Hailey grabbed a sheet of paper and plucked keys from her desk. “The market’s tight right now, but we’ve got twenty-three units available. Mostly one-bedrooms, but there’s a couple of twos, plus a three, coming up next month. How much are you looking to spend?”
“Whatever gets the best value. Can you just print out the list, and we’ll think about it?”
“You really ought to see them.” Hailey rose. “Pictures and floor plans just don’t do them justice.”
Two hours later, I’d seen enough cute kitchens, cozy lofts, and charming breakfast nooks for a lifetime. And we’d only actually seen half the units on the list. But at least we now had the list. Only four floors were full-up: the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, and twenty-fourth. If Larch was right, Cora had to be on one of them.
Back in the lobby, I tried to park Denise and Laurel in the Starbucks. “This shouldn’t take any more than ten minutes,” I said. “If I’m not back in twenty…”
“I’m going with you,” Denise said.
I glanced around. I hadn’t seen any insects, and Jerret would have trouble monitoring the lobby, even if he tried. Buildings like this had a lot of transmission-blocking steel, and it was too cold to put bugs outside for an external transmission relay. Still, there was no use taking unnecessary risks.
“You’re right. Let’s get a real lunch.”
“That’s not—”
But I had a hand on her elbow, ostensibly to steer her out the door, but actually giving it a little squeeze. A private signal. Shhh. I’ll explain later.
I’d done it automatically, without conscious thought. If I’d thought first, I’d have expected her to slap my hand away. Instead, she turned without resistance. “Okay.”
I glanced at her, stunned by the instant, familiar communication. Realized that in all those years, I’d never even thought about another woman. Realized I’d just assumed the absence of a new ring on her finger, too.
“I know,” she said. “But not now.”
Outside, wasn’t the right time, either.
“I’m going up with you,” Denise repeated.
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Why? She’s my daughter too.”
I looked at Laurel for support, but she’d been oddly silent ever since the Starbucks.
“Because he might recognize you.”
“Jerret? I don’t think I met him more than a time or two, and only in passing. He’s more likely to recognize you.”
“Hopefully not.” But that had always been a risk. We had to find the right floor, and the only way to do that was to go up the elevator, with no real excuse for stopping at Perkins’ floor. I was just hoping enough people pushed the wrong button each day for it not to be suspicious. At least Jerret wouldn’t have bugs in the elevator—way too much metal for that to have even a chance of working—but I wouldn’t put it past Perkins to have tapped into the security cams.
I’d thought about that earlier, but it was a big building and we hadn’t been doing anything out of the ordinary. Now, I reached into my bag and presented three of my Rite Aid purchases: sunglasses, a Chicago Bulls jacket two sizes too big, a matching baseball cap, and wrap-around sunglasses that came to weird, streamlined points at each temple. For good measure, I was also thirty-plus hours unshaven.
“How do I look?”
Denise hesitated. “Different. I’d walk right by you on the street, that’s for sure.”
Laurel snorted. “More like cross the street to avoid you. You look like hell on a hangover.”
I stopped mid-stride and stared at her. I hadn’t really been all that afraid Jerret would recognize me by sight. If he felt anywhere at all like I had with Laurel’s bugs, he’d be far more tied into his swarm than into any other sense. The disguise had been for me: to help quell doubts, so I could flatten my emotional state when I met his bugs. Because what I was really afraid of was the emotional read.
I started to explain all that to Denise… but instead I looked again at Laurel. Short, dark hair curling around her ears. Tailored suit, skirt short enough to show toned legs, but long enough to say not-for-you. A woman who belonged in a place like this. Denise fit in, too: softer, more feminine despite the age difference, comfortable in her own skin but aware that first impressions can be everything.
This type of place wasn’t me and never would be. Maybe I was going at this backward.
Another trip to the Rite Aid got Denise a pair of schoolmarm reading glasses. For good measure, I had her pull her hair into a severe bun. The net effect was to make her look five years older and twenty years grumpier.
Then we waited for happy hour in the lounge. My original plan had been to ride the elevator alone. Total-cool, total-in-controclass="underline" fake sociopath. If I could manage to shut down my feelings. Now the goal was to have as much company as possible.
Another of my new supplies was a bottle of beer. The cheap forty-ounce type, whose only purpose is to get you really drunk, really fast. I had it in a paper bag, wino-style, and as we walked back to the condo building, I twisted the top and took a long, noisy slug.
Denise stared at me.
“I kind of need it,” I said, which was true, but not for the reasons she’d be thinking. I would have preferred slipping into a bathroom and dumping most of it into the sink, but she needed to see me drinking it, so I saluted her with the bottle and tossed back as much more as I could in a single swallow.
Once, when I was young and stupid, I’d joined a group at a high school track for a midnight “beer mile.” Four laps, four beers. A good way to get arrested if the cops caught you, but it had taught me what alcohol and I could and couldn’t do together. I’d won the race, in a little under eight minutes. Soon after, the alcohol got its revenge. In about ten minutes, I was going to be very, very unhappy.
As hoped, there was a crowd waiting for the elevator. I drained the rest of the beer, and stuffed the empty bottle in my jacket pocket. Thought about throwing up. Belched instead.
Then I shoved my way in, angering as many people as possible. Laurel looked at me appraisingly, but Denise’s glare felt like losing her all over again. I desperately wanted to take her elbow, give the squeeze that said: hush, wait, I’ll explain.
But I couldn’t. That was the whole point. The stronger, more confused the emotions, from both her and me, the less chance Jerret would see anything other than what I wanted. Domestic drama, no threat.
The doors sighed shut and the elevator shifted into motion—more smoothly than I’d have liked, but you can’t have everything. I staggered anyway, reached out, cursed, and managed to hit about half the buttons as I braced myself. I got another four or five pushing myself back vertical. During my brief stint in college, we’d called this Christmas-treeing an elevator—as in lighting up all the buttons with the old Yule spirit. A really good way to make friends with your fellow passengers.
Seven, fourteen, nineteen, and twenty-four. I’d managed to get all but nineteen. Damn.
If Denise had been watching, judging, I might not have had the nerve to push that last one. There was only one chance in four it was the one I wanted. But she was occupied with some guy in charcoal worsted who was telling her she needed to keep her husband under better control.
“He’s not my husband,” she was saying. “Not any more.”
It was another stab to an already queasy gut, but I took advantage of her distraction to put my thumb on the button for floor nineteen. “Bing!” I said in my cheeriest drunk-voice. I hit floor eighteen for good measure. “Bing! Bing!”