The Wrong Man: A Novel of Suspense (13 page)

“
Followed?
I have no idea.” She added sarcastically, “I guess I was too busy thinking about the night ahead to wonder if I was being tailed.”

“It was never my intention to dupe you, Kit. I just wanted to see you again.”

His expression had softened and his eyes lingered on her face. Careful, she warned herself.

“So you could get your
pen
back?”

“When I called you that Monday morning, I hadn’t realized yet that there’d been a switch. My only intention was to have dinner with you.”

Despite the weariness etched on his face, he was as attractive as she’d remembered. Don’t be stupid, she told herself. She couldn’t let him try to charm her—or con her a second time.

“Why send me to Healy’s? Why play that whole game?”

“It wasn’t a game. I’d been staying with him and I was supposed to be back there by Thursday night.”

She was the one scoffing now. “Oh, please. How gullible do you think I am?”

“Okay, I’ll admit I lied to you about my name and about my background. I never owned a tech business. Until a month ago, I was a portfolio manager at the same firm as Matt. It’s called Ithaka. He and I were friends.”

The words were so improbable it took her a moment to process them.

“So why pretend to be him?” she asked.

“There was a reason for that. Matt knew I was using his name.”

She shook her head in disbelief. If Matt had been X’s friend, why had he claimed his wallet had been stolen? X was surely trying to dupe her all over again, probably so she wouldn’t run to the cops. But maybe, she realized, she should go along, let him think she’d fallen for it. That way he’d feel less threatened by her, by what she knew.

Before she could respond, he clasped her forearm. She flinched at the tightness of his fingers.

“Kit, I need you to believe me,” he said, relaxing his grip.

Crazily enough, she saw a flash of concern in his eyes. Though she knew he might be an even better actor than she’d given him credit for.

“Why?”

He took another slug of wine and set the glass down on the
small island. “Because the stakes are high. Matt Healy is dead. Someone is after me and they may have been after Matt, too. And those same people probably showed up here, looking for the flash drive.”

Could at least part of what he was saying be true? That he
hadn’t
broken into her apartment?

“Who are
they
?” she asked.

He met her eyes again and then he pressed his lips together, momentarily hesitant. She sensed a turn in the action, that something was about to shift.

“I’m in a precarious situation, and it seems I’ve dragged you into it without meaning to,” he said. “I could share more information with you, but you clearly don’t trust me. And I’m still trying to decide if I believe
you
. So the best thing for me to do right now is to split and leave you alone.”

He still seemed to think that she knew more than she did. But at least he was
going
. And from what she could guess, he wasn’t going to harm her.

Turning around, he scrutinized the kitchen countertop and then grabbed a small notepad and a ballpoint pen. He tore off a piece of paper and scribbled down a phone number.

“Here,” he said. “I’m going to do what I can to let it be known that I’ve got the flash drive and you don’t. But if you find yourself in any danger and you want me to help, call me.”

As she accepted the slip of paper, his fingers brushed against her again.

“And just for your information,” he said. “It’s a burn phone, which means it can’t be traced.”

He tugged a black baseball cap from his jacket pocket and secured it on his head. After a final swig of the wine, he took a deep breath and pushed off from the counter, ready to make his way toward the door. He still had her phone, she realized. Was he going to keep it?

Again, he seemed to read her mind.

He wrestled the phone from his pocket and passed it to her.

“Are—are you going to be in New York for a while?” she asked. She wasn’t sure why she needed to know. And she doubted he’d tell her the truth anyway.

“Like I said, Kit, we’ve got trust issues. So why don’t I just keep that to myself. If you decide you’re willing to trust me, you know how to reach me. But I’ll know from your voice if you’ve got the cops waiting.”

She stared at him, at a loss for words.

He turned and strode toward the front door, leaving her standing by the island. Reaching for the handle, he glanced back at her. Even with the brim of the hat pulled low, his eyes found hers and held them.

“By the way,” he said. “My name is Garrett Kelman. And just for the record, I felt it, too.”

