Moonstruck in Manhattan Page 10
She was flipping through the keys on her ring when she noticed that the door wasn’t closed tight. Her first thought was that Ramón had left for work in a hurry. Then she noticed that part of the doorjamb had splintered. This time the fear was even icier than before, numbing her throat, her lungs. Even as she stood there frozen, she thought she heard a faint sound from the other side of the door. The creak of a floorboard.
Dread filled her, sudden and sure. Someone was waiting for her in the apartment. She knew it. Not Daryl and not Ramón. They would be at the restaurant. Even as the panic bubbled up, she heard another creak, faint but unmistakable and something else—the brush of fabric against a wall? In her mind she pictured someone creeping slowly forward, moving down the short, narrow hallway, then stepping into the tiny foyer.
Chelsea focused all her energy on taking one careful step backward.
Whoever it was must have been waiting for her, listening. A deaf man could hear the elevator groan its way up five floors. Then he must have heard her fiddling with her keys.
He must be wondering right now why she wasn’t inserting it in the lock and pushing the door open.
To fill the silence, she rattled her key ring again as she took another careful step back. Baby steps, she told herself. Take another and another. She knew how to do this, she’d done it hundreds of times when she’d played hide-and-seek with her younger brothers.
They’d never once caught her.
Three more steps and she reached the door to the stairs. It would creak, a noisy, earth shattering sound. Whoever it was waiting on the other side of that door would know that she knew.
Chelsea risked a quick glance over her shoulder. The elevator doors were shut, but the five button was still lit. She breathed out a little prayer. The old car was noisy and slow, but it would still get her to the lobby faster than running down five flights of stairs. It would get a pursuer there faster, too.
It was the last thought that freed her to make a sprint for the elevator and press the button. The moment the doors started to open, she slid through them sideways, then waited an eternity before they shut again and the car let out a groan. Another eon passed before she stepped out into the lobby. She took one quick look around before she tore across it and pushed through the double set of doors into the street.
AT ONE O’CLOCK, Zach finally made his way out of the staff meeting. It hadn’t gone well. They’d all seen or heard about Chelsea’s interview on Good Morning, New York. They all knew that they could vote on whether or not their boss was a hottie simply by accessing WNY’s Web site.
How could he have expected the meeting to go well when his entire staff wondered what in the hell he was doing with their magazine?
And it was theirs. He really hadn’t given enough consideration to that. Esme had been standing at the head of the conference table where she’d obviously been running the meeting since he’d been late. She’d only moved when he’d sat down in the head chair, forcing her to take the one to his right.
One quick look around the room had allowed him to freeze-frame in his mind the expressions on the faces of his staff. Carleton Bushnell’s face had been split by a wide grin. He thought that being voted a hottie was a great advertising ploy. But he stood alone in his delight.
Esme’s face had been, as always, impassive. Hal Davidson had pointed out that Metropolitan was in danger of being classified as a tabloid. Was that the direction he intended to take them in? But it was Bill Anderson who’d asked him bluntly if he intended to resign at the emergency board meeting on Tuesday.
His negative reply hadn’t pleased anyone that he could see.
He’d spent the next hour dodging more bullets. His denial that he had arranged Chelsea’s interview hadn’t placated them at all. They saw it as evidence that he wasn’t in control.
From their point of view, he was single-handedly ruining their livelihood. He’d told them one thing and seemed to be doing another. That was not a stellar quality in a leader.
The meeting had ended on a final unhappy note—news that three longtime advertisers had canceled their ads because they no longer wanted to be associated with Metropolitan.
The only plus that he could see was that no one had resigned—yet. They probably didn’t want to go home jobless three days before Christmas.
“Mr. McDaniels.”
As he passed the water cooler, Ms. Parker fell into step beside him.
“Sorry, sir. I was just touching base with some of the other secretaries. You know, everyone in the office has voted.”
“Voted?”
“On WNY’s Web site. We want to make sure you win. The last time I checked, there were only a few negative votes. You know…it’s kind of exciting to be working for someone who is…”
Zach’s frown had her sentence trailing off.
“Did you make the arrangements with that security firm?” he asked.
She nodded as she moved behind her desk and turned his appointment calendar toward him. “A Mr. Romano will be meeting you here at seven-thirty tonight. That was the soonest that he could fit you in. He would have preferred to wait until after Christmas, but I told him that it was an emergency. I thought meeting here in the office would be more convenient for you since you usually work late.”
“Fine. Did he assign someone to Ms. Brockway?”
Ms. Parker shook her head. “I told him that’s what you wanted, but he said he’d be setting all that up after you talked.”
Zach’s frown deepened. He didn’t like it, not one bit. “Where is Ms. Brockway now? Has my aunt called in?”
“Oh, yes. She said you’re not to worry. She took Ms. Brockway back to her apartment in a taxi. Her building has a fine security system.”
“Get Ms. Brockway for me,” Zach said.
The phone rang just as Ms. Parker reached for it.
