Jane pulled her car out of the parking lot behind her condo again, muttering. Some moron had parked in her space. Now, just after midnight, she would have to risk a ticket by parking on the street.
She was too darn nice, she berated herself. She should call, get the car towed, and reclaim the space she paid way too much for. She drove up Corey Road, top down, searching for a spot. The drapey silver maples rustled in the August night. Blue lights of flickering televisions glowed from the windows of her neighbors’ brownstones and an occasional horn bleeped from Beacon Street a block away. Parking was a pain, but she was still floating from the night’s success.
Great pictures. She’d already rewound the video and seen the club, the music, the drinks, the bar, the whole up-too-close-and-personal atmosphere. Isabel, after whatever emotional bump in the road she’d encountered, seemed to regroup, and went off with Elaine and her pals, assuring Jane and Fee she’d be fine. Plus, Jane had a pretty darn great shot of Jake and D and that guy they’d corralled. Maybe Jake was already here, upstairs, with a glass of wine for her. And plans.
Head on a swivel, she drove all the way up to Winthrop—nothing—then pulled into a driveway to make a U-turn. Every spotlight on the exterior of the house flashed on, blasting her with light. Motion detectors. Sorry, sorry, I’m leaving, Jane thought, and backed into the street to try again.
Bingo. Not half a block away from her building, a spot. She gunned her Audi—not that there was anyone else vying for the space at this hour—raced ahead, and snagged it. Checking the rearview, she parallel-parked in one try.
Put up the top, she reminded herself. She checked the rearview again, and laughed. She still didn’t look like herself, in the ball cap and ponytail. Her dumb glasses. The convertible top whomped into place, and she clicked the latches, grabbed her bag, opened the car door.
Paused.
The street was deserted, cars lining each side, streetlights creating a string of orange pools alternating with shadows. Up the street, the motion sensor lights flipped off, deepening the darkness.
She took out her cell phone. Clicked it on. Slammed the car door closed and locked it. An ambulance screamed up Beacon Street, flaring the side street with a sudden bath of red light, its wail fading as it headed toward Kenmore.
She snapped her head around, noticing another change in the darkness. A light inside a parked car. Down the street, a blue or black car. She fingered her cell phone as she walked. Three floors up, her windows were still in semi-gloom, only the fool-the-burglar light she always left on glowing protectively. Jake wasn’t there.
“Get a grip, sister,” she whispered. Trying to laugh at herself, she trotted toward her building, feeling the ponytail jouncing, the short skirt still strange. She made it up the front steps, and hearing the front door lock securely behind her, grabbed her mail, some of it on the floor as always, and took the stairs to her apartment two at a time.
All good, all good. Coda greeted her at the door. No Jake. She flipped on the lights—nothing, no intruders, no sense that anyone had been here. Not that anyone would have been.
She stashed the phone, dumped her tote bag, hefted her newest stack of bills and magazines and added them to the dining room table pile with the ones Neena had delivered the night before. She’d look at all of it tomorrow.
Well, maybe just a quick look now. Bill, bill, circular—and then, in Neena’s pile …
A plain white envelope.
White, sealed. No stamp. Addressed to her. She turned it over. No return address.
She slid a fingernail under the right corner, peeled it away, ripped it open, Coda curling around her ankle.
“I don’t like this, cat,” she said.
She unfolded the single piece of white paper.
Black ink. Three words. Block letters.
SAY NO MORE.