AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Anyway, an exchange of keysmeantsomething to Collin, and since Gale meant something to him, for reasons beyond my comprehension, I knew that a key to her place would be somewhere in our home. It didn’t take long to find a ring of unfamiliar keys, tucked away in a small drawer in the interior of his desk. They weren’t labeled, but were all I had to go on. If none of them worked, I wouldn’t be deterred. There’s a myriad of ways to discreetly break into a person’s home. I’d be rusty but competent enough to do what was necessary.
Gale Wallace-Leicester lived on the Upper West Side, in the West 70s to be precise, like the septuagenarian she truly was inside. Why a single woman in her early thirties, arguably the sunset of herprime—or as prime as Gale would ever get—chose to settle in a neighborhood where there are almost zero single romantic prospects was just beyond me. My guess was that the apartment had been in the Wallace-Leicester family for some time, but surely she could branch out after dipping into the family trust for something more desirable? Oh well. Her body, her choice, I suppose, but her choice was a puzzle to me.
The building was still a beauty despite its decrepit inhabitants. Naturally there was a doorman, which you’d think would be a problem for prowlers when it came to security, but when you look like meand the doorman looked like Frank did that day, well, it was not exactly difficult to gain entry.
“Hello there, Frank!” I called to him, making note of his sterling silver name tag, stepping out of a cab in a crisp white blouse, the top third unbuttoned. “I just need to run a lip gloss up to a girlfriend of mine. She left it at my place after our slumber party the other night.” I winked at him suggestively and applied a quick coat on myself in the event he had an oral fixation. Most men do. Sweet Frank looked so provincial that I assumed a bit of subtle lesbian imagery would also help with my admittance. “I shouldn’t be much longer than an hour or so,” I continued. “Sometimes we girls get to gabbing and other fun stuff. I’m sure you understand.” Frank promptly turned the color of a beefsteak tomato and he let me up the elevator, unable to utter a single word, much less clear his throat.
Soon I was in front of Gale’s door, complete with a festive Independence Day wreath with red berries and a blue ribbon. Please rest assured that byfestiveI meanabsolutely hideous, not to mention completely age-inappropriate. Why didn’t she just accept her imminent spinsterhood already?
I took the key ring from Collin’s desk out of my bag and began the process of sampling each one into the lock. There were about eight keys and the third one actually did the trick, but when I pushed the door open, I was stunned to find the dreaded interior chain as a barrier to entry, along with the disturbing knowledge that someone must be inside.
“Hello?” an unfamiliar male voice called out. “Gale? Sorry, hold on, I’m coming.”
Excuse me, there was amanin Gale’s apartment? It was distressing and perplexing at the same time. I tried to yank the key out of thelock so I could bolt down the stairwell at the end of the hall, but the damn thing was stuck. Keys or no keys, I would have to promptly get out of there. I was startled by the mew of a feline below me and watched the little creature dart out from the crack of the door.
I dashed in the opposite direction. Luckily, each of the doors in her hallway had a small alcove in front of them. Nothing extravagant or terribly roomy, but for a waif like me, it was easy to back up against a neighboring door out of sight. Well, for the most part. My one physical flaw is that my feet are enormous. One of the very few drawbacks to being a striking five-ten is that you typically have to browse the mutant section of the shop for shoes. The silver lining is that your gargantuan size is almost always available.
I remained hidden in the alcove, my toes peeking out ever so slightly, waiting for the chain to unlock. Seconds later I heard the unknown man head in the other direction, shouting out for Hemingway. The cat, I presumed. A surprise to me. Surely Gale was a Virginia Woolf or Emily Dickinson fangirl by the looks of her. To be clear, the name was a surprise.Of courseGale had a cat.
I needed to remove Collin’s keys from the door as quickly as possible, but not before taking a cheeky peek into the apartment of Gale Wallace-Leicester. It was enormous, outrageously so, with probably everything she could ever want in there. Well, everything but taste. French country and earth tones? Honestly, Gale.
I managed to extricate the keys with a firm tug and went on my merry way back to the elevator, careful to avoid Cat Man, who was making kissy sounds for Hemingway at the other end of the hallway. The curiosity about his identity was killing me. Did Gale have a new boyfriend she wasn’t telling anyone about? That seemed highly unlikely. Or was it possible that she was so unhinged, not to mention sofrivolous with her cash, that she hired a cat sitter for regular working hours?
The elevator doors started to close and then jerked open again. A frenzied hand found its way inside. It belonged to Cat Man. And my God, was he handsome. He looked like a younger Al Pacino or an older Timothée Chalamet. He was all hair. A swarthy fellow with luminous olive skin that suggested a robust moisturizing regimen. Or fantastic genetics. His whole demeanor could only be described as smoldering; sex exuded from every pore, not that you could see his. Exquisite skin. Exquisite specimen. That settled it. Cat Man and Gale couldn’t possibly be sleeping together. He was way too hot for her.
“Sorry,” he apologized to me. “It’s just, uh, have you seen a black cat?” His voice was raspy and deep and sexy. His dark eyes were wide with a sweet panic over the missing cat. His dick was big, it had to be, no question. Wow. It was rare that I immediately wanted to have sex with someone purely for my own pleasure. I didn’t trust that feeling, I had to stay the course, but it was too tempting to resist. I flirted shamelessly.
