“Yep. And under Sam’s bed and in the sofa cushions and in our bedroom.” He recited every place he’d looked while I half-listened, sticking my head back around the corner to see if anything had changed. Fortini was gesturing with his cigarette while he spoke to the waiter, the phone sitting on the table. I ducked back behind the wall. “I can’t think of anyplace else to look.”
He sighed. “I’ll keep searching—it’s got to be here somewhere. What time do you think you’ll be home?”
Not until I’ve stolen this iPhone. “Sorry, but I’m going to be late.” I latched on to the first excuse that popped in my mind. “Heather’s had a miscarriage.”
“What? Heather was pregnant?”
Whoops. Distracted, I’d forgotten that she hadn’t told anyone else yet. “Um, yeah, it was kind of a surprise.”
“But I thought Viktor had a vasectomy?”
Before I could reply, the door banged open a third time and a female voice called, “Hey, Ray, your food’s up.” I looked around the corner in time to see the waiter heading back inside as Ray stubbed out his cigarette in a plastic ashtray and stood up, heading for the door. And miracle of miracles, he left the phone on the picnic table.
“I’ve got to go, Eric—I’ll call you back.” I hung up without waiting for his good-bye, stuffing my phone in my purse as I walked toward the picnic table. It might have been the gin, but I felt as if I were moving in slow motion, my hand closing over Fortini’s phone, the plastic case slipping in my sweating palm as I pivoted, turning toward the street.
The slap of the door startled me. I didn’t turn around, kept moving forward, away from the bar, but when I heard him bellow “Hey, you!” I broke into a run, shoving his phone into my purse as I dashed around the corner and fled up the street.
chapter thirty-eight
ALISON
The address my brother had given me turned out to be an old Victorian in Bellevue that had been converted into three apartments, the “C” after the number the designation for the third-floor unit, which I learned was accessed on the side of the house via a long, rickety, and rusting set of metal stairs. A mailbox at the front confirmed that this was the right place: One of the slots read “Fortini” in slanting blue Sharpie.
Staring at Fortini’s apartment, I wished I were the one sitting at the bar. I surveyed the house while Julie dug in her purse for the tiny set of screwdrivers that she’d brought along in case we had to pick a lock. That was looking likely, since it was going to be impossible to check a third-floor unit for any unlocked windows.
How were we going to get up to the apartment? At least the staircase was on the side of the house, but it was otherwise completely exposed. It was almost seven P.M. The sun had finally set, but there were streetlights, and a house with large windows right next door, not to mention that at the top of those long metal stairs, hanging above the door, was a porch light.
“We have to come up with a story,” I said to Julie. “What do we say if someone sees us?”
We’d parked across the street, but hadn’t moved from Julie’s car, both of us scanning the building and the block. She took a long swallow from a bottle of water and rolled her shoulders as if limbering up for a run.
“How about this,” she said. “We’re considering buying property in the area and we wanted to talk to some renters.”
“We’re not exactly dressed for that, are we?”
“Maybe we were at the gym first? Believe me, if someone does question us it’s not going to be about what we’re wearing.”
She had a point.
We got out of the car and closed the doors quietly, conscious of the noise. As we headed toward the side of the house, one of the doors in the front cracked open and a small, gray head poked out. “Hello?” a tremulous voice said.
“Good evening,” I said, and Julie echoed me, both of us smiling.
“Do you have my dinner?”
“I’m sorry?” I said, confused.
The door opened wider and an old woman shuffled out onto the wooden porch, the ancient boards creaking underfoot. “Aren’t you with Meals on Wheels?” She picked at the corner of a shapeless brown sweater.
“No, sorry, we’re here to talk to your neighbor,” I said, pointing in the general direction of the upstairs apartment.
She scowled, her round, wrinkled face like a wizened apple. “My meal is supposed to be here by now.”
“I’m sure they’ll show up soon,” Julie said, both of us inching our way past the porch, desperate to go, but afraid to attract negative attention by hurrying away.
“Are you lying to me?” The voice suddenly suspicious and rising.
“No, of course not,” I said in a soothing tone. “We wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Everyone is a liar,” she declared, before abruptly shuffling back inside and slamming the door.
We saw no one else as we started up the metal steps, which vibrated like a rope ladder, slapping against the brick wall and squealing at spots, as if the screws were being tortured. The steps ended at a small metal landing with a potted geranium and a wooden door painted black. While Julie tried to shield me from view, I tried the doorknob—locked, as we’d expected—and ran a gloved hand quickly over the jamb, searching for a key. There was none.
We switched places, Julie fiddling with her small screwdrivers in the lock while I tried to block her and scout the neighboring house and the street for anyone watching. There were curtains drawn over the upstairs windows in the opposite house, but had one of them twitched? Was someone spying on us? “Hurry,” I muttered to Julie.
“I’m trying,” she said in a stage whisper, “but it’s hard with the gloves.”
My phone rang, the stairs swaying slightly as we both startled. I pulled it out of my jacket. “It’s Michael—I have to answer.”
He sounded harried. “Hey, sorry to bother you, but is Lucy allergic to mushrooms?”
“No, at least, not that I’m aware of—why? Is she okay?” I had a sudden vision of my child red-faced and blown up like a puffer fish, picturing a frantic trip to the emergency room for an EpiPen.
“She hasn’t eaten any, so she’s fine,” he said. “She’s just making a pretty convincing argument that this is why she can’t eat the pasta I made.”
“Well, neither kid likes mushrooms so if it’s got a lot of mushrooms in it they’re probably not going to eat it.”
“Matthew is eating it.”
“Is he?” My people pleaser. Poor kid was going to need so much therapy. “Have you tried picking out the mushrooms?”
“She insists the whole dish has been tainted.”
“Well, there’s always mac and cheese—we’ve got boxes in the cupboard.”
“I don’t think we should coddle the kids like that—they should eat what we serve for dinner.”
“Hmm,” I said, thinking that given how infrequently “we” made dinner that “we” weren’t really entitled to an opinion. “Well, good luck.”
“How’s your dinner?” I caught an undertone of sulkiness that made me long to tell him the truth about what I was actually doing, risking my life on this stupid metal staircase, breaking the law so I could avoid going to prison and leaving him to make dinner every night for our children.
“Delicious,” I said. “They’re serving the next course, so I need to go.”
“Okay, well, you enjoy yourself, we’ll just be here—”
I hung up the phone, my stomach growling because of course I’d had nothing to eat; I hadn’t even thought of food, I’d been so intent on the task at hand. “Any luck?” I said to Julie.
“Stop asking,” she hissed. “You’ll know if I get lucky because the damn door will—” At that moment we both heard a distinct click. I turned around to look and she smiled. She stood up, placed a gloved hand tentatively on the knob, and slowly turned. The door opened.
The inside of Ray Fortini’s apartment reminded me of Michael’s bachelor pad: an emphasis on electronic equipment—a fifty-inch flat-screen, a PlayStation with multiple controllers, and a complicated-looking speaker system—at the expense of furniture and decoration. An exception was the bed, king-size wrought iron with ornate curlicues and expensive-looking sheets.