Mistress

And then I’m back to wondering about the odds of my surviving whatever is happening to me, and there’s literally an equation on a blackboard, and then Matt Damon puts down his janitor’s mop and picks up a piece of chalk and navigates through this complicated algorithm with confident strokes and then Ben Affleck shows up, first to apologize for Gigli and then to tell Damon that he should be doing more with his life than scrubbing floors, then Robin Williams walks in and tells me to seize the day, and I try to tell him he’s got the wrong movie but then Damon has completed the foot-long equation on the blackboard and just as he turns to me there’s a loud, tinny sound that startles all of us, and Damon says to me, Hate to say it, Ben, but you’re toast-

My eyes pop open and I lurch forward on the bed. I scramble to get a view of the door.

The keys aren’t teetering on the latch anymore.

They’ve fallen onto the mirror on the floor.

Someone just tried to open my door.

Chapter 24

I quietly slide off the bed and slither along the carpet. I can’t see below the door frame. I have no way of knowing if someone is standing outside my door.

But those keys didn’t just fall off by themselves. Someone must have pushed against the door.

I hold my breath, count down the first twenty presidents, and wait for any further movement. I stare at that door until my eyes are playing tricks on me, until that door is breathing in and out, expanding and contracting.

I lie there perfectly still for at least ten minutes, my face pressed against carpet fibers of cheap quality and questionable hygiene. Maybe the sound of the keys landing on the glass mirror, meant to alert me, had the additional effect of spooking them. But it’s kind of hard to believe that men armed with automatic weapons would be scared off by a set of car keys and a hand mirror.

I push off the carpet to a crouch, then tiptoe toward the door, careful to stay out of the line of the door frame. If these guys are inclined to unload their weapons through the door, I don’t want to be on the receiving end.

I approach the door and hold my breath again and listen. Nothing that I can hear but the quiet hum of the cheap air conditioner in my room.

Okay, it could have been gravity, not an intruder. But I have to be sure.

From my position outside the door frame, I leap into the line of fire, so to speak, and peek through the peephole. Nothing. Nobody out there.

Okay. Maybe it was just gravity. Maybe I need to get a grip.

“It’s time to end this,” I announce to no one but myself. I’m not even sure what that means, because I’m not exactly in control of events, but it sounded cool and I’ll take any relief right now. Something Eastwood or Stallone would say before engaging the villain in a climactic scene. Load the chamber, cock the weapon, and say, This ends here. No-This ends now.

“This ends now,” I say to the mirror.

I have one card left to play. I’m going back to Diana’s apartment to grab the surveillance tapes. They’ll tell me who pushed her off the terrace.

Then I jump as I hear a short, loud buzz, then the same sound a second time. Terror fills me and disintegrates in the time it takes my brain to register that my smartphone, resting on the nightstand, has just received a text message.

I reach for my phone as though it were a hot burner on a stove. The sender has been blocked. The message is a photograph. It takes me a moment to get it in full view.

“Oh, no,” I mumble.

It’s a photograph of Diana’s brother, Randy Hotchkiss, lying facedown in a pool of blood.

And underneath it, these words:

Randy couldn’t stop asking questions.

Can you?

Chapter 25

Riding the Triumph in the misty morning air, I take a different route to Diana’s place this time. I’m not going to turn up 33rd Street and just walk right into a police detective-not to mention catch the attention of any mysterious guys in a Lexus. No, this time I’m entering Diana’s building from the rear, up the fire escape.

Cue the theme to Mission: Impossible.

I park the Triumph a couple blocks away and walk along the C &`O Canal’s path, keeping company with joggers getting in their exercise before the workday begins. Then I head to the back of Diana’s building and take the rickety steps of the fire escape up to her floor.

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could play theme music when you were walking around doing things? Especially during dramatic moments. I think it would inspire people.

I still have the key that opens the fire-escape entrance and her door. What I don’t have is any idea who might be watching this building right now, or whether I’m committing a crime just by entering. But I’m out of choices at this point.

I feel a wave of nausea as I take the wobbly steps, but compared to my other challenges the last couple of days, this is a walk in the park. I reach the top and enter the building, my heartbeat fluttering ever so slightly.