The Wrong Man: A Novel of Suspense (12 page)

No sooner had Amy and her boyfriend departed than Kit hung and set the alarms—on both the outer and inner doors to the office and on the main door to her apartment. Going through the process seemed to escalate rather than diminish her fear. What if it really
was
X who had broken in and what if he
planned to return? Part of her regretted not taking either Baby or Amy up on their offers. But even if she stayed with one of them for the rest of the weekend, she’d have to return home at
some
point.

For the next hour or so she alternated between trying to watch TV and leafing aimlessly through decorating magazines. Baby called at 10:30 just to check in.

“I’m okay,” Kit lied and informed her about her purchase of the door alarms. “I just have to remember to turn them off before you and Dara get here. Otherwise we’ll all have heart attacks.”

“I’ve got a better idea for the future,” Baby said. “Fall madly in love with Dr. Holt and move in with him.”

Kit snorted. “You think he’s a catch?” she asked. “I guess I’ve been so preoccupied with everything, I was evaluating him only as a potential client.”

“Yes, I think he’s a catch. Handsome and successful. And he couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

Kit laughed and said goodnight. Afterward, she considered Baby’s comment. Holt
was
attractive, and probably brilliant, but in light of where her most recent infatuation had landed her, she was hardly in the mood for another.

At midnight she crawled into bed, but it was after two before sleep finally overtook her. She slept fitfully and when she awoke, her heart was beating hard, as if her subconscious had spent the night in a state of watchfulness and agitation.

After making a cappuccino, she took it with her to the couch, where she sat with her legs tucked under her, forlornly watching through the window as the early morning light began to seep above the downtown rooftops and wooden water towers. She wondered if she would ever feel at ease in her home again.

For the first time she realized it wasn’t simply the break-in that had knocked her off her heels. The experience had tapped into memories from the year she was seventeen, when she’d felt
unsafe in the world for the first time. It had begun one weekday afternoon, when she’d returned from school to find her father unexpectedly at home and visibly shaken. He’d seemed preoccupied through much of the winter, but she’d assumed it was related to normal work issues. The business he owned, a highly successful plumbing-fixture company, placed plenty of demands on him.

That day, however, her father explained haltingly that there were far more than normal business headaches causing his distress. A man her father had brought in as a new partner two years before had embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company and fled the state. Not only was the business in ruins, but her parents’ personal assets, long intermingled with the business, were gone as well.

She’d nearly ceased breathing as she digested the news And though she knew she should be concerned about her parents, the first question she blurted out, one she couldn’t contain inside her, was, “What about
college
?” She’d been accepted early decision to Penn, where she’d planned to study art history. Because her parents were—or
had been
—fairly affluent, they were going to be paying full fare.

“We’ve already called the college,” her mother said. “They might be able to pull together a small financial-aid package for you, but there’s no way they can contribute everything. Honey, we’re sick about this, but we just don’t have the money.”

It felt as if she’d been standing on the deck of a boat with everyone else below ship, and a huge wave had sent her hurling into the water where she was now fruitlessly screaming for help and straining desperately to stay afloat.

Her parents quickly sold their house, as well as most of their lovely possessions. Their next home was a tiny one-bedroom apartment, with Kit in the bedroom for the time being and her parents sleeping on the pullout sofa.

Kit spent the spring trying to convince a few state colleges
to give her a financial package, a mix of aid and loans, but it was too late in the game to pull it off for fall. It would have to happen in the next calendar year. Following graduation, she’d found an assistant job at an interior design firm in New York. After throwing herself a pity party that stretched for at least three months, she realized that she loved the work, and from that point on there was no looking back. She took courses in design at night but, as her career took off, it seemed unnecessary to go back for a full-time degree. Besides, in light of what she’d lived through with her parents, she didn’t have the stomach for taking on huge college loans. And yet even now, she still flinched when someone asked about her college background.

There were two things she had taken away from that awful year her father went bankrupt. Nothing was ever going to hold her back from creating the life she wanted. And she would never let anyone outsmart her and ruin what she’d built. If X was after her or her business, she had to shut him down.

She forced herself off the couch and began to plot how to handle the meeting with Sasha. She needed to find out what she could about Healy, particularly what he was doing in Florida. But she couldn’t make it seem obvious or Sasha would smell a rat.

