by Laura Wolfe
“Oh. Actually, I might need your help with something.” She waited, so I stepped behind her into the air-conditioned foyer, unable to imagine how I could help. “There are some paint color samples in here somewhere. Jacqueline thought they might be in the kitchen or the office. Can you be a dear and help me look? I’ll take the kitchen. You take the office.” She pointed down a hallway with French doors at the end.
My eyes scanned down the hallway to the open floorplan beyond Anastasia’s tall hairdo. In typical Jacqueline fashion, nothing was out of place. Not a box, a book, a grocery bag, or even a crumb.
“Sure. I’ll look in the office.” I followed the gleaming hardwood floors toward the cut-glass doors at the end of the hall. I’d only poked my head into Jacqueline’s home office when I’d come over for pizza several weeks earlier. Now I gaped as I passed through the double doors, the perfectly restored interior reminding me of the kind of old-fashioned library only seen in movies based on Jane Austen novels. An oversized mahogany desk faced me, complimented by matching wood-paneled walls. Behind the desk, slivers of daylight peeked through wooden blinds. Built-in shelves filled with antique books lined the far wall. A framed photograph of a younger-looking Jacqueline tilted toward me. She sat astride a gleaming chestnut horse, a proud smile on her face, and a blue ribbon pinned to the horse’s bridle. I swallowed, my eyes traveling to the framed diplomas and awards symmetrically arranged along the panel next to me, including the Greystone Top Producer Award from the last two years.
A stack of financial statements rested in a neat pile on the corner of the desk. I averted my eyes from the numbers, not wanting to invade her privacy any more than necessary. The top desk drawer slid open easily, revealing five pens arranged in a row, a pair of scissors, a packet of note cards, a cup of paperclips, a stapler, and a roll of tape. I laughed out loud, never having seen such a sparse and organized drawer in my entire life. I closed it and opened the next one, which held files arranged in alphabetical order. The bottom drawer stuck at first. With a second yank, it creaked toward me.
The clinking of metal drew my eyes even before I saw the mountain of keys, all labeled with street numbers. The familiar strings of numbers leered back at me. They were the addresses of Jacqueline’s recent listings, ones that had already closed. My bandaged fingers hovered over the pile as my mind struggled to make sense of the contents. Realtors were required to turn keys over to the new owners at closing, but Jacqueline had saved these.
“I found it!” Anastasia’s voice jolted me upright. My pulse racing, I slammed the drawer closed and hurried toward Jacqueline’s kitchen. The designer held up a strip of paint samples in a variety of shades of grey. “They were in the drawer over here.”
“Sounds good.” I raised my hand to her and turned toward the door, anxious to leave.
Anastasia’s mouth curved downward. “Oh, dear. What happened to your hand?”
I hesitated, spinning back toward her. “Cooking accident.”
“Ouch. Nothing too serious, I hope?”
“Just a cut. It’ll be fine.”
My body tensed, yearning to escape outside into the warm air, but my feet refused to move, the all-too-familiar feeling of unease rippling through me. Anastasia smiled at me, but I couldn’t smile back. A splinter of terror formed deep within me, a prick of truth that needled through my chest and pinned me to the floor. Troubling thoughts and worries bombarded me in random order. Spray paint, rats, fake contracts, unplanned pregnancy, spying, water records, Peter’s warnings. And now a new question whose answer I didn’t want to know: What was Jacqueline doing with all those keys?
25
Nikes tightly laced, I bounded down the steps of the East Coast Club, my skin clammy with sweat. The late August humidity wasn’t helping my complexion, especially after the hour I’d spent with my personal trainer, a piece of eastern European eye-candy named Cyrek. It had been almost two months since I’d discovered the secret drawer of keys. I’d debated asking Jacqueline about my findings, but she quashed my moral dilemma the day after my discovery when she handed me three checks totaling ten thousand dollars. Two days later, there were more checks. The referral fees and commissions rolled in, one after another. Besides, whatever reason Jacqueline had for saving those keys was none of my business.
