Love Me Later

by Libby Rice

  The bathroom would serve as a safe room of sorts. If she had any problems, she’d retreat to powder her nose with her cell phone. The lock and the old sturdy, wooden door should last until help arrived.

  Sixteen square feet down. Three hundred and change to go.

  Bone tired and fighting the slink of a headache that moved between her ears, she could scarcely appreciate the rare privilege of having work due at the office early the next morning. Brian had begun funneling extra projects her way. So long as the work got done, no one noticed who did it.

  JTS’s search for a Scarlet brain-double progressed slowly through a series of meetings and calls that occurred under her watchful, but uninvited, eye. According to Brian’s intel, the partnership “questioned her judgment,” which might render her “a liability.” She and Brian had chuckled over that one, given that the firm’s managing partner had recently embarked on this third marriage, likely a short-lived paradise since he was less-than-discretely seeing a twenty-four-year-old associate on floor thirty-eight.

  Her gaze fell to a wooden broom and a saw she’d picked up at the corner hardware store. One more project stood between her and a cab home to a secure bed.

  Carrying the tools to the window, she aligned the broom handle with the top of the frame. Using the saw, she slashed a hash mark where the handle passed the sliding portion of the window below. Then, stoppering the end of the broom in a corner, she sawed away.

  The cheap, dull blade gradually ate through the wood, leaving her with a custom rod she wedged into place. Functioning lock or not, the wooden stump compressed the window shut. An intruder would be forced to break the glass—both loud and slow—giving her ample time to escape out the front door or into the locking bathroom with her cell phone.

  And just in time. A figure moved into the space beyond the age-waved single pane. Scarlet reeled back with a pained gasp before realizing Lissa stood, smiling and waving, from the rickety landing of the fire escape that snaked down the front of her new building.

  Scarlet’s hand flew to her chest, and she sucked in several mouthfuls of air. Gradually, her heartbeat slowed enough to stagger forward and free the homemade stump-lock with a melodramatic yank.

  Lissa opened the window, exposing the already stale air of the apartment to the scent of Chicken Lo Mein rising from the Chinese restaurant at ground level. Cool as ever, she ducked into the room, sampling the pungent aromas of food and cleaning solvents in sniffs too mockingly delicate to be legitimate.

  “What the hell are you doing? Trying to kill me?” Scarlet barked.

  “I’m trying to freak you out so you’ll move in with me.”

  “What part of ‘I’m moving to this dump to avoid Ethan’s handouts—oh, and also to avoid reneging on my vow to never rely on my dad’s money again,’ did you not understand? If I can’t accept their charity, why would I take yours?”

  “You won’t be paying me with sex or blind obedience?”

  Scarlet slammed the window shut and shoved her makeshift lock into place. “Exactly what would I pay to inhabit your recently-renovated Uptown brownstone?”

  “The satisfaction I’d derive from your continued health and well—”

  “That was a rhetorical question, Lissa.”

  Fists on hips, Lissa assessed the studio in a slow three-quarter spin that gave her the grand tour. “You could have said so. Besides, you’d be taking care of the place while I’m gone. I’ll be in Colorado and then India for God knows how long. That’s payment.”

  Excuse me while I go bang my head against the shower stall. “Look, Lissa, thank you. I love you for asking. But I have to do this.”

  “No, you don’t,” she fired back, and finally a creeping worry entered her voice. “But I’ll let you if you swear not to hang on in the likely event this… lifestyle becomes too much. If you can’t sleep or eat or work or shower—”

  “Don’t ever let anyone tell you your vote of confidence isn’t inspiring.”

  “—or if you get really tired of Chinese food—”

  “I don’t plan to eat there.”

  “—or if you discover a rat the size of Punxsutawney Phil—”

  “There are no rats!”

  “Roach infestation?”

  “No.”

