“Thank God. And did you see anyone come in at around that time?”
“No one. Just your assistant,” she says. “No one else came in.”
“My assistant?” I repeat straight back at her.
She seems momentarily baffled by the question. “Yeah, Michelle, your assistant.”
The air is sucked completely out of me. “Lucy, I don’t have an assistant,” I hear myself say. I try to maintain my composure, completely dumbfounded, but my heart is already hammering, my body fizzing with instinctive panic as the implications of what she is saying begin to spiral out of my control. “I don’t even know anyone called Michelle,” I continue. “Okay. Is there a chance you might be mixing me up with another person, another apartment?” I can hear the desperate hopefulness my voice.
Lucy lets out a nervous laugh. “No, of course not, I’m talking aboutMichelle.Your personal assistant, Michelle.”
I involuntarily slam a palm down onto the counter. “Lucy, Ido nothave a personal assistant. I just don’t have one, okay? I don’t know anyone called Michelle.”
I watch the meaning of what I’m saying seep into her, and her face slowly falls. “Oh,” she says in a tone that tells me I am not going to like what’s coming next.
I take in a slow breath. “Lucy, has somebody called Michelle been going into my apartment?”
Lucy’s eyes have a low-key wildness to them as she nods, her lips pursed. “Yeah,” she answers.
A silence falls across the counter as the full ramifications of that pass silently between us.
“Okay,” I finally manage.
“But she had a key. She said she was your assistant.” Lucy shakes her head slowly in disbelief at what seems to have transpired.
She had a key. She had my lost apartment key from four days ago. I think of Joanne. Has Joanne been paying me nighttime visits? Whoever it was has had my key for four nights. How many times have they been in?
“When did you first meet Michelle, Lucy?” I ask. There’s a thinness to my voice.
She hastily consults the calendar beside her. “Okay, okay. Michelle first came in on…on Wednesday afternoon. Yeah. You were still out and…she said she just had to quickly drop something off for you.”
Lucy bolts up, suddenly remembering something. “Wait, I checked with you!” she blurts and leans over to her computer, tapping furiously at the keyboard. “Yes. Here. I checked she was with you. I promise you. See? You sent that email, remember?” She looks up at me, her face a mixture of relief and indignation. “You told me she’d be coming. You said to let her up.”
“I did what?” I say, incredulous.
“Yeah,” she replies, her eyes fluttering quickly across her blue-lit screen. She nods triumphant and turns the screen to face me. “Here. Look. See. You emailed me.”
On the screen is an email. It’s from my email address to reception. It’s an email I did not write. I shiver in my silk slip dress in the air-conditioned lobby and read.
From:Eliot, Mia
Sent:Wednesday, February 10, 2021 1:05 PM
To:“reception”
Subject:Visitor—Apartment 3108
Hi there,
Just to let you know I’m expecting a visitor to the apartment in the next half hour or so.
Her name is Michelle and she’s my personal assistant so I’d really appreciate you letting her straight up to the apartment. She needs to drop off something important. She has her own key to let herself in. Give her a quick call on the cell number below if there’s a problem as I’m just about to go into a meeting. But she should be with you shortly, she’s on her way over now.
Mia Eliot
A phone number is at the bottom. I look up at Lucy completely horrified. “I didn’t write this.”
Lucy’s features crease in disbelief before she takes in the seriousness of what I’m saying; it’s clear from my tone that I have genuinely never seen this email before.