“Zach McDaniels’s office. Yes, Ms. Brockway. He’s right here.”
He took the phone.
“Zach.”
The thread of fear in her voice had his stomach knotting. “Are you all right?” She was calling him. She had to be fine.
“My apartment. Someone…”
“Where are you?”
“In a coffee shop. I panicked and ran.”
He drew in a deep breath. Her words hadn’t come quickly enough to prevent the image from flooding his mind—he could imagine her just as easily walking right into her apartment and…
He breathed deeply again and forced his voice to remain calm. “Good. You’re safe.” It helped to say the words aloud. “Tell me what happened.”
“Someone was in my apartment. I think. The door was ajar—just a little—and the jamb was splintered. I thought I heard a noise. That’s when I ran.”
“Smart girl,” Zach said, stifling several curses that were running through his mind. “Have you called the police?”
“No. I didn’t think. I called you.”
Other feelings washed through him, dissolving some of the fear.
“I should have called them. I’ll do it right now.”
“No, I’ll take care of it. Tell me exactly where you are.” Taking the pencil and paper that Ms. Parker pushed toward him, he jotted down the address.
“Now, I’m going to give you my cell phone number and I want you to call me right back on that phone.” As soon as he’d rattled off the numbers and hung up the receiver, he began to count the seconds. He was at fifteen—plenty of time to imagine what might have happened to her in that apartment if she’d gone in, plenty of time to worry that something, someone was stopping her from calling back. Then his cell phone finally rang.
“Zach?” Her voice was much stronger this time.
It was his own that sounded thready with fear when he said, “I’m on my way.”
SHE’D THOUGHT she was prepared. Zach had insisted that they wait until the police arrived before they went back into the building, so she’d had lots of time to steel herself for what lay behind her apartment door.
“Who?”
She hadn’t realized how cold she was or how stiff until Zach pulled her into his arms and she felt his warmth. It was only then that the icy ball of fear that had formed in her stomach like a tight hard fist began to melt. Leaning into him seemed so natural, so right.
Uncurling her fingers, she pressed her palm flat against his chest. The steady thud of his heart began to relax her. Slowly, she began to absorb other sensations. The press of his hand as it moved up her spine, the hardness of his body as he molded her more closely against it. And his scent—he smelled like… Zach. For just a moment, she promised herself. She would let herself need this, depend on this.
As the seconds ticked away, she was aware of footsteps as the two detectives searched the other rooms. She could hear the apartment manager’s intermittent mumbling and the squeak of his tennis shoes as he tagged after them. But the sounds seemed to come from far away. Chelsea felt as if an invisible protective shield had risen up around her and Zach. She couldn’t put a name to the feelings seeping through her. But she wanted to hold on to them. She wanted to hold on to Zach.
“Have you got any enemies?”
The words pierced the bubble, but for a moment she still didn’t move. It was Zach who stepped back, his hands gently turning her so that she finally faced the stocky detective who had spoken. Perez. He’d introduced himself as Detective Perez.
“Chelsea?” Zach’s hand tightened on hers.
“No. No enemies. Certainly no one who would do this. At least I didn’t think so.”
“Think about it,” he said as he fished a notebook and pencil out of his coat.
“No thing like this ever happen before.” The voice came from the apartment manager, a short balding man who had entered through the archway to the kitchen. Wringing his hands, he shot her an accusing glance. “No burglaries in this building for five years. I tell them.”
“Is that true?” Zach directed his question at the detective.
The man grunted. “Could very well be. This isn’t a high-crime neighborhood. But whoever did this wasn’t a pro.” He directed his own accusing glance at the manager. “Even a rookie could have picked the locks on these doors. He made a mess of it.”
“This is secure building,” the manager said, wringing his hands again. “This never happen here.”
“Yeah, well, this place isn’t exactly Fort Knox. It doesn’t take a high-tech security expert to buzz apartments until he finds a sucker to let him in.”
Chelsea found herself wanting to hug the rumpled-looking detective. The manager was beginning to remind her of a Greek chorus stuck on one gloomy refrain.
Perez bent down to pick up a crumpled bill from the floor. It was only as he unfolded the twenty that Chelsea recognized the shards of pottery that lay beneath it as Daryl’s piggy bank. “Whoever it was missed this,” he said.
“That’s all there was in the bank,” she said.
The detective met her gaze. “You telling me the perp broke the bank but left the money?”
“He must have. There was only one twenty in it. It was mine.”
“A burglar who wasn’t interested in money. Curiouser and curiouser,” said the detective.
“This never happen before.”
“Right,” Perez said, moving toward the manager. “Why don’t you go back downstairs and call the owner. He’ll want to be contacting his insurance company, don’t you think?” After closing the door, he turned back to Chelsea. “It doesn’t have the look of a robbery, either. It looks personal.”
“It gets even more personal in the bedrooms,” said his partner as she entered through the archway.
Chelsea guessed the woman detective to be in her mid-twenties and she was as neatly pressed and put together as her partner was rumpled.