  “Fine. But if you ever discover a dead body on the landing, you’re out of here. I’ll hogtie your perfectly curvy ass and drag you home where I’ll bury you under a mountain of priceless art—namely mine and perhaps a Rubens or two—until your money situation improves and you can afford a real apartment.”

  Lissa sidled to the door and began working the locks that crept up its back side. When the last chain hung loose, she turned. “Promise, Scarlet.”

  Scarlet smacked her chest. “Cross my heart.”

  A curt nod and Lissa slipped out.

  Scarlet’s head throbbed by the time the cab pulled up in front of her old building an hour later. The acidic stench of ammonia had taken up permanent residence in her pores. When she stepped from the car, her head rotated toward the convenience store on the corner. Ibuprofen, whispered an internal voice. Take four and live to see the morning.

  Undecided, she shared a look with Andy, who stood as shiny and official as ever on the front steps. The elderly gentleman didn’t open the door with his usual flourish. Instead, he lifted his chin in the direction of the store, a silent chiding. Go on now. You can make it.

  Andy had manned the door for so long. After a thousand “good mornings” and “goodnights,” he must have realized her habits didn’t include late-night jaunts to the keepers-of-the-Advil. The shining mischief in his eyes rooted for her.

  Hesitant, but finally willing, she nodded. With one sidestep, and then another, Scarlet worked her way toward the street corner, turning her head to keep Andy in her sights as long as possible. When she passed from her building’s exterior lighting into the shadows, she whirled and ran.

  She made it. Shuffling along the well-lit aisles, Scarlet picked up a bottle of pain killers and some half-and-half for the morning coffee she’d need to bury the remains of the headache that promised to linger. A pack of cinnamon bears also made its way to the counter. A reward for good behavior.

  The walk home took her by surprise. Like a child’s hesitance to ride a bike without training wheels, her refusal to venture out had stemmed from a well-worn fear rather than the danger associated with the task. At least in this neck of the woods. She looked around in wonder, swinging her bag of goodies back and forth.

  People milled about even though the night entered the wee hours. A group of young women in hooker heels tottered along, laughing too loud and bantering about which greasy spoon should soak up their night of clubbing.

  A couple walked hand-in-hand, heads close. As they passed, she saw they shared a dripping ice cream cone. A man on the corner sold honey-roasted nuts from a rolling cart. More than a few insomniacs waited in line for an early-morning snack.

  Back at her steps, Andy chimed, “Good evening, my dear,” and opened the door with a flourish, as faux-British as ever.

  Scarlet let her lips flow into an easy grin, clutching her nighttime booty. Good evening, indeed.

  ******

  Scarlet’s trip to the corner store grew into a walk from the subway station across the street. Then from the office. Later a nearby restaurant. After the slow build, she tackled a stroll to and from nowhere for the sheer joy of walking a beloved city she’d let become a stranger.

  She lingered in front of a backlit window display. The sun dipped behind the concrete cliff of Manhattan, stealing the reassuring glare glinting off the glass. At one time, she’d have hailed the nearest cab. Tonight she didn’t mind the several blocks that separated her from home.

  Besides, she couldn’t tear herself away.

  Behind the window, a child-size mannequin in a tutu danced on a rotating pedestal. Next to the ballerina, mechanical dummies in nylon jerseys batted a soccer ball back and forth. In the far corner, tiny boxing gloves
draped over a miniature title belt.

  She slid her palm along the cool glass. Would Ethan teach his son to box? Maybe his daughter, too?

  Her hand fell away, and she stepped back, ignoring the slow turn of her belly. The Chelsea lease ended in a week. Pondering Ethan’s future parenting practices wouldn’t construct a more affordable version of her high-rise life or muster the frayed remains of her career to pay for it.

  Packing would.

  Casting a last look at the red gloves, Scarlet started down the sidewalk.

  Her street offered the chaotic welcome she’d come to expect. Curbside vendors and dog walkers and neighborhood families made the most of the dregs of summer. The only stillness waited ahead. He stood in the shadows beyond the marble steps leading to her lobby. The man wore a hooded sweatshirt and propped a shoulder against the building in a familiar lanky pose.