And then he was gone. She rushed toward the door and pressed her ear against it, listening. Footsteps moving away. Then nothing. Kit quickly positioned the door bolts into the floor and ceiling, and hung the alarm on the handle.

Her legs had stopped their awful trembling, and yet she could still feel a faint reverberation in them, like a guitar string plucked moments before. She moved back to the island and took two quick gulps from the glass of wine that X had poured for her. Her thoughts and feelings—fear, anger, relief, confusion—seemed flung about in a crazy mess. She wanted to accept what he’d told her, wanted to believe that he hadn’t killed Healy. But as far as she knew, he’d simply spun her a whole new set of lies because the moment had called for them.

She grabbed her phone. She needed to call O’Callaghan. But even as part of her brain was commanding her to do that, another part resisted with an almost magnetic force. What would she say to him exactly? “You know that man I told you I had
dinner with in Florida? The man with the phony name who I said might have burglarized my apartment? Well, he came to see me. To get his
pen
. Which I took from his hotel room. Oh, and he says he didn’t break into my place.”

She’d sound like a total nut job. The Miami police would think so, too. They might even be suspicious of her, wondering what she was up to, weaving all these cloak and dagger tales together.

And what if, just
what if
, X had been telling the truth.

She grabbed her new laptop from the bedroom and carried it to the island. With her fingers racing, she typed Garrett Kelman, Ithaka, into the search bar. A handful of links popped up, most from within the past two years. But just because the name existed, it didn’t mean it belonged to X.

The first couple of links were to databases of business people, what a prospective client or employer might use to verify contact info. One listed a Garrett Kelman as an employee of Ithaka, though it appeared to be a dated entry. No photo. The third link was to an article in
Institutional Investor
. A Garrett Kelman was quoted in it. But no photo there either.

The last link was to a society website, one she’d actually checked out a few times when tracking down info on potential clients. It was always loaded with party pictures. She held her breath and clicked.

And then there he was. X. Standing with four or five other people on a wraparound terrace. Dressed in a navy blazer and gray pants. Looking relaxed and smiling broadly. So different than how he’d been today. But it was definitely him.

According to the caption, the event was a fund-raiser for a charity, with Ithaka as one of the sponsors. And then there was his name: Garrett Kelman.

Okay, he wasn’t lying this time, at least about his name and where he’d worked. But what about all the rest? If he’d been
using Healy’s name for some crazy reason that the two men had agreed on, it made no sense that Healy would insist that he was being impersonated by a thief and then have her spill the whole story to Ungaro. And surely based on her description of the Florida mystery man, Ungaro might have guessed she was describing a former employee. Or Healy may have even told him.

Other questions followed. What was on the flash drive masquerading as a pen? What kind of “precarious situation” was X involved in? And most important, who were
they
? Even if X left her alone from now on or she turned him in to the police,
they
would still pose a danger.

She wondered briefly if Sasha might shed any light on things. She could call and try to nudge her into rescheduling their appointment. But Sasha had her antenna up big time, and would have her suspicions aroused if Kit suddenly tossed out the name of a former colleague, particularly one who might have left under suspicious circumstances.

Kit glanced at her watch. On Sundays she often made pasta for herself, but she had little appetite tonight. Besides, cooking would entail running out for groceries and she’d worry that
they
were out there, the people X had alluded to. They might be watching her the way X had clearly been, and even worse, planning to hack their way back into her apartment now that they’d discovered that the stolen flash drive wasn’t the one they’d been searching for. And there might be no appeasing
them
with a glass of Pinot Grigio.

Damn, she thought, clenching her fists. She had to figure out who they were and what was really going on. Only once she’d done so could she go to the police with real information and not just vague references to a mystery man.

She splashed more wine into her glass and took another sip. As she set the glass down, her fingers grazed the edge of the
glass X had used. Next to it lay the slip of paper on which he’d scribbled the number for his burn phone.

Which version of him was she supposed to buy? Garrett Kelman, a con artist who’d tricked her in Florida, forced his way into her home to obtain what he wanted, possibly murdered a man, and was now trying to trick her with a new, improved version of himself?