Now, standing on the steaming asphalt, I swallowed, throat prickly. As soon as my finger had healed, I’d joined the East Coast Club, where I worked out three afternoons a week, the green energy smoothie at the juice bar replacing my daily chocolate craving. Jacqueline had been right; joining East Coast was key to making business connections. The club was a cross between a country club, a Wall Street office, and an Olympic workout facility. There were other perks, too. I admired the slope of my newly defined biceps, feeling empowered.
My fingertip eased against the button, unlocking the door to my new Five Series BMW. Silver like I’d always wanted. I smirked, remembering the night I’d splashed my beer in Chloe’s face. Who drove a crappy car now?
A suffocating wave of heat surrounded me as I slid into the leather upholstery. Pushing the keyless ignition, a blast of arctic air rushed through the air-conditioned seats, my sweat evaporating in an instant. This car was unbelievable; sunroof, GPS, zero to sixty in a nanosecond. I made a point of lowering the window and driving past Nate’s apartment at least once a week, hoping he’d see me. He hadn’t yet. At least as far as I knew, but it was only a matter of time. I bet Nate didn’t have a membership to East Coast. I bet his girlfriend didn’t drive a car like this. The ball of my foot pressed against the pedal as I eased out of the secured parking lot.
The car had been a splurge, but I hadn’t been irresponsible. The last few months had sped by like a movie played on fast-forward. Ever since I’d sold Betty’s property on Mohawk, my business had gone viral. Jacqueline had been annoyed at my luck in landing the Mohawk listing, but she’d never accused me of doing anything shady. She’d gotten the buyer’s side of the commission, anyway.
Things were going better in my personal life, too. Emma had completed her last round of chemo, and my financial contributions were making a big dent in the medical bills. She had called two weeks ago, her voice cracking.
“Good news, Mara. We got the test results. The cancer is gone!”
I’d tightened my jaw, afraid I might have misheard her.
“Mara? Did you hear me? I’m all better.”
“Yeah,” I said softly at first, followed by a surge of joy. “YEAH! EMMA! YOU DID IT!” I jumped up and down in my living room, my eyes welling with tears. The nightmare was over. Emma and I laughed uncontrollably at her news, at my outburst—just like we used to do when we were kids. We’d dodged the bullet. My little sister had done it. She’d been stronger than all of us and conquered cancer. She could continue with her plans to move into her freshman dorm at Illinois, just like any other healthy eighteen-year-old. Now, I leaned back in the leather seat and smiled at the thought.
A call from an unidentified number rang through the speakers of my car, and I sent it to voicemail. While we’d broken through one roadblock with Emma, another still loomed in front of me. Jacqueline’s mission to become Chicago’s next Top Producer was all-consuming. I did my best to keep up.
A battered SUV swerved in front of me and darted through the light. I hit the brakes, my car sliding to a stop just as a new email beeped on my phone. It was another forwarded message from Jacqueline.
Her demands were relentless. She pushed the neediest clients on me. When deals fell through, it was my fault every time. There was always something I should have done or said differently. When Natalia listed a new property, it was because I hadn’t followed her closely enough, or because I’d lost my focus. Still, I was learning more about real estate than I ever imagined. And the commission checks and referral fees kept flowing in, my bank account growing. I’d made over $90,000 in the last three months. There was no need to find another roommate to replace Grace. I easily afforded my mortgage payments, new ca
r, East Coast Club membership fees, and pretty much anything else I wanted.
A call rang through my speakers from an unfamiliar number. I picked up, expecting it to be someone calling on one of Jacqueline’s listings.
“This is Mara.”
“Hi, Mara. This is Patricia Abramson, the editor of the Chicago Board of Realtors’ Magazine.”
I stopped breathing for a second. “Hi, Patricia. How are you?”
“Just fine, thanks. And you?”
“Good.”
“Great. I’m calling with some good news. Our feature article for next month’s issue will name ‘Thirty Under Thirty.’ That’s thirty Chicago Realtors under the age of thirty who are ones to watch in the industry. Rising stars,” she said in a bubbly voice. “We’d like to spotlight you as one of the realtors.”