  She stopped short. “Ethan?” The note of hope in her voice revealed too much, calling her progress all kinds of a lie.

  He shook his head within the folds of the hood.

  The rush of recognition and euphoria withered. Of course not.

  Unexplained sweat beaded along her spine, but she started forward anyway. Something about the man’s presence, his unsolicited but undivided attention, felt wrong. Malevolence thickened the air with each step, and when her gut told her to run she tripped over her tennis shoes in a sudden burst of movement. Slowing, she focused on Andy and her building’s secure entrance. They would come first. No need to pass him by.

  The sense of familiarity lingered. His size and stance. The way she could feel his gaze track her every move even though the night cloaked his features. The crouching menace that pulsed in her direction.

  She made it to Andy and started up the stairs. When he opened the lobby door to the guard waiting beyond, reluctant suspicion slithered past her defenses. She lived in a guarded residence for specific reasons, defenses mandated by a dark figure that, at least once, had meant her harm. The fine hairs on the back of her neck froze in retreat, and she whirled on the man who’d started forward with slow, methodical purpose.

  Life transformed in a split second. She’d done this before.

  “You,” she croaked.

  “We meet again, Empress.” He reached up and pulled his hood to his shoulders, letting light flood over the triumph and challenge etched into a face she’d known for years.

  A scream lodged in her throat. After single heartbeat crashed against her ribs, she stumbled backward into the sprawling foyer. The door clicked shut as she slid to her knees, fists against the glass. That face had taunted her from the blackness rimming a flashlight. Under the glaring fluorescents of a courtroom, she’d memorized its every detail.

  That was years ago. At his trial for her attempted murder. Age had barely altered the brutality of his features.

  Gerard Chamber was back.

  Chapter 23

  Compulsive shivering had a way of dispersing body heat. Despite the slick coating of sweat that soaked her clothing, Scarlet huddled further into the blankets the police had retrieved from her hall closet.

  In the hour after her narrow escape, she’d thrown up several times. She prayed that storm had passed, but her stomach protested even the steaming tea the more sympathetic female officer had pressed into her hands with an order to “drink.”

  No denying it, Gerard Chamber had been paroled shortly after her return from Denmark. Thirty seconds on the state’s inmate database had made it official. Why she hadn’t known—?

  An image seared through her brain. Her, crumpled on the floor, clutching the copper-plated receiver of her father’s old-fashioned rotary phone. On the other end, the DA spoke gently, explaining why the charges against Ethan were being dropped. At first, she reeled, breathing only in pinched gasps, not understanding how this could happen. But as the DA went on, she began to see how wrong she’d been.

  New evidence had surfaced, all of it linking another to her attack. After watching every second of security footage from Rancor that night, Ethan’s public defender had discovered several peculiarities. Ethan’s opponent hadn’t disappeared to the showers after their scuffle. He’d headed in that direction, but then casually remained in the arena. The video had showed Gerard Chamber staring intently from a semi-darkened corner, still bloody and torn from the fight. Rather than watching the subsequent match between Lissa’s man and yet another boxer, Gerard had scrutinized Scarlet’s section of the stands.

  Rancor’s cameras had caught him again, this time leaving the club about thirty minutes before Scarlet and Lissa emerged to stand huddled under the front awning. And low and behold, a truck matching the one Scarlet had been thrown against in the parking lot had been registered to the very man Ethan had humiliated in the ring a scant hour before her attack.

  The video, the truck, and testimony that Ethan’s pet name “Empress” had received plenty of locker-room play had prompted a search warrant. The police had found a flashlight and a knife bundled together in Gerard’s apartment. The knife had been cleaned meticulously, but it was the right size and type. Her lipstick had survived the plundering of her purse, along with the bag itself. They’d also found a pair of leather gloves with a single strand of long, blonde hair mottled into the lining. DNA testing had shown it was hers.

