The Key

chapter seventeen

I sat in front of the computer for a while longer, waiting to see if my newly aggressive tone would inspire Man of the People to respond in a more timely manner, but no such luck.

By ten-thirty, I’d done several laps around the apartment, flipped the television on and off another three times, and checked for new e-mail repeatedly and fruitlessly. I’d also consumed two additional Diet Cokes, polished off the first bag of chips and started on another.

By eleven, I’d convinced myself that if I didn’t get out of the apartment soon I wouldn’t be able to fit through the doorway and that it would be safe for me to leave if I took the appropriate precautions. These consisted of ransacking Emma’s closet in search of a fresh disguise, on the very off chance somebody had tracked me to Saks and there was security camera footage showing me going into the ladies’ room and an Olsen twin coming out.

Fortunately, Emma was a bit of a pack rat. On a top shelf I found a platinum blond wig I remembered from a college Halloween party, when we’d all gone as different Madonna songs. Emma had been “ La Isla Bonita ” Madonna, complete with the matador outfit.

I skipped the matador outfit but pulled the wig on over my own hair, straightening it in the bathroom mirror and then taking a step back to survey the effect. It looked okay-like a bad dye job rather than a wig-but my eyebrows now looked strange, their dark red clashing with the platinum. Emma wasn’t much of a makeup wearer, so I knew I wouldn’t find anything useful like an eyebrow pencil in her medicine chest, but I did find a charcoal stick among her art supplies. With careful application, I managed to transform myself into a brunette who hadn’t thought to dye her eyebrows to match her bad dye job.

I put an old pea coat on over the sweater and jeans Emma had already loaned me that morning. It was a good thing we were roughly the same size and that she had simple tastes; if it had been Hilary’s closet, everything would have been either inches too long or far too skimpy, and if it had been Luisa’s, I’d be too scared that I’d rip or spill on one of her precious designer garments to dare borrow anything.

A trip to the window assured me that the street below was quiet and seemingly clear of police surveillance. I stuffed money and my copy of Emma’s key in a pocket, donned my sunglasses, and let myself out of the apartment.

I’d filled my MetroCard a couple of weeks ago, but I was still concerned that there were computers somewhere logging when the card was swiped at a turnstile and connecting the swiping to me via my credit card. But I also didn’t want to be trapped in traffic with a potentially inquisitive or New York 1-watching cab driver. So I paid cash for a new MetroCard and took the subway up to midtown.

Hilary had said something interesting the previous night, but it was right before Emma arrived with food and the news about the rat poison so handily stored in my kitchen. The discussion had veered off in another direction, and Hilary’s question had not received the attention it deserved.

How, she had asked, did Dahlia’s attacker know to impersonate me?

I’d been thinking about this as I roamed Emma’s empty apartment, and I still didn’t have a good answer. Both Naomi and Annabel had seen me, but only in passing-they didn’t know my name or how I fit in. Perhaps Dahlia had told one of them she knew something incriminating and that she intended to tell me, too, and perhaps one of them had thought that framing me while attacking Dahlia would be a nice way to tie up both loose ends, but there were still a lot of dots to be connected to make this line of conjecture work.

The more I thought about it, the more I kept coming back to the possibility that Gallagher’s murder and the attempt on Dahlia’s life could have something to do with the Thunderbolt buyout. It still seemed like Naomi and Annabel had the only obvious motives to do away with Gallagher, but if one of them wasn’t responsible, and if the crimes were connected with the deal in some way, then maybe Gallagher and Dahlia weren’t the only possible targets.

That somebody had gone to the trouble to impersonate me while seeking to commit murder had, in effect, made me a target, too.

And if I was a target because it was assumed I knew more than I did about this deal then the same assumption could be made about Jake, or even about Mark Anders. It seemed only fair to warn them they might be in danger.

I recognized that this was a relatively elaborate justification for getting out of the house, but this was about more than just warning Jake. I could use his help, too. He knew the context and the principals involved, so he might have insights that my friends couldn’t have with their secondhand knowledge of the situation. And he’d be able to fill me in on anything that people might be saying around the office. He knew me well enough to know that I would never have done anything to hurt Dahlia. I trusted him not to turn me in to the authorities.

Besides, I would have lost my mind, as well as any ability to fit into my clothes, if I’d stayed cooped up in Emma’s apartment any longer.

When he wasn’t lunching with me at Burger Heaven, Jake favored a Halal vendor on the corner of East 52nd Street and Park Avenue. “You definitely can’t get falafel like that in Chicago,” he had said. I had never tried to get falafel in Chicago, but I agreed anyhow and regularly let him pick some up for me when he ventured out. I’d even trained him to ask for the appropriate amount of hot sauce, which in my case was more than anyone else found appropriate, even the vendor with his presumably spice-tempered palate.

By noon, I was perched on the wall bordering one of the fountains in front of the Seagram’s building, about thirty feet from the vendor’s cart. The food smelled good, but I was still too queasy from my salt-and-vinegared breakfast to think about lunch. I’d picked up a newspaper, and I scanned it while I waited, hopefully, for Jake to show up. Gallagher’s murder and the attack on Dahlia were commanding prominent coverage, but while the articles referenced a missing red-haired suspect, I was relieved to see that neither my name nor photograph had been made public.

I was starting to doubt the wisdom of my plan, and I was also getting cold, when I spotted Jake coming from the direction of the Winslow, Brown offices, on the other side of Park. My distance vision wasn’t necessarily my strongest asset, but the tilt of his blond head and his gait were distinctive. I put down my paper and rose to meet him, but instead of crossing the street he turned and headed north.

I followed him up Park Avenue. He was walking quickly, and with his long legs, I nearly had to run to keep up. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by actually running, much less by calling out his name. I was a block south of him and still on the wrong side of the street when a serendipitous red light afforded me the opportunity to cross to his side. I’d made it to the island in the middle when I realized Jake, too, was crossing the street, but to the side I’d just come from and a block up. I managed to backtrack before the light could turn green, but by the time I was heading north again he’d disappeared around the corner of 57th Street, heading east.

Where was he going? The only location of interest in that direction was Bloomingdale’s, and Jake had always struck me as more of a Brooks Brothers type of guy. Throwing caution to the wind, I upped my pace to a jog, praying that my wig was anchored securely enough not to fly off and taking care not to make eye contact with anyone I passed.

When I turned the corner at 57th Street, I was rewarded with a glimpse of Jake entering a doorway at the far end of the block. I slowed my pace back down to a walk. I knew that doorway-it was to a Starbucks. I didn’t see why Jake would go to a Starbucks on 57th Street when one had conveniently colonized the lobby of the building that housed Winslow, Brown’s headquarters, but maybe he’d wanted the fresh air and the brisk walk.

I checked my reflection in a shop window and assured myself that my wig was still in place before I followed him inside, confident that I remained incognito. After the bright sunlight of the day, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim interior, made all the more dim by my sunglasses, and at first I wondered if I’d mistaken Jake for someone else entering the store.

But then I saw him.

He was sitting in a corner, in close conversation with a woman whose sunglasses were as large as my own.

But even with the sunglasses I recognized Annabel Gallagher.