Or Garrett Kelman, not a criminal mastermind at all, just a man who had unintentionally drawn her into harm’s way and was now offering information of value if she’d only “trust” him? She hadn’t a clue.

She thought of the words he’d said as he’d departed: “And just for the record, I felt it, too.” There was no denying that she’d experienced an electric jolt at that moment, and some part of her wanted the Florida fantasy back, might always yearn for it, but as far as she knew, the man she’d been attracted to two weeks ago was nothing more than a phantom.

She covered her mouth and breathed into her hand. Inside she was churning.

I have to call that number, she thought. I have to talk to him again. The idea of another encounter with X frightened her—he hadn’t hurt her this time, but there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t in the future.

And yet she knew it was the only way to lay her hands on the information she needed. It was the only way to ultimately escape the danger she was in.

So much, she thought again, for no strings attached.

That night she hardly slept. She jerked awake every hour or so, startled, as if roused by a sound that was out of place. Each time she lay in the twisted sheets straining to hear, wondering if X had returned and was creeping around her apartment. She told herself that he couldn’t be, that the door alarm would have begun to shriek.

After waking again just before six, it was clear to her there was no chance of falling back to sleep. She made coffee and sat at the island, replaying her encounter with X. She still didn’t know what version of the man she was supposed to believe.

What she
did
know was that over the past few days she’d fallen behind in her work and she needed to snap into gear. Of course, this would require faking it around clients, pretending that life was perfectly peachy when the world really seemed to be spinning off its axis.

She showered, dressed, and, yogurt in hand, let herself into the office. Outside on Elizabeth Street, a vehicle rumbled along the pavement, probably a van making an early morning delivery to a local shop, but that, and the hum of the refrigerator in the galley kitchen, were the only sounds. Everything seemed normal. Except it wasn’t, of course.

She texted the contractor at the Greenwich Village apartment
and told him she would be stopping by late that afternoon to do a check on the work. Originally she had planned to pop in there on Saturday or Sunday, but that was before people had wreaked havoc in her life.

Next she emailed her client Barry Kaplan, the fifty-something bachelor who she’d mostly ignored for the past couple of weeks. She wanted to do good by him. His wife had filed for divorce the moment the last kid was out of college, and he still seemed shell-shocked from the break-up. But Kit’s mind had been in such a muddle lately, she hadn’t been able to come up with a concept for his apartment. She informed him that she was still pulling thoughts together but hoped to have a proposal for him shortly.

Then there was Keith Holt. That would be a rewarding job, both creatively and financially. She emailed him a letter of agreement and reminded him to begin collecting tear sheets and pictures. “Don’t overthink it,” she told him. “Just pick images that grab you instantly.”

Finally, at around eight, she turned her attention to the Avery Howe project. She’d already managed to pull together ideas for furniture, but she had yet to make a dent in fabric selection. She started searching fabric houses online, hunting for material in bleached blues and yellows, as well as subtle prints. As soon as Baby and Dara arrived, she would head uptown to pull swatches.

Though a dread of slipping behind had managed to keep her focused on her work for an hour or so, Kit’s thoughts eventually found their way back to Kelman. The choice was obvious. She
had
to meet with him, and she needed to make the call today. Right now he seemed willing to communicate with her but that could change, particularly with him on the run, and she couldn’t allow the opportunity to escape.

If only she could validate more of what he had told her
yesterday. Yes, he was Garrett Kelman, but had he really been Healy’s friend? She wondered if there was any way of proving that. Knowing he’d told the truth about his relationship with Healy would ease her fears a little. It would reduce the likelihood in her mind that Kelman had mowed Healy down with his car.

An idea started to take shape. Healy’s building had a concierge, and if she handled it shrewdly, she might be able to extract from him whether X had stayed at the apartment. She didn’t even have to double-check the address. It was still etched in her brain. She decided that as soon as she collected fabric samples, she would swing by the building and try to elicit the information from the concierge.

At just after nine, a key twisted in the lock to the office door. Even though she knew it was either Baby or Dara, Kit still jumped at the sound. A moment later, Baby stepped into the office. Her expression, until she spotted Kit at her desk, was hesitant, wary, as if she was on guard for the worst.