  Beyond the direct evidence of Gerard’s crime, the search had recovered a dwindling supply of a polypeptide protein hormone used to stimulate growth and cell reproduction, both illegal and expensive.

  “You in there?” another officer asked from a distance, snapping his fingers in front of her nose and dragging her back to the present. This one, not so sympathetic, blocked the view of her stark kitchen with his bulky frame, his stance harsh and belligerent as though the steel of her appliances bled into his persona.

  “We’ll report the incident to Mr. Chamber’s parole officer,” he explained dully.

  “Will it keep him away?” The question slipped out in a misguided quest for some kind of reassurance.

  He stared at a notepad clutched between beefy fingers. Of course he had to answer, even if he wasn’t inclined to make the effort. “Maybe. I’m no parole officer.”

  It was a far cry from the comfort she realized he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give.

  His attention lifted from the notes, and a mantel of burden settled over his shoulders. In a move she’d seen him repeat several times, he took in the antiques that graced her open-plan living room and the French doors that opened to spectacular city views. When his gaze landed on her bedraggled, blanket-wrapped form, she saw his disgust. Others out there actually needed his help, not a princess high in her tower.

  Slightly above average could be a bad spot. Enough money—the kind that attracted the interest of reporters and camera crews—and the place would be crawling with cops ready to track her tormentor to the ends of the earth. She’d been there once before. A little money made her an undeserving drain on a system with limited resources. Apparently she was there now.

  One corner of his mouth quirked. “I’m sure you’ll be a top priority.” The silent “dream on” practically echoed off the walls, cramming her fear past the closed muscles of her throat.

  “I’m sure,” she stressed, “you’ll see to it.” Gerard Chamber had nearly killed her before. She knew in the marrow of her bones he’d returned to try again.

  A few more minutes saw the police say farewell, lifting the false sense of sanity that had accompanied their bombardment of questions and instructions. Adrenaline receded with the chaos, and where her insides had previously twisted into a strangled knot, now they fell hollow and cavernous.

  She moved the blanket aside to see bruises darkening over her knees and shins. In her haste to flee Gerard’s advance, she’d broken Ethan’s no-bleeding rule. She bled on the inside, in more ways than one.

  But that wasn’t his fault. Ethan wouldn’t have wanted this—a broken heart and empty wallet, surely, but never this. His alarm that night with the knife had been too r
eal, utterly instinctive.

  Her laptop and cell phone sat in her lap. Lifting the phone, she typed on the touchscreen—first an “e,” then a “t,” followed by an “h.” That’s all it took for Ethan’s number to pop up. She stared at his name, eyes blurring at a picture she’d snapped at Tivoli.

  How desperately she wanted to press the green button and hear his deep, reassuring voice on the other end. Even though he’d evicted her from his everyday life, his sense of chivalry would send him running. He’d wrap her in those solid arms and promise everything would be okay. Because the words would be Ethan’s, she’d let herself believe them and pretend for a few hours that they shared a great love.

  She closed her eyes and imagined their reunion. He would let her cry and tell her it was normal to be afraid. The hot brand of his hand would stroke over her back until she fell asleep, and when she woke, he’d still be there, watching over her with that oddly fierce, yet gentle, intensity.

  She slammed the phone onto an end table. Tempting as it was to be the pathetic ex-girlfriend that called crying in the night, she could cry alone just the same.

  Sleep continued to elude her as dawn streaked the New York skyline. She hadn’t made it to bed. No, she sat still on the island of her couch, focusing on her apartment’s two doors, thankful morning had finally arrived.

  Showing up on her doorstep had shattered Gerard’s parole. She could only hope he’d be re-arrested and imprisoned by nightfall, sparing her another all-night vigil over a change in custody status that should never, ever have escaped her notice. She’d diligently maintained her victim notification request with the state.

  With unsteady fingers, she logged into her laptop. An electronic notification might have gone the way of the penis enlargement ads that piled up in her junk mail.