a little into Celine’s past.”
He tosses the chestnut peels over me and into the fire. “How much does one of those guys cost? I’d think they’re expensive.”
Unless Ruby’s told Grady who I am, then I have to assume he has no idea whose thigh he’s pressing his erection against right now. I’d prefer to keep it that way. Yeah, in my emotional fit the other night, I told him that I have lots of money. But it’s still more than he can imagine. “I’ve given him a check. I guess he’ll keep working until I get my answers or I stop paying him, whichever comes first.”
His hand settles on my abdomen beneath the blanket. “I’m in the wrong racket.”
I place my hand on top of it and press down, stopping him just as his fingers attempt a slip under the waistband of my sweatpants. “You think you could make a good private eye?”
He coils his fingers around mine, like he’s gotten the hint. “No, probably not.” He smiles at me, his gaze drifting down to my lips. And then he kisses me so softly, as if he knows that’s what I need.
Frustration begins growing within my body. If I don’t leave now, I know exactly where this is going to lead again and I will hate myself for it, after what just happened in the elevator. I have an unwritten rule against two dicks in one day. It’s a new rule, because the opportunity has never arisen before, but it’s one I’m feeling committed to. “I think I need to get some sleep. Today has been overwhelming.”
I feel his mouth pull into a smile against mine. “Okay.” With one last kiss, he shifts back, relaxing his grip on me, making no move to leave his spot. Not until I’m near the gate does he call out, “Hey, I forgot to tell you. I have a potential renter for the apartment. She could take it by January first and the landlord will give you the last month’s rent back. Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in.”
That would give me about three weeks to pack everything up and get it out before flying to San Diego for Christmas. I think I can manage that, but what about all of my unanswered questions? What will Doug have discovered by then? I guess I could always just stay at a hotel, if I need to fly back to New York again. “Can I let you know in a few days?”
“Of course. She wants to come by and see the place next weekend, if you’re up for it. But only if you’re up to it. No pressure, seriously.”
He really is a nice guy. “Thanks, Grady. Good night.”
CHAPTER 16
Maggie
December 5, 2015
“What’s that show called again?” Doug edges around the box of silver spoons I just finished wrapping.
“Antiques Roadshow?”
“No . . . Hoarders.” I trail him wordlessly as his eyes scan the space at lightning speed. “This is where it happened?” He points to the bed, digging out and opening a folder from the inside of his bomber jacket.
It’s not difficult to see over his shoulder. “How did you get a copy of Celine’s case?”
He slaps the cover shut before I can get a good look at the photocopied picture and sticks it back into its hiding place. “Chester had prints taken the night of. Nothing but hers turned up.”
“I’m surprised they bothered,” I grumble.
“The shitty ones don’t. They take one look at the body and start the suicide report. But Chester’s a good detective. He covered his bases.” He hops up onto the bed—his boots leaving prints on the bedding I just purchased—to fiddle with the locking mechanism on the window. He blows on it, and tiny wood shavings lift off, floating through the air. “This was replaced recently.”
I frown. “What does that mean?”
He jumps down. “It means that someone replaced this recently. These old windows are notorious for being easy to break into.”
I feel my face pale. “Are you saying someone broke in?” Someone who may have stolen her diary? Someone who may have hurt her?
“No. I just always like to test locks for my clients.” He shrugs. “It’s New York City. You can never be too careful, especially when a fire escape leads to your apartment from an alleyway. It’s too easy to yank the ladder down to ground level if you know what you’re doing. I did a check of this building. The last reported break-in was twenty-two years ago, so I don’t think you should worry too much. But you should ask the super about it. Find out when it was fixed. I need Celine’s computer and those passwords. Can I use this?” Doug dips down to take one of the antique wood crates.
“Uh . . .” I follow him to her desk, where he grabs the sheet of passwords I set out, and then he yanks cables out of the back of the computer tower and sets it inside the crate.
He holds out a hand. “And the phone?”
“Still nowhere.”
“You sure you checked everything? Her purses? Dresser drawers?”
“Yup.”
“Pockets?” He’s sticking his free hand in the coat draped over the couch arm as he asks, dumping tissues and receipts out.
“That’s my coat, and yes, I’ve checked every pocket.”