Early that afternoon, she took the subway uptown and walked several blocks east. Sasha lived in one of the many white brick high-rises that dotted the Upper East Side, though this one looked newly renovated and tres chic. After being cleared by the concierge, she took the elevator to the fourteenth floor.

She was glad she’d bothered with her outfit because Sasha looked impeccable. She was wearing slim black pants, a tight-fitting, black V-neck sweater, and large gold earrings shaped like bamboo. It wasn’t until Kit had stepped fully into the apartment that she saw that the woman had a phone to her ear. After closing the door, Sasha motioned with a free finger that she would need a minute.

Discreetly Kit eyed her surroundings. She was standing in a large foyer that featured not a lick of furniture or a single piece of art. The walls had been painted a pale gray, maybe Benjamin Moore’s Balboa Mist or Dove Wing, suggesting that the apartment might have once been a model that was shown to prospective buyers. Over Sasha’s shoulder, Kit caught a glimpse of the living room. It was two spaces really, with a double-sided fireplace partially dividing them. Shockingly, there was hardly any furniture there either, just a white leather couch, a glass coffee table, and a few framed black-and-white photos leaning against the walls.

“It’s going to have to be handled,” Sasha said into the phone, her voice authoritative and yet slightly strident. “But I need at least twenty minutes to get there.”

“This is extremely rude on my part,” she said to Kit after disconnecting. “But something’s come up and I need to reschedule with you.”

Kit fought to keep her frustration at bay. All this way for nothing. But she couldn’t settle for nothing. She had to leave with
something
.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said easily. “I know things can come up. . . . Does it have to do with Matt Healy’s death?”

“What makes you ask that?” Sasha said.

“I—I just figured that the company must still be reeling from what happened. I’m sure plans have to be made.”

“Actually, I’m dealing with a client matter today. But you’re right—people
are
reeling.” Sasha stared at Kit intently. “How about you? Has his death affected you?”

“Uh, yes, of course,” Kit said, momentarily flummoxed. Sasha seemed to have no filter. If she wanted to know something, she just asked it. “As I told you, I didn’t really know him, but it’s always unsettling when someone you’re acquainted with dies.”

“Apparently it was a homicide. We just heard this weekend.”

“How dreadful,” Kit said, faking surprise at the news.

Sasha reached for the door handle. Kit knew she had only seconds left to extract the detail she needed.

“Was he in Miami for business—or just pleasure?” Kit asked.

“Actually, no one seems to know why he went there. We don’t do any business in that area.”

Kit’s breath quickened at the comment. So Ungaro and Wainwright had lied. She wondered if they had simply been covering for Healy because they thought the truth was none of her business.

“Sounds like a personal trip then.”

“He didn’t say anything to you?” Sasha said, narrowing her eyes. “You talked to him that day. According to his assistant, he’d originally been booked on a flight to Ann Arbor and then changed his plans at the last minute.”

“No, he just said he was going out of town.”

Sasha swung open the door. “I’m sorry but I really
do
have to scoot. I’ll call you when my schedule opens up again.”

“Of course,” Kit said and quickly left.

Out on the street she started walking fast, with no destination in mind, just fueled by her agitation. The fact that Healy had altered his original plans and headed to Miami added credence to the idea of him on a hunt for X, as well as the possibility of X getting wind of it and gunning him down with his car.

She replayed the brief encounter with Sasha. Abruptly cancelling the meeting seemed odd, but Kit sensed it had been legitimate. Just as she had an agenda for being with Sasha, she suspected that Sasha had an agenda for her as well, and the woman wouldn’t have bailed unless she had to.

She stopped finally and looked up at the street sign. She’d reached the corner of 59th Street and Third Avenue. It would be good to find a café where she could order a cup of tea and
try to subdue her free-floating dread, but the places around her were packed with people lingering over a late brunch. It wasn’t far, she realized, to the old Antiques Center, which was open on Sunday afternoons. She decided to head in that direction. For the past week she’d had her eye out for a crystal chandelier for the dining area in Avery Howe’s cottage, and Baby had mentioned seeing a couple of good ones at a booth in the mall.