“Morning,” Kit said, smiling. She didn’t think she’d ever been happier to set eyes on Baby.

“You okay?” Baby asked, dropping her spring coat onto one of the wrought iron pegs in the entranceway. “I was barely able to sleep thinking about you all alone here.”

“I’m hanging in there.”

As Baby entered the main part of the office, she caught sight of the door alarm, which Kit had removed earlier and set on a small table.

“Oh goodness, so this is your fancy new alarm system?”

“Yup, pretty impressive, right? Maybe they should try using these at the White House.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come back to my place?”

“I appreciate the offer, Baby, but I think I’m okay for now. But there
is
a new development I want to share with you.” Kit had decided last night that as much as she hated burdening Baby, she
needed to loop her in about Garrett Kelman’s visit. “Why don’t you make your cappuccino, get settled, and then I’ll fill you in.”

Baby raised one of her perfectly arched blond eyebrows, both curious and concerned. “I’ll make my cappuccino,” she said. “But I’ll be damned if I’m settling in before I hear what’s going on.”

She returned from the kitchenette two minutes later and plopped into the chair by Kit’s desk.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been playing Nancy Drew after you promised me you wouldn’t.”

“A little bit, but that’s not the big news.”

Haltingly, she described her encounter with X. Baby listened, stunned, one hand on her chest.

“Dear God,” Baby said when Kit finished. “You’ve called the police, of course.”

Kit bit her lip.

“No, I haven’t,” she said. She raised a hand. “But before you’re tempted to beat me with a rubber hose, hear me out. If I talk to the cops again, there’s nothing concrete I can really report. So they could end up deciding I’m a bit of a nut job, the way I keep blabbering about this mythical man that only I get to see—like Big Foot or something. Plus, I’d have to admit that I took his pen. It was an innocent mistake, but it could sound suspicious and make the cops wonder what I’m really up to, if I’m trying to throw Kelman under the bus to protect myself. And if they start looking into me, it could impact our business.”

“Then what
do
you do?”

“I’m thinking that the best strategy is for me to learn more about what’s really going on so I have credible information to share with the cops. And the way to do that is to convince this Garrett Kelman that I trust him.”

“But that sounds so dangerous, Kit. The man forced his way into your home last night.”

“But in the end he didn’t hurt me—or even threaten me.
And I need to get ahead of this. I’m worried that if I don’t, the people who broke in will come back for the flash drive. They’ve surely discovered by now that the one they took has nothing but photos of leather club chairs and a bed with a nail-headed upholstered headboard.”

“Wait, I thought you assumed Kelman had broken in.”

“I’m not so sure now. When he stepped through the door, he seemed to be taking it all in, like it was his first time there, and when I told him about the burglary, he looked alarmed. Besides, he knew that flash drive was in the pen, so why steal the random one in my drawer?”

“Kit, you know I think you have good instincts, but I don’t like this. The man could be lying all over again.”

“I know. But like I told you, some of what he shared last night turned out to be true. And I’m not going to reach out to Kelman until I’ve investigated him further. There’s more research I plan to do this afternoon.”

For a moment Baby said nothing, just tapped her gleaming pink nails in a nervous dance on the desktop.

“I had a colleague named Garrett once,” she said finally, arching a brow again. “British. He claimed the name meant ‘he who rules with a big spear.’ That’s not what this is about, is it?”

Kit snorted, and then broke into a smile.

“He didn’t seem to have a weapon on him last night, and in regard to that other spear you may or may not be referring to, my lips are sealed.”

Baby offered a grim smile back.

“Just promise me that if you sense any danger whatsoever, you’ll call the police. And if you don’t, I will.”

“Got it. You’d mentioned yesterday that you were going to be here most of the day. Is that still your plan? Because I need to go out for a while, and I don’t want to leave Dara alone.”

“Yes, that works for me. Plus, I have a potential client stopping
by this morning, someone renovating a boutique hotel here in New York. Could be a nice piece of business that we’d work on together. I also want to field any calls that might come in today from clients concerned about their credit card information.”

