I pause for breath. Wondering who took home my bag with the only jeans that have ever fit me. Wondering who’s wearing my had-to-have-them boots. I hate flying.
Todd furrows his forehead and flips the phone mouthpiece up over his spiky hair. “Aren’t you Charlie McNally?” he asks. “On TV?”
Fine. Now he’ll probably call the Boston Herald’s gossip columnist to say that I’m a complete bitch and describe how I lost it at Baggage Claim C.
“So how come your luggage is under someone else’s name?” he continues, narrowing his already squinty eyes. “You’re not supposed to do that.”
“Who cares?” I say, hands in the air, newspaper threat forgotten. “Anyone could have picked it up and they probably did. It’ll never get returned.”
I turn my back on Todd, and lean against his desk, my arms crossed, frowning at the universe. Then, slowly, one click at a time, my brain shifts gears. What if there’s a bigger story than phony purses?
Chapter Four
I’m starving. I’m exhausted. But my eye is on the prize. Josh. Grabbing the curlicued wrought iron railing with one hand and my keys with the other, I drag myself up my front steps. The motion detector flips a spotlight onto the red-lacquer front door, where someone’s placed an elaborately twisted wreath of flaming orange bittersweet and a blaze of amber maple leaves over the brass lion knocker. Pots of tiny golden chrysanthemums in concrete urns flank the front stoop. In the entryway, a slender cherry table holds a crystal vase of red gladiolas. My condo fees at work. I clamber up the zigzag stairway, fueled by hunger, lust, my airport idea, and the knowledge that this day could possibly have a happily-ever-after ending. What was Josh getting at this morning? Am I almost-engaged? I pause on the second-floor landing, stopped in my tracks by the weight of my own question. What if?
One way to find out. One more flight to go. Maysie will go bananas. Mom, too.
I can hear Botox before I even hit the landing. She’s probably been in full-blown feline pout mode, clawing open paper pouches of cat food, knocking over wastebaskets and flipping kitty litter as far as she can. The meowing gets louder as she hears my key turn in the lock.
“Hey, baby cat,” I say. I bend to pick her up, but after a baleful glare, she flips her calico tail at me and flounces into the kitchen.
“Fine, be like that,” I call after her. Amy, the cat sitter, has piled the mail on the dining room table, an outrageously expensive mahogany antique cleverly converted to a staging area for my embarrassing stack of definitely-going-to-read-them-soon Vogues and New Yorkers. It’s also a handy storage spot for to-be-paid bills. The curvy navy silk-upholstered dining room chairs are gorgeous, too. Those I use as coatracks.
Mom’s wedding album-the new one-also currently lives on the dining room table. She and Ethan sent me my personal copy soon after they got home to Chicago last month, fresh from their honeymoon. With a note. “You next. Love, Mrs. Mom.”
Honeymoon.
With a burst of energy, I sprint down the hallway, past my gallery of family photos, as always, saluting the framed shot of Dad in his cub reporter days, and head into the spare bedroom I’ve cleverly converted into a walk-in closet. I peel off my tired white T-shirt, now permanently infused with two days of stale airplane air. Pants, too, wrinkled beyond redemption, into the hamper. I can’t even imagine wearing either of them again.
I’ll shower. Twist my hair up and ignore my salon-needy brown roots. Throw on my good Levi’s. No. Dammit. They’re in my “lost” suitcase.
The blast of hot water and foaming grapefruit shower gel erases my annoyance. I continue mapping out my unalterable plan. Shower. Clean clothes. My second-best jeans, high-heeled black boots, a black cashmere v-neck with a lacy come-hither camisole underneath. Grab a power bar. Sneak past Botox. And then, I’m going to Josh. After all. This morning I made a vow.
Just as I have my hand on the doorknob, finally headed for some potentially life-altering answers and a memory-making night, the phone rings.
Answer it. It might be Josh. The phone rings again.
Don’t answer it. It’s undoubtedly a telemarketer. It rings again. I can’t stand it. And I can’t resist.
Rule one in journalism, every phone call might bring a good story. Rule two, it most likely won’t. Rule three, if you don’t answer the phone, refer to rule one. Another ring. I dash to the kitchen and grab the receiver from the red wall-mounted phone.
“McNally. I mean, hello,” I say. But I’m too late. My voice mail has started. I hear my recorded self saying “We’re not here to take your call right now…” Now the machine and I are both talking, in a double-talk babble that must be annoyingly confusing to whoever is on the other end. “Sorry, hang on,” I say, raising my real voice to compete with my recorded voice. “The message will be over in a second.”
When there’s just one of me, I continue. “Hello?”
“Charlie McNally, from Channel 3 News?”
The voice is low. Almost gruff. And unfamiliar. Which is strange, because I’m obsessive about keeping my home phone number private.
“May I ask who’s calling?” I say. Don’t need to confirm who I am.
“You think you’re on to something, don’t you, hotshot? You and your hotshot buddy.” The voice continues. There’s a sound in the background, like a clicking? But I can’t place it. “I’m going to warn you just once, hotshot. Knock it off. We saw you at the airport. Got me? And that’s not all we know about you.”
Clutching the phone, I look out my third-floor window, through the birch tree leaves and past the glare of the streetlight to the well-tended square of garden and sidewalk below. Scanning. Searching. Nothing.
I have to be smart. Keep whoever it is on the line. I can call 911 from my cell phone. If I can keep this guy talking, the police could trace the call.
I guess.
“Who is this? What do you want?” I ask. I try to sound afraid, which isn’t actually that difficult, but I figure my “weakness” could convince whoever it is to keep threatening me. And buy me some time. Problem is, the tote bag with my cell is in the other room, still parked by the front door.
Of course I’m on my landline. Stretching the curly cord around the corner, pulling it to the limit, and then stretching out one arm as far as I possibly can…I still can’t get to my bag. “Just tell me what you want,” I say. My voice is as taut as the phone cord.
“You know exactly what we want,” the voice says. It’s muffled and raspy, but definitely a man. And there’s that sound again. “We want you and your hotshot pals to stay away from our business.”
I stretch one leg backward toward the bag, manage to hook the heel of one boot around the loop of a handle, and drag the black canvas across the sisal rug toward me. Got it. Tucking the kitchen phone under my chin, I dig through the bag for my cell. Got it. I check the window. Now a dark-colored car is pulling up. My eyes widen, contemplating who that might be. And why they’re here. I flatten myself against the pinstriped wallpaper, away from the window, out of sight.
“I’m so sorry, I just don’t understand,” I say. Suddenly I can’t hold back the genuine tremor in my voice. Then I frown at myself, regrouping. This is just some jerk. I’ve handled worse. And I have a plan. Just keep this guy talking. “Your business? What’s that, exactly?”
I get the cell open. Smash the green on button. Finally, finally, I hear tim-tee-tum of the power up music. And so does he.
“Smart,” he says. “Cell phone.” And the line goes dead.
“Call the police,” Josh demands. “Now.”