“The clothes have been pulled out of all of the closets, but only the woman’s have been slashed,” she said.
“They slashed my clothes?” Chelsea asked, but when she started toward the bedroom, Zack tightened his grip on her hand again.
“Do you have any idea why someone would do that?” the woman asked.
“No. I don’t even know who,” Chelsea said.
“Are you her boyfriend?” Perez directed his question at Zach.
“No,” he said. “I’m her boss.”
“You’re not dating?” the detective asked.
“We have a date tomorrow night,” Zach said.
“It’s not really a date,” Chelsea said quickly. “We’re going to his aunt’s Christmas ball.”
“So you’re not really dating him. But you’re going to a ball with him tomorrow night?”
“That about sums it up,” Zach said.
Chelsea could hear the laugh in his voice and she found she had to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. It wasn’t funny. There was nothing to laugh at. But standing there, being grilled by a detective who reminded her of an old TV rerun, she felt a sudden kinship with Zach—as if they had both been hauled into the principal’s office to face the music.
“Okay, who is your real boyfriend?” the detective asked. “What’s his name?”
Chelsea glanced at Zach and found that he was looking at her. “I don’t have one, not currently.”
“Okay. How about an uncurrent one? The last one you went out with?” Perez said.
“Boyd Carter.” Zach knew Boyd. She could tell by the way he stiffened beside her. Perez knew it too.
“How do you know this Carter guy?” he asked Zach.
“His father sits on my board of directors.”
The detective closed his notebook. “Interesting. I don’t know about you, Mr. McDaniels, but I want to take a look at the bedrooms.”
Chelsea had taken two steps to follow them when the detective turned back to her. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to see this, Ms. Brockway. What would help us a great deal is if you could tell Detective Gray here about your relationship with Mr. Carter.”
It was a very smart move, Chelsea thought as she watched Zach and the older man walk away. Now they could be grilled separately.
She wasn’t looking forward to it one bit.
ZACH FOLLOWED Detective Perez down the short hallway and into the first room. It had been ransacked like the living room. The closet door was open and clothes had been yanked off the hangers and strewn every which way around the room. A chair had been overturned, a lamp smashed. The damage seemed sporadic, as if a child had succumbed to a temper tantrum.
But when they entered the next room, Zach stopped short in the doorway, and anger hit him like a two-fisted punch in the stomach.
The mattress had been ripped from the bed and there was nothing left that could be identified as clothes. Just bits of lace, shreds of cloth. If Chelsea had been here… If she’d entered the apartment instead of running… The images streaming through his mind had the fear knotting tight in his stomach.
“Tell me about Boyd Carter,” Perez said.
“You think he did this?”
“I don’t think anything yet. My job is just to check out the possibilities.”
Possibilities. Zach’s mind was filled with them as his gaze swept the room. Then he saw the words scrawled on the mirror and fear became a sickness in his stomach.
Stop peddling sex. This is your last warning.
Peddling. Jerry had used that word. But he wouldn’t… Clenching his hands into fists, Zach fought against the whirl of emotions raging through him and reached deep within himself for control. His brother hated him, but surely he couldn’t have done this. I
f he had…
“I’m no psychologist, but whoever did this might be a victim of his own anger and jealousy,” Perez said. “There are people who react in a very violent way when someone who used to be with them starts to date someone else.”
Zach turned to the detective. “But why would Boyd Carter be jealous of me? Ms. Brockway and I haven’t actually been out on a date.”
“Yet.” Perez gave him a level look. “Let’s cut to the chase, McDaniels. My wife’s a faithful fan of Good Morning, New York. It’s usually on when I grab a cup of coffee on the way out the door. I happened to catch Ms. Brockway when she identified you as a hottie. If this guy is the jealous type, that might be all it took to have him assume that your relationship is more than boss-employee. In these cases, we’re not talking about someone whose satellite dish gets all the channels, if you know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” Zach said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I just don’t think—”
“You’re not supposed to think. That’s my job. Just tell me everything you know about this guy.”
What he knew was damn little, Zach thought as he watched Perez close his notebook two minutes later. The detective was annoyed with him. Hell, he was annoyed with himself. He’d only met Boyd Carter at a few social functions that his aunt had dragged him to over the years. The only reason the name had rung a bell was because he’d made it his business to know who was sitting on the board of McDaniels Inc.
Could Carter be the crazed, jealous boyfriend that Perez suspected? If he was, could he be behind the notes and the attempted hit-and-run on Monday night? Or could it be Jerry…?
“You got any other candidates in mind for the crazy who did this?” Perez asked him.
For a second, Zach said nothing. Then he shook his head. “No one comes to mind, but I’ll let you know if I think of someone.”
“You do that, McDaniels. In the meantime, I’m assuming you’ll keep an eye on Ms. Brockway.”
“You can bet on it,” Zach said.
“I CAN’T STAY with you at your apartment,” Chelsea said, bracing herself as the taxi came to a lurching stop at a traffic light.