The Antiques Center wasn’t a place she shopped often. The three-level space of endless glass-walled stalls felt frozen in the 1970’s, and many of the vendors were pushy, refusing to let you browse in peace. Baby complained that there was so much dust she needed Benadryl just to step inside. But Kit sometimes popped in when she was at the end of a project and in search of a few finishing touches—like the odd Asian stool for a seating area or a ginger jar to add a little history to an entranceway.

She walked the last few blocks and entered the mall. Inside, in the windowless interior, it could have easily been six in the morning. Not only were there few customers wandering along the dim, narrow corridors, but also many of the stalls were closed, probably, she realized, a common occurrence for Sundays. She glanced distractedly at some of the ground floor stalls, stacked to the ceiling with dishes, glasses, paintings, busts, and endless knickknacks. She descended two flights to the lowest level where the shop Baby had mentioned was located.

It was even more deserted down there. Only two stalls in the main corridor were open, both run by old Chinese men who she knew from experience liked to squabble over customers. The chandeliers, Baby had said, were at Hanson’s, which was down the corridor to the right and around the corner. Just bag it, Kit thought. The place was creepy today. But it seemed crazy not to check out the chandeliers as long as she was within yards of them. Even if the booth turned out not to be open, the chandeliers might be visible from the front window.

After nodding at one of the Chinese vendors, who was sitting quietly outside his shop, threading something in his hands, she wandered in the opposite direction, past a small pool with a fountain in the middle of the hall. The repetitive splash of water was the only sound.

She reached the end of the corridor, swung left, and saw that Hanson’s was indeed closed. But even from this end of the hall she could spot two chandeliers hanging just on the other side of the glass window. She hurried to the end of the corridor and peered inside the stall. One of the chandeliers was clearly too big for the cottage, but the other would work nicely. After digging out her phone, she snapped a photo through the glass. She’d call Monday, ask for the price, then haggle to lower it.

She dropped her phone back into her purse and as she started to turn, she caught a flash of movement in the glass, the reflection of something moving behind her in the corridor. She spun around, her heart knocking hard. There was a man at the intersection of the two corridors, dressed in black, with a baseball cap on his head and a scarf obscuring the lower part of his face. By the time she was fully around, he’d darted away.

But she’d caught enough of a glimpse to see the hair on the sides of his head. It was dark red and closely cropped. Just like X’s.

Panic surged through her. Was it
X
?

Instinctively she turned back toward the shop, looking for a place to flee. But she was cornered. The only way out was down the corridor. And he might be right around the corner, poised to ambush her.

She grabbed a breath and yelled, “Help.” She knew there was little chance of anyone hearing her besides the old Chinese vendor, but it might be enough to jar the man in black into taking off. She called out again and then froze, listening. She thought she heard footsteps receding, muted by the carpeting.

After a minute she edged up the corridor. She froze just before the corner, straining to hear. The only sound was the splash of the fountain, and the frantic thumping of her heart.

Finally, she took one more step ahead, twisting her head to the right. The man she’d glimpsed was now nowhere in sight. There was just the Chinese man farther down the corridor, standing now and staring in her direction. She hurried toward him.

“Did you see a man?” she blurted out. “In a baseball cap?”

“I didn’t see anyone. Just heard you yell out.”

“But—were you outside here?”

“No, inside. I was inside.”

She bolted up the two flights of stairs to the ground level,
her head swiveling back and forth as she moved. She needed to know for sure if the man was X or not, but there was no sign of him anywhere. Outside, she halted in front of the building and frantically searched the street with her eyes, checking doorways, the bus shelter, the clusters of people at the corner buying Snapple and roasted nuts from a food stand. It was New York City, so
everyone
was in black. But she saw no one dressed like the stranger in the corridor.

She took a moment to catch her breath and headed west, choosing 59th Street because it was crowded. She kept turning and looking back, making sure she wasn’t being followed. She checked on the subway platform, too, and in the car she boarded four minutes later. There was no one suspicious looking, just people winding down their Sunday afternoons, some with strollers, one with a fold-up bike. In relief, she let her body sag into the seat.

She knew she wasn’t imagining the flash of dark red hair, but she hadn’t glimpsed enough of the man’s face to know for certain if it was X. Could it simply have been another shopper? Her nerves were so frayed, her mind might be playing tricks on her. And yet if it were another shopper, why would he run when she spotted him?

Back at her apartment building, she glanced behind her before unlocking the door to the lobby and then made sure that the lock engaged after she entered. Her heartbeat had finally slowed on the subway ride, but now, in anticipation of reaching her apartment, it began to rear up again, like a startled horse.