I pulled into a nearby parking lot and stopped my car, heart pounding. “Really?”
“Yes. Do we have your permission?”
“What? Yes. Of course.” I wiped the sweat from my forehead, wondering what Jacqueline would think.
“Great. I’ll email you a questionnaire to fill out. After you send that back to me, we’ll schedule a time for your photoshoot.”
“Photoshoot?”
The woman chuckled. “Yes. It’s no big deal. It shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes.”
“Okay. Yeah. That sounds great.” I envisioned a full-page spread of myself wearing my new sleeveless cocktail dress with the blush-colored sandals. I wondered if the photographer would place a fan just off-camera to give me that wild, wind-blown look, and whether I should offer a warm smile, or one of those sly, half-grins I’d seen Jacqueline flash so many times.
“Okay, then. Look for my email and let me know if you have any questions.”
“I will, thanks.”
The light turned green and pulled back onto the road, smiling. Jacqueline was right. Success breeds more success. I accelerated toward the exit ramp to I-94. What I wouldn’t give to see the shock, the remorse, on Nate’s face when he saw the article. I imagined one of his friends reading it and passing it along to him. His eyes would stretch wide, his mouth gaping open, the color draining from his face as he realized that breaking up with me was the biggest mistake he’d ever made. I turned up the volume on a rap song that pounded through my speakers, nodding my head along with the angry words. My foot pressed the gas pedal, and my car flew onto the highway, speeding ahead of traffic and merging into the far-left lane. Things were going my way.
◆◆◆
My BMW hummed to a halt in a space outside the Title One office in River North. I tucked my hair behind my ear, thankful my bangs had finally grown long enough not to fall back into my face. Jacqueline’s client, Julia, was closing on a two-bedroom condo in Lakeview, strategically located on the fourth floor in a building with a doorman. Other than the initial visit to Julia’s condo the morning I’d dug through her underwear drawer, I hadn’t been involved in the deal until today. Jacqueline needed time to get ready for her tour of penthouse condos with her multi-million-dollar buyers. She instructed me to meet Julia at the title company. I agreed, lured by Jacqueline’s promise of a twenty percent referral fee for merely attending the closing.
“Don’t mention anything about her old condo,” Jacqueline had said, her plucked eyebrows crunching together. “So many bad things happened to her there. It makes her uncomfortable to talk about it.”
There wasn’t much for a buyer’s agent to do at closing, other than holding the buyer’s hand and making sure all documents were signed, keys delivered, and commission checks collected. This would be the easiest referral fee I’d ever earned. I perched in the chair across from Julia and watched her sign page after page of papers. Her loopy and flowery signature didn’t match her tiny frame, soft-spoken voice, or the messy condo she’d inhabited. She glanced up at me from beneath her auburn bangs every once in a while and smiled. I’d gotten an all-too intimate glimpse into her life the morning I’d rummaged through her lingerie.
“Are you excited about your new place?” I asked her, careful to avoid mention of the old place.
“Yes. It will be a good move for me. I didn’t really feel safe in my other neighborhood.” She smiled at me again.
“Oh, yeah.” My toes tapped under the table. “Jacqueline told me about your car. And the mugging. That’s horrible.” I shook my head, remembering all the times I’d felt vulnerable walking alone at night down the city streets, not to mention the time Peter had leaped out from behind the tree and held a knife to me. A shudder swelled through me, but I shook it off, relieved he’d been obeying the Protective Order, and hadn’t tried to approach me again. I was about to change the subject to the restaurant scene in Lakeview, but Julia spoke first.
“It was the break-in that really got to me.” She stopped signing and drew in a long breath. “I thought I was so clever hiding my valuables in my underwear drawer, but I guess that’s the first place they look.” She rolled her eyes.
My heels dug into the floor, my spine pressing against the chair back. My teeth clenched so forcefully I thought they might splinter as my brain registered the information. Valuables in her underwear drawer? That’s where I’d found the box I’d removed months earlier, but I’d only been following Jacqueline’s instructions. What had been inside that locked box?
