The Collector Read online

  of the ladies—might like, but that’s it. No trouble, no reports of violent behavior, except for punching some drunk guy at a showing.”

  “He punched a drunk?”

  “Apparently. The story I heard is, the drunk got touchy-feely with one of the models for one of the paintings when she didn’t want to be touched or felt. My source said it was well earned, and took place in a London gallery. So, seal of approval if you decide to let him come look out the window.”

  “I guess I probably will, then.”

  She settled back into bed, thought about stealing lipstick and designer shoes, about murder and suicide and hot-looking artists who punch drunks.

  It all played through her head, mixed into odd little dreams. She never heard Julie slide into bed or Thomas’s mew of delight when he curled between them.

  She woke to the scent of coffee—always a plus—and wandered out to find Julie toasting bagels and Thomas chowing down on his breakfast.

  “You fed the cat, you made coffee. Will you marry me?”

  “I was thinking about getting a cat, but maybe I’ll marry you instead.”

  “You could do both.”

  “In the queue for consideration.” Julie took out two pretty glass bowls of berries.

  “Aw, you made berries.”

  “You had the berries, the place had these really pretty berry bowls. There’s some lovely things in here. I don’t know how you resist poking around in drawers and closets. And I say that as someone who just had some evil teenage girl poking in mine.”

  With a vindictive gleam in her eye, Julie tossed her flaming hair. “I hope she has zits.”

  “Macey?”

  “Who— Oh no, the teenage girl.”

  “Right. Coffee not yet to brain. Zits, braces and an obsessive crush on the star quarterback who doesn’t know she exists.”

  “I especially like the crush,” Julie decided. “Let’s have this out on the terrace, like I imagine the very tasteful couple who live here must do. Then I have to get dressed and go back to reality.”

  “You have a great apartment.”

  “You could fit two of my apartments in here, and the terrace is a big plus. Then there’s the pool and gym right on-site. I’ve changed my mind,” Julie said, as she loaded a tray. “I’m dumping you for the next rich guy I can get my hooks into. I’ll marry him and move in here.”

  “Gold digger.”

  “My next ambition. No zit-faced teenage girl could get through the security in this place.”

  “Probably not.” As she stepped outside, Lila looked over at the boarded-up window. “It wouldn’t be a snap, would it, to get past security. But . . . if they let someone in, had someone over, or another tenant, or a really experienced burglar planned it. Except the police didn’t say anything about burglary.”

  “He pushed her out the window, then shot himself. I’m sorry for Ashton, Lila, but that’s what happened over there.”

  “He’s so sure it couldn’t have been that way. Not thinking about it,” she said, and wiped her hands in the air. “I’m going to have breakfast with you, even though you’ve dumped me for some rich bastard.”

  “He’ll be handsome, too. And probably Latin.”

  “Funny, I was seeing portly and bald.” She popped some berries into her mouth. “Goes to show. Anyway, I’m not thinking about any of it right now. I have to work today. I’ll put in a solid writing day, then I’ll call the rich and handsome Ashton Archer. If he wants to look, he can look. Then, well, there’s nothing else I can do, right?”

  “There’s nothing you can do. The police will do what they do, and Ashton will have to accept what happened. It’s hard. I lost a friend—well, more a periphery friend—in college to suicide.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “We weren’t tight, but we were friendly. Liked each other, but not tight enough for me to know how troubled she was, I guess. Her boyfriend dumped her—that couldn’t have been all of it, but I guess it was the trigger. She took sleeping pills. She was only nineteen.”

  “Awful.” For a moment Lila felt it, that terrible despair. “I don’t want Zit-face to have the crush anymore. Just the zits.”

  “Yeah. Love, even when it’s not real, can be deadly. We’ll leave that part out. Do you want me to come back, be here when Ashton comes?”

  “No, you don’t have to do that. But if you’re not ready to go home, you can stay as long as you need.”

  “I’m okay with it now. I can handle some teenager. And my guess is she got what she wanted, and will go play cat burglar somewhere else.” But she sighed heavily. “I really liked those shoes, damn it. I hope she trips in them and breaks her ankle.”

  “Harsh.”

  “So’s stealing another woman’s Manolos.”

  She couldn’t argue with that, so Lila drank her coffee.

  Four

  She felt settled again once she got back to work, back into her story. Werewolf wars and cheerleader politics both took some careful navigation. They kept her busy and involved into mid-afternoon, when Thomas demanded some playtime.