She took the elevator to five. Her dread felt thick and heavy, and the low, mournful groan of the elevator did nothing to help. Before stepping off onto her floor, she blocked the closing door with her hand, making it buck, and stared down the hall. The new door to her apartment was still intact.
I’m okay
, she told herself.
I’m okay
.

New key in hand, she dashed toward her apartment. Thankfully the tenants in A, who fled Manhattan each weekend, would be back tonight. That would at least provide a measure of comfort.

She jabbed the key quickly into the lock.

And then, behind her, she heard the sound of the stairwell door being sucked closed, followed by a whoosh, someone moving quickly. She jerked to the right.

It was X, standing two feet away, dressed all in black, his head uncovered. Her knees started to buckle from fear.

“Hello, Kit,” he said quietly, but he made the
t
sound at the end of her name so hard there was no way to hear it other than as a threat.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she said.

“I won’t—as long as you cooperate.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

“Why don’t we go inside,” he said, shoving the door fully open with one hand. She thought of screaming as she’d done earlier, but there was no one to hear this time. Just do as he says, she told herself desperately. X grasped her arm so hard it pinched and prodded her inside. Then he shoved the door closed behind them.

She knew for sure now that it had been him earlier. He’d probably been trailing her all day, and after she spotted him, he must have taken a cab downtown, followed someone into her building, and waited in the stairwell for her return.

“Just—just tell me what you want,” she said. Was it her personal info to steal? Or her clients’? He’d surely been the one who’d broken into her apartment, and had probably targeted her from the beginning, just like Ungaro had guessed.

He stared hard at her. Those blue eyes, the ones she’d been so beguiled by, were menacing now, measuring her with cold calculation, as if she were a foe who needed to be brought to
her knees. He looked away finally, taking in the apartment. She tried to gauge if it was possible to reach into her purse without him noticing and tap 911 on her phone.

But then his eyes lasered back to her.

“Over there,” he said, cocking his head toward the island that separated the kitchen from the rest of the living space. “Let’s sit down.” He’d dropped her arm but he was right behind her, his body giving off an energy that urged her on. She made her way to the island and perched on the edge of a stool, just trying to anchor herself in some way. As her feet touched the cross-bar on the lower part, she realized her legs were trembling. Get control, she told herself. She had to figure out what he wanted and tell him enough to make him leave.

“Now, give me your phone,” X said, as if he’d read her mind seconds ago. She fumbled in her purse for it and handed it over to him. As he thrust the phone in his jacket pocket, she saw that his scruff was fuller. And he looked weary. He was probably on the run, frenzied. The trick would be for her to play this as shrewdly as possible, to do nothing to add to his feeling of desperation.

“Is it information you want?” she asked. “Is that it? Please, just tell me.”

His eyes narrowed again, this time quizzically.

“No, I don’t want information,” he said. “What I want is my pen.”

“Your
pen
?” His request seemed utterly ludicrous, as if he’d forced his way into her apartment and demanded her recipe for spinach frittata. And then, she could sense a memory beginning to surface, like something coming loose from a tangle of weeds at the bottom of a pond. His room at the hotel. While he was hunting down ice, she’d checked out his pen, held it next to the one her father had given her.

“You mean the Mont Blanc pen? On the desk in your hotel room?”

“Yes, exactly,” he snapped angrily. “And I want to know why you took it.”

“I admit—I saw it there. But I didn’t take it.”

He took a half step closer to her, making her breath quicken.

“Don’t lie to me. You took it and left another one in its place.”

She looked off, desperately thinking. Had she accidentally switched her pen with his when she’d dropped things to the floor? But the pens had been near identical. How would he have even known? And why in the world would he care?

“Uh, I picked up your pen when you left the room. I have one, too, just like it, and I had mine in my hand. Maybe—maybe I mixed them up by mistake.”

He scoffed. “You just happened to be carrying a Mont Blanc fountain pen around?”

“Yes, I swear.”

Quickly, she reached into her purse. She had the pen in there, nestled somewhere at the bottom. If she turned it over to him, maybe he would leave and never come back.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Showing you.” She fished through her purse until her fingers lighted on the pen. Why, she wondered again, was it so freaking important to him?

