While she drew herself a bath, she listened to her messages. She’d been checking them periodically while away. There were four new ones. The first three were work-related, bitchy clients. The final one was from Brian Stewart, her first-class companion to Boston, the Brad Pitt look-alike.
The message was short and sweet, the kind she liked. Brian expressed how much he enjoyed meeting her and how he looked forward to seeing her again. “I should be back in the city by the end of the week and I’d love to take you out for a night on the town. It’ll be fun, I promise.”
If you insist, Brian.
Nora took her hot bath. Afterward, she ordered in Chinese and sorted through her mail. Before the eleven o’clock news ended, she was sound asleep on the couch, sleeping like a baby. And she slept late.
Just before noon the next day, Nora strolled into Hargrove & Sons on the Upper East Side. Personally, she thought the place was beyond stuffy, with many of the sales staff seemingly older than the antiques they were peddling. But the store was a favorite of her client, longtime film producer Dale Minton, and he had insisted on meeting her there.
Nora browsed on her own for a few minutes. After walking by yet another plaid sofa, she felt a tap on her shoulder.
“It is you, Olivia!”
The overly excited man standing before her was Steven Keppler—middle-aged, midtown tax attorney with a bad comb-over.
“Uh… hi,” said Nora. She quickly flipped through her mental Rolodex and came up with his name. “How are you, Steven?”
“I’m great, Olivia. You know, I was calling out your name. You didn’t hear me?”
She played it cool. “Oh, that’s so typical of me. The more I shop, the less I can hear what’s going on around me.”
Steven laughed and let it go. As he launched into his “fancy meeting you here” small talk, Nora remembered his ogling tendencies. How could she forget? Sure enough, his eyes were beginning to drool. Do eyes drool? Well, Keppler’s did. Meanwhile, she was keeping one eye on the entrance for Dale. This could be a disaster in the making.
“So, Olivia, are you shopping for yourself, or a client?” asked Steven.
“A client,” she said, looking at her watch.
That’s when she saw him. Dale Minton was waltzing through the front door that very second, looking as if he owned the place. He certainly could have, if he wanted to.
“Oh, there he is now,” she said. She tried not to panic, but the image of Dale calling her Nora with Steven looking on, and vice versa, was fraying her nerves.
“I’ll let you do your business,” he said. “Just promise me I can take you out to dinner sometime.” The guy certainly was an opportunist. He knew what she knew, that yes was a much quicker answer. No would’ve required making an excuse.
“Yes,” said Nora. “That would be nice. Call me.”
“I will. I’m on vacation beginning next week, but when I get back, I’m going to hold you to that promise.”
Steven Keppler turned to go with Dale still a few feet away. It was close, but she dodged a bullet. Then…
“It was good seeing you, Olivia,” called Steven loudly.
Nora gave him a weak smile and glanced at Dale, who looked thoroughly confused. “Did that man just call you Olivia?” he asked.
Nora prayed to the goddess of quick thinking. She delivered. Nora leaned into Dale with a whisper. “I met him at a party a few months back. I told him I was Olivia—for obvious reasons.”
Dale nodded, no longer confused, and Nora smiled. Her two lives remained safely apart.
For now, anyway.
Chapter 47
A BLOND WOMAN drifted from one piece of old furniture to another, her eyes shielded by a pair of dark sunglasses. She was playing detective and feeling slightly ridiculous, to tell the truth. But she needed to watch Nora Sinclair.
Had this been anywhere but New York, she would’ve stood out. But this was the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Here, she blended in. Simply another browsing customer at Hargrove & Sons.
The blonde stopped at an oak hallstand with shiny brass hooks and pretended to look at the price. Her eyes and ears remained fixed on Nora.
Or was it Olivia Sinclair?
She didn’t know what to make of the exchange with the balding guy. Anyone who answers to two names is probably guilty of something.
She continued to watch Nora—now joined by an older man. Just to be careful, she wandered away from them a couple of times. Still, she managed to overhear some of the conversation.
The older man was a client. Accordingly, Nora was actually an interior decorator. Her comments and suggestions, the jargon—she definitely knew how to talk the talk.
Nora’s profession was never really in doubt, though. It was the rest of her life that was in question. Her two lives, her secrets. But there was no proof of anything yet. Which was why the blond woman had decided to have a look-see for herself.
“Excuse me, do you need any help? May I be of assistance in any way?”
The blonde turned to see an elderly sales clerk hovering close behind. He was wearing a bow tie, a tweed jacket, wire-rimmed eyeglasses that looked as old as he was.
“No, thank you,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “I’m just looking. But I don’t see anything I like.”
Chapter 48
AFTER I LOST Nora up in Boston that Saturday, the rest of the weekend could be summed up in one word: shitty.
On my list of spontaneous dumb things to do, squaring off with a rental-car window scored pretty high. Thankfully, I hadn’t broken my hand, at least according to my extensive medical self-evaluation. The epitome of rigor, it consisted of one question: Can you still move your fingers, you idiot?
When Monday morning finally rolled around, I swung by Connor Brown’s house to see if Nora had returned. She hadn’t. After making the same trip, with the same result, in the late afternoon, I decided it was time to try her cell phone.
I took out my notepad, where I’d written the number Nora had given me, and dialed from my car.
A man answered.
“I’m sorry, I may have the wrong number,” I said. “I was trying to reach Nora Sinclair.”
He didn’t know anyone by that name.
I hung up and checked my notepad against the log my cell phone kept of outgoing calls. Nope. I’d definitely dialed the right number. It just wasn’t Nora’s.
Huh.
I stared at my steering wheel for a moment before grabbing the phone again and dialing. This time a young, pleasant-sounding female voice.
“Good morning, Centennial One Life Insurance.”
“Very convincing, Molly,” I said.
“Really?”
“Absolutely. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had a nail file in your hand.”
Molly was my new receptionist. After Nora followed me to work, it was decided that the “field office” could no longer be a one-man operation.
“Do me a favor, will you?” I asked. “Run a cell phone check on Nora.”
“The number’s not already in her folder?”
“It may be, but I want to make sure she hasn’t changed it recently.”
“Okay. Give me ten minutes.”
“I’ll give you five.”
“Is that any way to treat your new receptionist?”
“You’re right,” I said. “Make it four minutes.”
“No fair.”
“Tick, tick, tick…”
Molly had been out of school for only two years. While still a little green, according to Susan, and prone to the occasional lapse in judgment, she was proving to be a quick study. No surprise then when she called me back in three minutes.