The Wrong Man: A Novel of Suspense (3 page)

“Where’s Dara?” Kit asked, referring to their assistant.

“I had her run to the D&D building, and she’s going home from there.”

“Don’t stay late on my account, Baby. We can do a real catch-up tomorrow, and I’ll go through paperwork tonight.”

The next few days rushed by. Kit spent a good chunk of her time on site at a Greenwich Village apartment she was decorating, checking on the paint job the contractors were doing in the study. It ended up perfect, a gorgeous, gleaming shade of aubergine. When the clients, the Griggses, saw the final results on Thursday they were agog. Kit felt both thrilled and relieved. The wife, Layla, had turned out to be a fussbudget, and Kit had been micromanaging the project even more intensely than normal.

But she knew there was another reason for her good mood. Her dinner with Matt Healy was just hours away. She felt herself craving both his company and his touch.

She chose a pale gray jersey dress for the night, one that was loose fitting, but clung in the right places. And she picked the sexiest bra and panties she owned.

She treated herself to a cab uptown so she wouldn’t feel frazzled. The building turned out to be a high-rise luxury, not far
from Lincoln Center. She gave Matt’s name to the concierge and he nodded, lifting the intercom phone out of its cradle.

“Is he expecting you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. She felt a rush of nervous excitement.

Before the concierge could buzz the apartment, a woman interrupted, asking about a package delivery.

“18C,” the concierge told Kit, confirming what she already knew. “I’ll tell him you’re on the way up.” Then he redirected his attention back to the other woman.

Kit rode the elevator to eighteen, feeling her pulse rate accelerate. “
Easy
, girl,” she told herself. “You don’t want to be foaming at the mouth when you arrive.” After finding the right apartment, she pressed the buzzer. The door began to swing open and she smiled expectantly.

But the man standing on the other side of the threshold wasn’t Matt. Kit’s eyes darted toward the number on the door. Yes, this was C. Had she heard the letter incorrectly?

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m looking for Matt Healy. I must have the wrong apartment.”

“Well, I’m Matt Healy,” the man said. “Who are you?”

chapter 2
 

For a moment she couldn’t process what he’d just said. Instead, as she stared at the man’s unfamiliar features, other phrases kept tumbling through her brain: wrong apartment, wrong building, wrong street, wrong day, wrong
something
.

But then, finally, his words computed: “
I’m Matt Healy.

So where was the other Matt Healy? The one who was supposed to be serving her chili or stir-fry or whatever guys whipped up when they invited you for dinner? It felt as if she’d accidentally exited a building from a different door than the one she’d entered and was on the wrong street now, momentarily discombobulated.

“I—I don’t understand,” Kit stammered. “Is this some kind of joke?”

He smiled. Pleasant seeming, not acting at all cagey. For the first time, she really took in his appearance. Nice enough looking. Strawberry-blond hair. Blue eyes. He was dressed casually, in an untucked, long-sleeved dress shirt and a pair of brown cords, but he exuded a buttoned-up vibe. Lawyer/banker type.

“Well, not a joke
I’m
playing,” he said. “Why exactly are you here?”

“To see a man I know named Matt Healy. We had plans.”

He shrugged. “Like I said, I’m Healy and I don’t believe we’ve ever met.”

“But the doorman,” she said, really flummoxed now. “He—he told me to go right up.”

“Yeah, I know. He rang to say someone named Kit was on the way up. I said I wasn’t expecting anyone but by that time you’d hopped on the elevator. I figured he got the name wrong, and it was probably a friend of mine dropping by to say hi.”

Instinctively, she bit her lip, trying to think, trying to make sense of the rabbit hole she seemed to have fallen down. Maybe, by a freakish chance, there were two guys named Matt Healy in the building. But this was the apartment number Matt had given her. A revelation fought its way across a threshold in her mind. Had she been
played
? Tricked for some reason she didn’t understand?

“Look,” the guy said, “maybe there’s an explanation. Do you want to come in for a minute and we’ll try to sort it out?”

Down the long hall, the drone of a TV leaked beneath the door of another apartment but that was the only sound. No, she certainly didn’t want to come in.

Shaking her head, she wondered what to do next. Her confusion began to morph into anger. If the man she’d had dinner with hadn’t wanted to see her again, why set up this whole charade tonight?

The guy flipped over a hand in a kind of “I’m-as-stumped-as-you-are” gesture.

“I’m sure this isn’t any fun for you,” he said, “but let me at least help. I bet there’s more than one Matt Healy in New York. How did you get the address?”

