Rattled by the close call, and by the fact that she was married, Maisie asked Aleto to drive her straight back to Fate Tower.
Married. So weird. Though she didn’t feel different.
Should she refer to Ethan, Trent, and Raphael as her husbands? That sounded clumsy. Her partners? Her lovers?
She’d have to figure out something better to call them, but for now, “bosses” would have to do.
“I don’t need a full-time driver,” she said as he came to a stop in the garage, near the elevators. “I can jump on the subway if I need to run an errand.”
“My job is to take you where you want to go,” he said. “Of course you can call a taxi, but I’ll still be sitting here, waiting.”
“You have to sit in the car?” Maisie asked, horrified. “Can’t you just go out, and I’ll give you at least fifteen minutes’ notice if I need you?”
“If you like, we can do that. But I don’t mind.” He pulled an e-reader out from between the seats. “I love books. My wife gave me this for Christmas. Even if I left the car, it would be to sit in a park to read.” He wedged the e-reader back in place. “Don’t feel bad, Ms. Novau.”
“Call me Maisie.”
“Sure, Maisie. But you need me. I’m a licensed bodyguard as well as a professional driver. I’m trained in CPR. I know the fastest route to get anywhere in the city. I don’t smoke or do drugs, and I’ve been thoroughly vetted.”
He got out and came around to open her door. His trimmed beard was shiny in the dim light, and she wondered if he put some kind of pomade in it.
“All right,” she said, getting carefully out of the car so as not to damage the corsage and bouquet. “But don’t open the door for me. I really hate that.”
“Sometimes I’ll need to. If your arms are full, for example.”
“Fine.” She stuck out her hand. “We have a deal.”
As they shook, something else occurred to her.
“Do you have to report on where I go?”
Aleto frowned. “I wouldn’t call it a report, but there’s an app that logs where I go and how long I spend there. It’s a safety feature.”
So much for having him drive her to the dump. Though if she had other items to dispose of…
Maybe she should look through her things. She never would have moved all her belongings if she’d been in charge of packing. There were a few items that were beyond repair. Were any of them large enough to justify driving to the dump?
The ancient blender that had been in her old apartment when she moved in… It was extremely heavy and had to be from the sixties.
She’d kept it only because she’d thought she might be able to fix it, though her attempts had failed miserably. She’d always meant to take it to a professional.
I’m rich.
The thought came out of nowhere.
Never again would she have to worry about saving a few dollars here or there. No more watching the sales circulars to see when her favorite hair products were discounted. No more signing up for multiple loyalty cards under different email addresses.
She could march right down to the salon when her perm needed a touch-up instead of always waiting for the next non-rent-due weekend.
Well, she was rich so long as she had Ethan’s credit card. But if the men were giving her a personal assistant and a driver, it was inconceivable that they planned to make her beg for every dollar.
Her credit card bill, her student loans, her car payment… All gone.
“Maisie?”
She looked up. “Sorry, Aleto. I got a little distracted there. Let’s exchange numbers.”
He handed her a business card. “I’ve already got your information.”
“I’ll just take a photo of it.” She pulled out her phone and discovered that it was flashing with missed messages.
There was an email from Jayne with links—probably to photos and videos of the wedding ceremony.
Someone had called from a blocked number. They’d left a voicemail.
Oh, she longed for the days when unexpected phone calls weren’t necessarily bad news. She tapped the play button on the phone’s screen.
“Good afternoon,” said an unfamiliar male voice. “This is Timothy Glasser.”
A deep thudding started up in Maisie’s skull.
Glasser.
The chief of police.
Byron Ballystock’s boss.
“Heather Plithen believes you may have information about an ongoing investigation. If you would return my call at your earliest convenience…”
Maisie didn’t really hear anything after that.
So this was Heather’s revenge. Ethan had told Heather that Maisie was being stalked by someone in the police department, and not to engage with him.
And Heather had decided to contact the man.
A man she’d been told was a dangerous, obsessive stalker. Maisie understood why Heather was upset, but her actions were irresponsible and juvenile.
Heather had crossed a line that Maisie never would have gone near. Thank goodness Heather didn’t know the truth, that the so-called stalker was really investigating a crime. The damage she could have done…
Maisie shook her head. This wasn’t the time to worry about how much worse things could have turned out.
She needed to get ahead of the situation. Her bosses were busy—they didn’t have time to handle this—and anyway, they’d already prepped her before her interview at the station. After they’d listened to the recording, they’d said she’d handled both the detective and Byron Ballystock well despite the curve balls they’d thrown at her.
And supposedly Tim Glasser was a reasonable man. One who couldn’t be bribed or pressured.
She could handle this.
She turned to Aleto, who was leaning against the edge of his car. No, her car. He was already bent over his e-reader.
“Maybe I’ll need you sooner than I thought,” she said, dropping his card into her purse.
“I’m ready.” He smiled, a flash of white in the middle of his dark mustache and beard.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Maisie was dialing Ethan even before the elevator doors closed.
None of her bosses answered their cell phones, so she called Ethan’s office directly.
“LB&B Law, Ethan Brennbach’s office,” Mrs. Donahue said.
Maisie hung up immediately. If Ethan had left orders that he wasn’t to be disturbed, there wasn’t any point in trying to reason with the guard dog who hated her.
She dialed the main line and was shocked when Mrs. Donahue answered again.
Maisie ended the call. How short-staffed was the office? And why?
A sense of unease swept through her as she entered the penthouse, but she pushed LB&B’s problems out of her mind. She didn’t have the mental bandwidth to worry about any of that right now.
She headed to her rooms downstairs, and she didn’t even get lost.
The rooms, like the rest of the penthouse, were spacious. Clean, straight lines and zero clutter. The problem with new construction was the lack of nooks and crannies to hide anything.
Maisie thought about sliding the envelope between the box-spring and mattress, but what if her bosses decided to buy her a new, larger bed, as a surprise?
Too bad she didn’t own a lot of tall books. She turned in a circle, looking for anywhere to stash the envelope.
Maybe she should open it, tear it into tiny little pieces, and flush them. Though with her luck, the toilet would get backed up and everything would come to light.
Besides, if she ripped the envelope, she would see its contents. That had to be avoided at all costs.
The problem was her damned imagination. No matter what manner of disposal she contemplated, it was too easy to visualize detailed scenarios where someone would find the evidence of her lies.
She left the bedroom and went back into the main room. The three decorative throw pillows on her couch… Their covers could be unzipped.
She stashed the envelope in one of them, then carried all three into the bedroom’s walk-in closet. She studiously avoided looking at her reflection in the mirror.
As she opened the largest of the drawers, the scent of fresh wood and new construction wafted up.
The pillows got stuffed inside. She barely had to touch the wood to coax the drawer shut again.
There was no way anyone would mess with the pillows. The men wouldn’t know they were missing, and anyway, they were stiff, uncomfortable things. She’d gotten them cheaply, on sale.
A little of the weight lifted from her shoulders.
Quickly, she changed out of her wedding dress and hung it in the closet. She looked at it sadly. There hadn’t been any carefully posed photos, no tossed bouquet.
But what did she expect from a marriage of convenience? The vows had been enough of a surprise, and maybe the men had feelings for her, but she didn’t need to get comfortable in her new role.
Great pep talk, Maisie, she thought as she set the bouquet in a crappy frosted pink vase, the only one she owned.
She forwarded Glasser’s voicemail to Ethan, then sent him—her husband—a text, letting him know where she was going.