“A black cat? What, do I look like a witch to you?” I smiled. Unfortunately for me, he was too frantic to nip back at me with any quips of his own.
“My friend’s cat just got out and like, hey, did you see someone, I don’t know, strange or odd? In the hallway? The weirdest thing just happened—”
“Sorry, I don’t live here,” I interrupted him. “I was just dropping off a few looks for a client. I’m a stylist,” I explained, never missing a beat when it came to a cover. I had several professions on hand to throw out should a situation arise. Stylist was always one of my favorites. Flashy and fun.
“Okay, thanks anyway.” He slapped the archway of the elevator doors on either side in frustration and then he was gone, completely unimpressed with me and my fabulous made-up career. The elevator doors began to shut again. I was furious he didn’t hit on me. What in the world? Perhaps he was gay, which would make a lot more sense in regard to the Gale of it all. It wasn’t any of my business, but Gale had been meddling in my business with Collin, so all sense of propriety was officially out the window.
I was getting distracted. I needed to focus on the task at hand. If this man was going to be busy looking for the cat, and was potentially a frequent visitor of Gale’s, this could be my only window. Now it was my frenzied hand reaching through the elevator to stop the doors.
I had to go for it.
Risky, for certain, but my breath quickened. How exciting. A ticking clock. A much larger margin for error. I could get caught by my new crush. What a turn-on. So few opportunities for excitement lay ahead post-marriage. The prospect of a caper in the moment was irresistible.
Cat Man had left the door unlocked, and he was nowhere to be seen, so I slithered in with ease, eager to explore the dwelling of Gale Wallace-Leicester. A green gingham sofa was the centerpiece of the living room. Yes, I’m serious. I wouldn’t dream of joking about such an atrocity, clearly inspired by a childlike fascination with Laura Ingalls Wilder that must have stayed with Gale into adulthood. Why on earth did she not hire a professional designer?
Gale’s home was dripping in literal green, from the sofa to the window dressing to the old-fashioned library lamp on her desk in the study, complete with a gold pulley chain. And sure enough, an eyesore bolted to the ground next to the desk, a large green safe that looked like it could have sunk with theTitanic. What was Gale’s obsession with green? Were the rich really that obtuse? She also wentheavy on the framed photos. Dozens of gold frames. With her family. With Collin’s family. With Collin. Of her mother, her father, her grandmother, her grandfather, even older vintage photos of her great-grandparents, perhaps beyond. It was endless. She was committed. Old family values indeed.
I shuffled around the desk first and didn’t come up with much beyond a checkbook, miscellaneous office supplies with monogrammed stationery—shewould—and an obscene amount of mints. She had reserves. How curious. Seemed more appropriate for someone with a line of Casanovas running out the door, but I imagined it had more to do with her specific brand of neuroticism. At the very least, I could appreciate when someone cares about the precarious state of their breath. Not enough people do.
I thought about turning on her computer next, but I was dying to know what was in that hideous safe. Was it the Wallace-Leicester family jewels? A Fabergé egg or two? A stash of narcotics? As if Gale was fun enough to do drugs. Or perhaps that’s where she kept the alleged ace up her sleeve about me. I had to get inside and examine the contents thoroughly, or as thoroughly as time would allow. I was insatiable. What did she have? Photos of me via a private investigator? With Morris? Or the others? That didn’t prove anything. Copies of my identification documents—perhaps she was reading them closely in search of forged elements? They were undetectable, though. Weren’t they? And she couldn’t have anything from before Bea.Nobodydid. But whatif? I needed to work quickly, since Cat Man’s resurgence could happen at any moment, but I locked the door just in case. Any jostling followed by muffled cuss words would let me know to opt for the fire escape in a pinch. Wouldn’t be the first time.
To crack the combination, I started with Gale’s birthday, easily located on her social media pages. I wagered she was the kind ofperson who looked forward to banal well wishes from acquaintances, past and present. March 1. Ofcourseshe was a Pisces. Shifty people with little control over their emotions.
I didn’t really think the code would be as basic as her birthday, but I did my due diligence. Alas, I was denied. Another birthday came to mind. Collin Case, born on September 8. A Virgo man. My kind of guy. A crushing need to be seen as perfect, which is exactly the type of pressure I wanted a man to feel in my presence. And the safe opened right up.Gale. Using the birthday of her unrequited love as the gateway to her most precious artifacts? She could be such an old woman, but also such ateen.
I rifled through as quickly as possible. All the usual suspects were there. Her passport. A safe-deposit key. Her birth certificate and other health records. But then I came upon folders upon folders upon folders, alphabetized and meticulously curated, each one labeled with the name of someone in her social circle. A folder for each parent, each friend, each parent of each friend, each friend of her parents.
What a freak!
Naturally, I went for the Cases’ files first. Theyallhad one, some thinner than others. Calliope’s was rather thick, and when I peered inside, there were a fair number of medical records that involved stomach pumping plus minor arrests due to public drunkenness and/or recreational drug abuse in her early twenties. Her mug shot was cute, though. As for Collin, his file was the thickest of them all. It appeared I didn’t have my own file. Rude. Gale likely didn’t want to admit that I was significant enough to have a file of my own in her creepy records, but what kind of psycho kept organized files about her friends and family at all?