His lips pucker in thought and then finally he taps the computer tower. “Well, if she backed it up, we should be able to pull information off of here. Otherwise, my tech guy, Zac, will see if he can get into her phone re
cords.”
I cross my mental fingers, hoping that Celine would know to back up her phone. She was never the most technologically astute person.
“By the way, the flowers were sent in October, but otherwise it’s a dead end. The sender paid cash and left no personal information. The person behind the register was on her second day of the job and wasn’t going to push.”
I chew on my lip. Is Jace the kind of guy to go into a flower shop and order flowers himself? Or would he get his assistant to do it, calling in the order with his credit card?
I’m thinking the latter, which means maybe they weren’t from him at all . . . “Listen, about that hedge fund manager—”
“Keep up appearances with him. I’ll call you soon.” And then he’s testing the dead bolt on my door before charging out, leaving the door swinging open and me stunned.
“My, he was in a rush.” Ruby stands in the hallway between our doors, watching him go.
“I think that’s just how he is.” As opposed to Detective Childs, Doug Murphy seems to operate on fast-forward at all times. I don’t know how he catches anything important as he speeds past. “Did you need something?” I notice the tray with a tea set within her trembling grasp.
“I used to have tea with Celine sometimes, when she wasn’t working,” Ruby says timidly, shifting on her feet, just outside my threshold.
I finally clue in. Hans is coming by in half an hour to collect a few boxes, but I have a lonely old woman on my doorstep, waiting for an invitation, and I’ve blown her off too many times. “Would you like to come in and have tea with me, Ruby?” When was the last time I even drank tea?
Her face instantly lightens and she nods, shuffling in to set the tray down on the trunk coffee table, as I’m guessing she’s done many times before. “Would you be a dear and bring that over?” She points out a weathered teak folding chair leaning against a wall. “If I get into that couch, I’ll never get out.”
Holding the top of the teapot with one hand, she carefully pours steaming hot tea into one of the matching teacups. She even has the creamer and sugar pot, and a set of tiny silver tongs at the ready for a sugar cube. “Celine got me this set last Christmas. It’s a Crown Staffordshire from 1938 that she found at a garage sale.”
“It’s lovely,” I murmur, passing on the sugar and milk, picking up the cup to study the delicate burgundy-and-pink floral pattern. “Do you have children, Ruby?”
She chuckles. “No. No children. No husband . . . I’ve always marched to my own drummer. Never could find a man who could handle marching along with it.” She sighs. “I really enjoyed having Celine next door.” Her clouded eyes wander over the half-empty shelves, countless boxes already marked and stacked on one side of the living room. “Things look different since I was here last.”
“And when was that?”
“Just the day before she passed.” She takes a dainty bite of a cookie. “What are you going to do with her collection?”
“Sell them and then start a foundation in her name. That’s what her mother wants.”
She nods slowly, chewing. “She was such a good girl.”
I avoid answering by taking a sip of my tea. I don’t know what I think anymore. Was Celine still a good person, despite what she did for money? Yes, I believe so. And yet my memory of her has been tainted. No wonder she never told me. I’ve never been in a position where I felt that my best option to survive would be to sell what I was born with—myself—to get ahead. I’ve never pined for money. I’ve never felt the frustration of not being able to buy something that I wanted or needed.
I could argue that I face limits, too. I can’t afford to buy all the things I’d like for every child in every poor village across the world.
But if we’re being honest, I can’t possibly understand what it’s like to feel trapped. To have to decide between paying my rent on time or flying across the country to care for my terminally ill mother, my only living relative.
I was so quick to judge.
I’m trying to understand now, to be more open-minded. To accept that perhaps Celine was fundamentally a different person from me.
Or that perhaps, faced with the same limitations, I might have found myself doing the exact same thing.
Look what I’ve been willing to do to get information from Jace! Keeping up these business pretenses, handing over more money than most people will see in their lifetime.
And what has keeping up these pretenses gotten me so far? Besides trapped and almost screwed in an elevator . . .
“Who was that man earlier, taking Celine’s computer?” Ruby asks.
“Just a guy doing some research for me.”
She leans closer, like what she’s about to say shouldn’t be overheard. “You don’t think it was suicide either, do you?”
She said “either.”
I set my teacup down carefully, afraid I’m going to break it, as my heart pumps a rush of blood through my body. “You don’t? I mean . . . why don’t you?”