My thoughts traveled back to that day. There was a horrible mess in the condo. Maybe it was messy because Julia didn’t know we were coming over. Wouldn’t she have tidied up if she’d been expecting us? It all seemed so obvious now. My cheeks burned, but my fingers turned colder than icicles. I remembered Jacqueline going back into the condo while I waited in the car. What had she done?
I existed in an alternate reality for several minutes, staring at my manicured fingernails as the closing proceeded around me. Questions were asked. Jokes were made. People laughed. Jacqueline had tricked me into stealing from Julia, violating her privacy, making an innocent woman think she’d been robbed so that Jacqueline could increase her sales record. I’d done some shady things too—lying to Grace, helping myself to Jacqueline’s listing on Mohawk—but this was different. This crossed the line.
Peter’s gaunt face flashed before me. She’ll make you do bad things.
“And here we have a check for Greystone Realty.” The same smiley woman who oversaw many of my Title One closings handed me the check.
Not knowing what to do or say without implicating myself in the robbery, I grasped the payout. Everyone else stood and gathered their belongings.
“Thanks for your help, Mara.” Julia held out her slender hand.
“Anytime.” I swallowed against my parched throat, gently squeezing her warm fingers as if to offer an apology. In my left hand, I pinched the commission check behind my back.
◆◆◆
“What was in the box? The one I took from Julia’s dresser?” My voice was breathless as if I’d just sprinted to the phone instead of sitting slumped in the front seat of my car.
“It’s better if you don’t know.”
My hand gripped the steering wheel of my parked car. “What are you talking about? I never agreed to steal anything from anybody, Jacqueline!”
She huffed. “Get over it. It’s all for the best. Better for Julia to believe someone robbed her than for her to actually get robbed by a real thug. It was only a matter of time before it happened.”
I squeezed my eyes closed. “Your creative thinking is going too far. This is messed up!”
“Okay, then.” She paused. “You’re fired.”
My chest strained against my seatbelt. “Seriously? You trick me into stealing and then fire me? Are you kidding me?”
“You don’t like the way I do business?” she asked. “Fine. Go work for someone else.”
The line went dead. Jacqueline had hung up on me. I swallowed and tipped my head back. She’d cemented me into a corner. As angry as I was, I couldn’t walk away from the stream of referral fees I made off her. Without Ja
cqueline, my business would decline. I was good at selling real estate, but I needed more time to establish my own clients. I needed to set myself up for success, to prove people like Nate and Chloe wrong. I’d promised Dad I wouldn’t quit as soon as something didn’t go my way, but the number of things not going my way were piling up.
I couldn’t stop Peter’s hollow, desperate face from flashing before me. What if he’d been right? Maybe Jacqueline was evil. She’d probably tricked him into doing some of her dirty work, too. Maybe that was why he’d been warning me. But Peter’s business had completely dissolved once he’d left Jacqueline’s side. He’d become nothing but a drug addict who’d threatened me with a knife. I hugged my arms across my chest, wondering if I’d be able to avoid a similar fate if I left.
Slumping into the leather seats, I watched the people moving outside my window. A woman in polyester pants and an oversized T-shirt jogged toward a bus stop just as the bus sputtered away. She waved her hands and screamed, “Wait!” The bus lurched and spewed diesel, driving off without her as she kicked the ground, shoulders drooping. My stomach dropped. I remembered being in that woman’s place a little too vividly. My fingers brushed the leather trim of my seat, and I inhaled the chemically-clean new car scent, thankful to be sitting inside my shiny BMW with the satellite radio and air conditioning. I didn’t want to go back to riding the bus. My eyes found the woman again. She slumped a bench reading a book. If I wasn’t waist-deep in Jacqueline’s bullshit, I might have offered her a ride.
With a long breath, I pressed Jacqueline’s number. The phone rang twice, followed by Jacqueline’s recorded message instructing callers to dial my number to schedule all showings. Pulling in more breaths and squeezing my eyelids shut, I waited. This is what I had to do. Two minutes passed, and I tried again.
“Yes,” Jacqueline said, her voice hard and cold.