“Here,” she said, thrusting it toward him.

He took the pen, his fingers grazing hers. It was hard to believe that the same hand touched her days ago, making her ache with longing. How could she have been so wrong about him?

For a moment X just stared at the pen. Then, grasping both ends, he tugged until it came apart in two.

Shocked, Kit saw that it wasn’t a pen at all—or at least on the inside it wasn’t. There was a flash drive where the cartridge
should have been. So he
had
broken into her apartment—and snatched the flash drive in her drawer. He’d been looking for the one she’d mistakenly switched with hers. Maybe he used it to keep track of identity data he stole from people.

“So that’s what I’m supposed to buy?” X said, as he thrust the pen back together. “That you picked up my pen out of pure curiosity and accidentally switched it with yours?”

The truth finally hit her. He thought she had targeted
him
, that she was some kind of con artist herself, and had been after his stash of information. Oh, that was rich, she thought, anger suddenly overriding her fear. The grifter who’d put her through hell over the past few weeks was accusing her of being no better than him.

“You can’t honestly believe that I accepted your dinner invitation so you’d ask me back to your room and I could steal your secret pen? And if I
had
stolen it, why would I show up for a second date with you?”

“Then what you’re saying is that you’re just a run-of-the-mill busybody?” he said, practically sneering.

“Call it whatever you want. But if you
mus
t know, I—I was just struck by the fact that I had the same pen as yours and I took mine out to compare it. Stupidly, I . . .” She let the words trail off.

“What?”

“Stupidly I thought it meant that there was some kind of—I don’t know—connection between the two of us.”

He raised his chin, studying her, weighing her words.

“You don’t look like the type of girl who would bother with a fancy fountain pen,” he said coolly.

She hated the thought of sharing anything personal with him, but she needed him to believe her. That might be the only way to get him to go. “It was a present from my father, years ago. I almost never use it, but I always keep it with me.”

She saw his shoulders release, as if he’d lowered his guard a hair.

“And what about
my
pen?” she asked. Maybe she was crazy to ask, to rock the boat in any way, but she wanted it back.

“We’ll have to see about that.” He glanced toward the kitchen area behind him. “What have you got to drink around here, in the way of booze?”

Oh no, she thought. This wasn’t over. He had the flash drive, but he wasn’t budging.

“Nothing really.”

“
Nothing
?”

“Just some white wine—in the fridge. But, please, you have what you want. Can’t you just leave now?”

“In a minute.”

Did he mean it? And would he go without hurting her? She knew more about him now, knew that he was in New York, knew where he stored his information. Surely he would realize she’d share all of it with the cops the moment he departed.

He stepped toward the refrigerator, yanked open the door, and scanned the inside. Then he tugged the bottle of Pinot Grigio from a pocket on the door.

“Corkscrew?” he asked.

“In that drawer,” she said, nodding toward it.

He popped out the cork, drew two glasses from the cabinet, and splashed wine into each. Her anger surged back.

“I don’t want any wine,” she said.

“Well, I hope you don’t mind if I do. It’s been a tough couple of weeks.”

“Would it matter if I minded?” she asked, her voice tinged with resentment. “You thought nothing of taking all my other stuff.”

His expression darkened.

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

“What do you
think
I mean? Friday night. When you broke in here.”

“Are you saying you were burglarized?”

“I’m not a fool. I know it was you. And it wasn’t the first time. You snuck around in here a week ago as well, didn’t you?”

“It wasn’t me. I’ve never been inside this place before now.” He swung his gaze around the room, as if the walls could tell him something. “What did they take? I need to know.”

“Jewelry, some frames. My laptop. And a flash drive.”

“Shit,” he said. He fisted one hand and tapped it into his other palm a few times. “They were after
this
flash drive.”

Did he have competitors or enemies? she wondered. How would they know she had the pen?

“Are you suggesting that the person who broke in thinks I’m in cahoots with you?” she asked.

He took a long drink of wine, and she could sense his mind racing.

“I’m not sure what’s going on,” he said eventually. “Someone may have seen us together in Islamorada and thought you knew something. Or—the night you went to Matt Healy’s apartment, is there a chance you were being followed?”

Her stomach clutched at the mere mention of Healy’s name. X might be back in New York now, but as far as she knew, he could have been in Florida last weekend and run Healy down with his car.