  She broke off with Kaylee’s beloved cousin hanging on the thin line between life and death after an ambush. A good place to stop, she decided, and getting back to see what happened would motivate her on the next round.

  She played ball-on-a-string with the cat until she could distract him with one of his motion-activated toys, then tended the little terrace garden, harvested some tomatoes, cut herself a little bouquet of zinnias.

  And she’d put it off long enough, she told herself. She picked up her phone, scrolled to Ash’s contact number. It made it all real again. The beautiful blonde begging for mercy. The way her legs kicked the air on the horrible fall, the sudden, brutal impact of flesh and bones on the concrete below.

  It was real, Lila thought. It would always be real. Tucking it away didn’t change that, so she might as well face it head-on.

  Ash worked with the music banging. He’d started off with Tchaikovsky, certain it would fit the mood, but the soaring notes only bogged him down. He switched to a mix of hard, head-banging rock. That worked—the energy of it pumped into him. And changed the tone of the painting.

  He’d initially envisioned the mermaid lounging on a ledge of rock on the verge of a stormy sea as sexual, but now the sexuality took on a predatory edge.

  Now there came a question. Would she save the seamen who fell into that stormy sea when their ship crashed into the rocks, or would she drag them under?

  The moonlight, not romantic now, no, not romantic, but another threat as it illuminated the teeth of the rocks, the speculative gleam in her sea mist eyes.

  He hadn’t expected the violence when he’d done the initial sketches, hadn’t expected the question of brutality when he’d used the model with her tumble of ink-black hair for the early stages.

  But now, alone with the pounding music, the vicious storm at sea and the violence of his own thoughts, the painting evolved into something just a little sinister.

  She Waits, he thought.

  When his phone rang his instinct was annoyance. He always turned off his phone when he worked. With a family the size of his, he’d be deluged with calls, texts, e-mails all day and half the night if he didn’t put up some boundaries.

  But he had felt obliged to leave it on today. Even now he ignored the first two rings before he remembered why he’d left it on.

  He set down his brush, took the second brush he had clamped between his teeth and tossed it aside, reaching for the phone.

  “Archer.”

  “Oh, ah, it’s Lila. Lila Emerson. I was—are you at a party?”

  “No. Why?”

  “It’s loud. The music’s loud.”

  He looked for the remote, shoved at some jars, punched the music off. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s fine. If you don’t play Iron Maiden loud, there’s no point. And since you’re probably working, my apologies. I just wanted to call to let you know if you
still want to come here, look at the . . . well, look from where I was that night, it’s fine.”

  His first surprise was that she’d recognized the ancient “Aces High” as Iron Maiden, and the next that she’d correctly assumed he’d had it to ear-splitting while he worked.

  But he’d think about that later.

  “Is now good?”

  “Oh . . .”

  Don’t push, he warned himself. Poor tactics. “Tell me when,” he said. “Whenever it works for you.”

  “Now’s good. I just didn’t expect you to say it. Now’s fine. Let me give you the address.”

  He grabbed a sketching pencil to scribble it down. “Got it. Give me about a half hour. I appreciate it.”

  “It’s . . .” She caught herself before she said “fine” again. “I’d want to do the same in your place. I’ll see you in about thirty.”

  Done it now, she thought. “So, what’s the etiquette for this situation, Thomas? Do I put out a nice little plate of Gouda and sesame crackers? No, you’re right. That’s just silly. Makeup? Again you’re wise beyond your years, my young student. That’s a definite yes. No point looking like a refugee.”

  She decided to change out of her going-nowhere shorts, thin-with-age bubble-gum-pink T-shirt with its retro Wonder Twins silkscreen.

  It might also help to look like an adult.

  She wished she’d made some sun tea, which also struck her as adult and responsible, but since she’d left it too late for that, decided coffee would do if he wanted anything.

  She hadn’t quite finished dithering when she heard the bell.

  Awkward, she thought. The whole thing was so damn awkward. She glanced through the peep—blue T-shirt today, and the stubble just a little heavier. Hair thick, dark, tousled—eyes smart-cat green and just a little impatient.

  She wondered if it would be slightly less awkward if he was pudgy and bald or twenty years older. Or anything that didn’t hit every single one of her yum buttons.

  A woman shouldn’t think yum in this situation, she reminded herself, and opened the door.