“Any fallout from that?” Kit asked, sensing now that there had been.

“A bit, but I didn’t want to tell you last night before you went to bed. I emailed all the active clients, the ones who we’ve kept the card numbers for, and I told them to contact me with any questions. Several people called back, two in a tizzy, and one of those was your Greenwich Village client, Layla Griggs. She wasn’t pleased about the idea of having to apply for a new card.”

Kit felt fear tug at her, like an undertow. This whole crazy mess wasn’t going to stay contained to her personal life. It was engulfing her work, too, sabotaging her relationship with clients. She had to
fix
it.

“From the little I learned last night, the person or people who broke in weren’t looking for client info after all,” she told Baby. “Can you convey that to clients even if they’ve already cancelled their cards?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll put out any fires. And what do these people expect anyway? If everybody from the NSA to Sony Pictures can get hacked, we’re hardly immune.”

Dara arrived a few minutes later, dressed for spring in a lemon-yellow top, but beneath the warm hello she offered, her mood seemed subdued. She’s scared, Kit thought. And not only because the office had been broken into. Dara clearly knew there was more to the story than she was being told.

Midmorning Kit grabbed her trench coat, bid her colleagues goodbye, and headed out. She took the subway uptown and for several hours prowled the D&D building, searching for fabrics with the most intense focus she could summon. She pulled
about thirty samples and planned to whittle the selection down even more once she returned to the office.

With the swatches stuffed in her tote bag, she emerged from the building just before two. She scanned the surrounding area, searching for anyone not in motion, who might be standing there appearing aimless but with a secret agenda. She couldn’t ignore the comment X had made, that someone might have followed her to Healy’s, and she couldn’t take any chances now. She darted across Third Avenue and, making sure no one seemed to be watching, flagged down a taxi. As the car headed west, eventually crossing Central Park, she glanced behind her several times, making sure the same car wasn’t always on their tail.

After alighting in front of Healy’s building, she drew a compact from her purse, along with a lipstick. She touched up her makeup and smoothed her hair into place. She also mentally reviewed what she planned to say to the concierge.

As she dropped the makeup back into her purse, her phone sounded. Glancing at the screen, she saw that the call was from Detective O’Callaghan—she’d programmed his number into her phone on Friday night. Though he was most likely returning her call, the sight of his name flustered her.

“Sorry not to be back to you sooner,” he said once she’d answered. “I was off this weekend. What can I do for you?”

“I was just checking in,” she said, trying to buy a sliver of time to think. As she’d told Baby, she wasn’t going to reveal X’s visit, but she wondered if she should at least tell O’Callaghan what she’d originally planned to, that a flash drive was missing from her desk drawer. No, she decided. It would be better to wait until she had more facts. “I wondered if you had any leads yet.”

“Unfortunately I don’t. Your two colleagues came by the precinct to be fingerprinted, and we were able to eliminate theirs as well as your own from the apartment and office. Unfortunately, it appears that the perpetrator wore gloves.”

“Well, you’ll let me know, though? I mean, if you do hear anything?”

“Of course. There is one interesting detail I wanted to discuss with you.”

Her heart skipped. Could the man possibly intuit over the phone that she was holding out on him?

“Okay.”

“Since the perp wore gloves, we found smear marks in certain areas of your apartment. But there were also a fair amount of them in your office. It seems like he spent more time in there than met the eye.”

“Oh,” she said, holding her breath. “That’s interesting.”

“Any idea what he might have been looking for?”

“Uh, petty cash maybe. I didn’t look super closely in there because, other than my laptop, very little seemed disturbed. But I’ll check again.”

“Please do. If you notice anything else is missing, it’s important to let us know,” he said.

“Oh, I will for sure,” she said, sounding too rushed, she realized. “Thanks again for calling.”

After O’Callaghan had disconnected, Kit stood on the sidewalk in a patch of muted April sunlight, wondering just how stupid it had been to withhold information from a detective. At least she’d given herself an out. Depending on what happened, she could always pretend she’d done a second search later and had made a discovery then about the flash drive.