“From him. We met in Florida a few days ago and he invited me for dinner.”

He took a slow breath and brought his hands to his mouth steeple style, holding them there. She wondered if he might be amused by her predicament, but his expression was intense and a couple of seconds later he raised an eyebrow in alarm.

“Oh God, I think I know what’s going on,” he said. “A week or so ago, someone robbed me. I mean, they stole my wallet. I cancelled my credit cards but the thief would still have my license, which of course has my address on it.”

It felt as if someone had kicked her legs out from under her. Did this mean that the man she’d slept with was a thief? She could see him clearly in her mind’s eye. Confident, self-possessed, a bit mysterious. But no way had there been a hint of anything
criminal.

“I really should go,” she said. She wanted to get as far away as possible from apartment 18C.

“No, wait.” The guy’s voice was almost pleading. “I can understand why you don’t want to come in. For all you know I’ve got the real Matt Healy hogtied in here. But I don’t and I really need to hear more details from you. This guy may have stolen my identity. Would you be willing to go someplace public with me? There’s a little bar a few doors down from the building.”

“Okay,” she said finally. Though the idea had nada appeal for her, it seemed unfair not to help him.

“Let me just grab my jacket,” he said.

“I’ll meet you in the lobby,” she told him. She needed a minute alone and a chance to think.

In the elevator, she flopped back against the wall and groaned. Maybe there
was
an explanation. Somewhere the real Matt Healy had to be waiting for her, maybe right this minute popping a cork from a bottle of wine or stirring a stew pot in anticipation of her arrival.

She checked her phone, where she’d programmed Matt’s info when he’d called on her way to the airport. She groaned again as she saw that she was definitely at that address. There was a chance, of course, that she’d taken down the details incorrectly. But it was too huge a coincidence that a building she
ended up in erroneously would have an occupant with the same name in the very same apartment.

What if the guy in the apartment really wasn’t who he claimed to be? An imposter. But about a minute later, when he hurried around the corner from the elevator bank into the lobby, the concierge nodded at him and called out, “Evening, Mr. Healy.”

There seemed little room for doubt now. She’d been hoodwinked.

They stepped outside and Healy—yeah, she had to start thinking of him that way now—gestured toward a building a couple of doors down. As they reached the entrance she saw that it was an Italian restaurant, one of those faux rustic ones with yellow and white checked tablecloths and chairs with woven twine backs. The kind of spot you’d pick for a second date, not where you’d debrief a person about a con artist. There was a small bar, though, and Healy suggested they grab stools there rather than a table.

The bartender greeted him by name, just as the concierge had. Kit realized glumly that unless she was part of some massive Bourne movie kind of conspiracy, the guy sitting next to her
was
who he claimed to be. And the man she’d met five days ago wasn’t. When she’d first encountered him shopping in Islamorada, she’d thought of him as Mr. X, and now he was no more than X again.

Healy asked what she wanted to drink and she told him a cappuccino. She’d briefly considered a glass of wine, just to take the edge off, but she needed a clear head to come to grips with what had happened. He ordered a scotch and water himself and took a quick swig as soon as it arrived.

Healy had seemed unruffled when she’d first shown up on his doorstep, but she could sense his tension now—in the stiffness
of his body, the way he jiggled the plastic straw that had been in his drink.

“I appreciate this,” Healy said. “When I lost my wallet I thought cancelling six credit cards and ordering a new license was the worst of it, but the situation is clearly more complicated. What did this guy tell you he did for a living?”

“That he’d run a tech business but had recently sold it. Is that what you do?”

“No, I’m a portfolio manager at a hedge fund. You said you were in Florida when you met this guy. Where exactly?”

“Islamorada. He was staying at the same hotel I was.”

“And he told you he was headed back here? Did he say when?”

“Today—and he promised to make me dinner.” Of course, the missing meal was hardly the issue. She’d slept with a man, formed a connection with him, and had been hoping for more. And it had all been a sham.

Healy’s body seemed to tense even more.

“Sounds like he might actually still be there, in Islamorada.”

“He said he was going to Miami,” Kit said. “But I guess that might have been a lie, too.”

Yes, maybe it
all
had been a lie. Certainly if he was busy pickpocketing people, he hadn’t recently cashed in on a tech company. But what about the drive south, being a sculptor, the Boho sister in Miami, the girlfriend who’d moved back to Melbourne? It stood to reason that every detail had been make-believe, part of a devious scheme to sound enchanting and lure her into bed.