  “Hi. Come on in.” She thought about shaking hands, but the gesture seemed stiff and formal. So she just lifted them, let them fall. “I don’t know how to do this. It all feels so weird and strange.”

  “You called. I’m here. That’s a start.”

  As he didn’t understand awkward, Thomas padded right over to greet Ash. “Your cat or theirs?”

  “Oh, theirs. Thomas is great company though. I’ll miss him when the job’s finished.”

  Ash gave the cat one long stroke, head to tail, as she often did herself. “Do you ever get confused when you wake up in the morning? Like, where am I exactly?”

  “No, not in a long time. Crossing time zones can throw me off, but mostly I work in and around New York.”

  “This is a nice space,” he said, when he straightened. “Good light.”

  “It really is. And you’re making small talk so I won’t feel so weird. Why don’t I show you where I was when it happened? That’s the hard part, and that’ll be done.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m staying in the guest room.” She gestured. “It has a window facing west. That night I was unwinding after Julie left. Oh, she knows you. Julie Bryant. She manages Chelsea Arts.”

  Tall, glamorous redhead, he thought, with an excellent eye and a great what-the-hell laugh. “You know Julie?”

  “We’ve been friends for years. She was here until a little before midnight that night. There was a lot of wine, then cupcakes involved, so I was restless. I picked these up.”

  She offered him the binoculars.

  “I make up stories, it’s what I do. I had a few going on in some of the windows over there, so I was checking them out for the next scene. That sounds ridiculous.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I make up images—that’s just another kind of story.”

  “Well, good. I mean good it doesn’t sound ridiculous. Anyway, I saw her. Sage Kendall.”

  “At the window that’s boarded up now.”

  “Yeah. The one to the left with the little balcony is the bedroom.”

  “These take you right there, don’t they?” He spoke softly as he looked through the glasses.

  “It’s always been a game for me—since I was a kid. Like television or a movie or book. I stopped a burglary once—in Paris a couple years ago. I saw someone break into the flat across from where I was staying one night when the tenants were out.”

  “Travel and adventure, and crime-solving. The life of a house-sitter.”

  “Mostly not the crime-solving, but . . .”

  “You didn’t see Oliver. My brother.”

  “No, just her. The bedroom light was off, and whatever light was on in the living area was on low. She was in front of the window. Like this.”

  She stepped up, angling herself. “Talking to someone who must have been standing just off to her left, in the wall space between windows. I saw him hit her. It was so fast, but I must have seen his hand. What I remember is the way her head snapped back, the way she put her own hand up to her face, like this.”

  Lila demonstrated, cradling her cheek and jaw in her hand.

  “He hit her again. Fist, dark sleeve. That’s all I saw, so fast I barely saw it. My phone was there, on the table by the bed. I grabbed it, then I looked back out. Then she was against the glass. I could only see her back, her hair coming down out of her updo.”

  “Show me. Would you mind?”

  “Like . . .” She turned her back to the window, adjusted for the sill as she leaned back on the glass.

  “And you only saw her. You’re sure of it?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.”

  “She was tall. Five-ten. I looked it up.” He set the binoculars down. “Oliver was my height, six-one. That’s three inches taller, and he was holding her back against the window . . .”

  Ash stepped over. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to show you.” He laid his hands on her shoulders, carefully, eased her back, his hands warm through her shirt as if they were skin-to-skin. “If he held her this way, she’d be tipped back some, like you are.”

  Her heart kicked a little. He wasn’t going to shove her out the window—she wasn’t afraid of that, or him. But she wondered why such an awful thing—mimicking murder—seemed so strangely intimate.

  “Why didn’t you see him?” Ash demanded. “If someone looked in here now, they’d see me over your head.”

  “I’m only five-five. She had five inches on me.”

  “Even with that, his head would have been above hers. You should’ve seen some of his face.”

  “I didn’t, but she could’ve been wearing heels. She had some great shoes, and . . . but she wasn’t,” Lila remembered. “She wasn’t. She didn’t have shoes on.”

  Her feet kicking as she fell. Bare feet.

  “She wasn’t wearing heels. She wasn’t wearing shoes at all.”

  “Then you should’ve seen his face. At least some of his face.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Maybe because whoever pushed her was shorter than Oliver. Shorter than she was.”

  He picked up the glasses again, looked out. “You said a fist, a black sleeve.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure. It’s what pops into my head when I try