She smiles softly. “When you’ve been alive as long as I have, you know when a person has no plans on dying. That girl was ambitious. The only plans she was making were for living.”
That’s always how I’d seen Celine, too. “You don’t think that maybe she wasn’t in the right frame of mind at that particular moment?”
“She’d seemed down lately, true. More emotional than usual. But I’d talked to her earlier that day, in the hallway. She had just come back from one of her little treasure hunts, with an antique rosary for her mother. She was so excited to give it to her for Christmas.”
My eyes veer to a box in which I had wrapped up a set of crucifixes and other ornate church paraphernalia, and I remember the very rosary Ruby is talking about. I was going to donate that box to the local missionaries in the town I’m currently working in. I’ll have to fish the rosary out and wrap it up. Rosa will love it, even if it makes her sad.
“I found an email confirmation for a one-way plane ticket to California. She was supposed to fly home at the beginning of December,” I say. Who books a plane ticket home and then washes down a bunch of pills with vodka before she gets there? It just doesn’t make sense.
Ruby pushes. “So, the research that that little man is doing for you . . .”
“Doug’s a private investigator, recommended by the detective who closed this case,” I finally admit. “He’s going to look into a few people Celine associated with. And into her. Into her daily activities and such.”
Ruby quietly sets her teacup down on the saucer. Astute eyes settle on me. “And what do you think you’ll find out? About Celine.”
I’m kicking myself for not sitting down with Ruby for tea the first day she invited me into her apartment. The old woman clearly has a good grasp of the situation. “So you know?”
A sad smile touches her creased lips. “I’ve suspected for some time, though I never asked her. I didn’t want her to shy away from me, or worry that I would think less of her. I myself did some things in my twenties that I wasn’t proud of, just to get by.” She pauses to shift and straighten the china on the tray. “I saw Celine leaving at night sometimes, and she didn’t look like the Celine who shared tea with me. Of course, I rarely saw what she was wearing because she’d cover herself in a long black coat, but those heels were enough.”
“Why didn’t you say anything to the police?”
She settles a pensive look on me. “Hold on just a moment.” She shuffles out of my apartment, only to return thirty seconds later with a paperback clutched between her fingers. She hands it to me, allowing me time to study the mediocre cover of the murder-mystery novel.
“I don’t get it.”
Ruby taps the author’s name.
“R. J. Cummings,” I read out loud, frowning. And then it hits me. “R is for Ruby? You’re a writer?”
She offers a small smile. “I published my first murder mystery when I was forty-two. Just a small press, but I was awfully proud.”
I look at the tiny little woman in a new light. “You write crime books?”
“I used to. It’s been twenty years since my last one was released. I live off of my royalties now, which is just enough for the simple things in life, thanks to my rent control. My point is that I’m the daft old lady across the hall who thrives on conspiracy theories and solving mysteries. Nobody would believe me if I said Celine was murdered. And as for the other thing, well . . . I figured she’d want to keep that secret to herself.”
“But it may be that secret that got her killed in the first place. I don’t know. I don’t know anything about it, other than what I read in her diaries, because she never told me.” What else might Ruby know? “Did she ever talk about a friend whose name started with an L?” I hesitate using the word “friend.”
Ruby’s wrinkled face creases further with her frown. “No. I’m sorry. That doesn’t ring a bell.”
“What about a guy named Jace? Or Jay?” Her frown makes me prompt further. “He worked in her building.”
Her eyes narrow in thought. “Yes . . . I seem to remember her mentioning someone from work. Just once or twice, though. In passing.”
“Did it sound like they were together?”
“Like I said, she never told me much about her ‘dates.’ But I do know that it’s difficult to keep a relationship with that kind of profession on the side.” She offers a sheepish smile. “I tried. Failed miserably.”
The door buzzer goes off. We’ll have to pick up on this conversation later. “That’s Hans. Have you met him?”
She shakes her head.
I hit the front door release button and flip open the dead bolt. “He’s eccentric, but I think you’ll like him.” Though I don’t know if I have the energy to deal with him right now. “Just, please, do me a favor and don’t mention anything about the investigation and what we suspect about Celine?”
“There’s no benefit to getting others involved just yet,” she agrees as she pours another cup of tea for herself and tops mine off.
A few moments later a knock sounds. “It’s open!” I holler and a creak sounds.