Healy ran his finger around the rim of the glass, saying nothing for a moment. She was sure he was wondering if she had slept with the guy in Florida and was smarting now from being stood up and made a fool of. Well, she
was
smarting. She felt humiliated.

“When was your wallet stolen?” she asked.

“Uh, about ten days ago, at a party in Dumbo. I had it in the pocket of my sports jacket and I made the mistake of laying the jacket over a chair when the place got hot. An hour later when I went to pay for my cab home, I realized the wallet was missing. The hosts checked around but couldn’t find it. I figured that some unsavory guest had seen me shed the jacket and gone through the pockets.”

“And you cancelled the cards right away?” she asked.

“That night.”

In her mind Kit conjured up the image of X summoning the bill at the hotel restaurant. She was pretty sure he had simply signed so that the dinner was charged to his room. But, of course, he would have needed a card to check into the hotel.

“So, if your cards were cancelled right way, he couldn’t have used one of them to check in,” she said. She wasn’t sure why she was bothering to play Veronica Mars with Healy because all she wanted was to give him the info he needed and beat it out of there.

“Right, but if it’s the same guy and he’s using my name, he’s got some game going on,” Healy said. “Tell me exactly what this dude looked like. There were a lot people I didn’t know that night, but maybe I can place him.”

“Dark reddish hair with a close-cropped beard. Blue eyes. About six one or two.” Describing him only heightened her annoyance. How stupid she’d been.

Healy took another drink. There was a privileged, preppy aura about him, though she couldn’t tell if he came by it naturally or had cultivated it over time. In her work, particularly during the years she’d done stints at two big interior design firms prior to starting her own company, she’d met more than a few people who, after hitting it rich, acquired the trappings of old wealth—not just clothes and Bottega Veneta handbags but signet
rings and clipped, patrician accents—that allowed observers to make grand assumptions about their background.

“I’ve got a favor to ask you,” Healy said suddenly. “Would you be willing to drop by my office tomorrow and talk to our head of security?”

The last thing Kit wanted to do at this point was become part of some manhunt. She didn’t respond immediately and she could tell Healy sensed her reluctance.

“Look, I hate having to involve you in this whole thing,” he added, “but if this guy is posing as me, it could turn into a huge nightmare, and not just for me personally. It could ripple over to my business. I want the firm to be in the loop.”

“I’ve got a pretty full work day,” Kit said truthfully.

“Is there
any
time you could squeeze it in? It’s really important.”

“Well, I guess I could stop by at noon,” she said, realizing she’d feel guilty if she declined. “But let me confirm the time with you.”

“Great, I really appreciate this,” he said.

“What about the police? Don’t they have to be informed about this latest development?”

“Yes, I’ll take care of that and they’ll probably be in touch with you. But let’s talk to my security guy first. Do you have a card?”

Healy seemed credible enough, but still, the whole situation was weird.

“Why don’t you give me
your
card,” she said. “And I’ll call you early tomorrow.”

His expression read worried, worried that she wouldn’t follow through.

“All right,” he said. “I don’t have cards with me but I’ll write down the details.” He asked the bartender for a pen, scribbled his contact info on a cocktail napkin and turned it over to her.
“I know it’s a pain, but I really need your help. This could screw up my life if I don’t deal with it.”

She nodded. She felt sorry for him, though not as sorry as she felt for herself at the moment.

A few minutes later she parted company with Healy on the street. It was drizzling lightly, and she considered taking a cab or Uber home, but she hated blowing another thirty bucks on the night. So she rushed to the subway stop and hopped onto a downtown train, at least securing a seat.

As the train hurtled through the tunnel, she stared down at her lap. Inside she was churning, her feelings all in a big, messy tangle. Anger dominated, running roughshod over everything else. She’d been duped, and the mean, nasty way X had done it infuriated her.

She was furious at herself, too. Not for sleeping with a stranger. She was hardly going to slut shame herself now that it hadn’t worked out in her favor. What she hated was that she’d been such a freaking dummy. After years of dealing with the public, she considered herself to be clever at reading people, at assessing right from the start if a potential client would prove to be high maintenance or need to be massaged a certain way—or even try to stiff her when it came to the final bills.

It was a skill she had actually cultivated, reading books on body language and interpersonal relationships. Her father had been taken advantage of in business when she was seventeen, forcing him to declare bankruptcy and throwing their whole life as a family into a tailspin, and she’d sworn to herself that she’d never be deceived that way.
Ever
.

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