more interesting than any man she’d met in ages, and had loved the effortlessness of being in his company. There’d be no repeat.
It was still drizzling out when she ascended the steps of the Spring Street station, and the air felt raw. She had a four-block walk ahead. Tightening the belt of her trench coat, she quickened her pace. All she wanted was to be home, curled up in bed with something warm to drink.
She turned onto her street and saw that it was almost empty, except for two people climbing into a van halfway up the block. A question suddenly recurred, one she had asked herself in Healy’s corridor.
Why had X punked her that way? Con artist or not, he’d seemed so thoughtful toward her. Though he’d been open about wanting sex, there’d been no pressure on his part, and he’d offered her a reason to pass. Besides, once he’d conveyed on Sunday night that he wasn’t interested in any entanglements and she’d accepted the fact, why not just leave it at that?
Had he derived some sadistic pleasure from doing it, chuckling malevolently as he imagined her arriving at Matt Healy’s building all lit up and then leaving with her tail between her legs. The thought chilled her.
He had her business card, she realized, a breath catching in her chest. It listed only her work address, but that, of course, was also where she lived.
She tried to tamp down her fear. She’d been tricked but there didn’t seem to be any real reason to be alarmed. X was probably still in Florida, onto another play by now. She pitied the next girl in line.
Her building was just a few yards away now, and she made a dash toward it. The lobby was empty, forlorn almost, and she jangled her keys nervously as she waited for the elevator. When she was finally inside her apartment, she shut the door closed with such force that a framed print nearby bounced against the wall.
chapter 3
She threw the bolt on the door and set the chain.
After kicking off her boots, she grabbed her laptop and searched online for Ithaka, the hedge fund Healy had jotted down on the napkin. She quickly found the firm’s official website, tapped on it, and seconds later was staring at a bio of Matt Healy, complete with photo. It was the same guy she’d just met. There was no doubt now that he’d been telling the truth and that X had tricked her.
She thought of one more step she could take, mainly to satisfy morbid curiosity. X had introduced himself as Matt Healy and she wanted to know if he’d presented himself to the hotel that way or just to her. She called the hotel and asked for Matt Healy’s room.
“I’m sorry,” the operator said after a pause. “Mr. Healy has already checked out.”
So he’d definitely posed as Healy. But how had he paid the hotel bill? The real Matt had said that he’d cancelled his cards. Wouldn’t X have needed a credit card to check in? Had he somehow managed to get a new card under Matt Healy’s name, using the identity he’d stolen?
Even if she had the answers, none of them would shed any light on why he had duped her into going to apartment 18C. She told herself to feel lucky that she’d escaped Islamorada with only her ego bruised.
She tugged off her gray jersey dress and hung it back in the closet. It looked mopey and morose on the hanger, as if its feelings had been hurt, too. She couldn’t help but picture herself three hours ago, shimmying into the dress and pairing it with a long silver pendent. How pointless all her efforts had been.
She forced herself to the fridge and rooted around for food. There was half a chicken breast, left over from a rotisserie bird she’d bought the day before, a bag of mesclun greens, and a chunk of blue cheese, not quite ripe enough to kill an STD but almost. As she stood at the kitchen counter, fashioning a salad from what she’d found, she thought of the meal she’d eaten that night with X—conch chowder, blackened red snapper, a slice of key lime pie, all so different from her usual fare.
There was something else that was troubling her, she realized, something that the memory of those dishes forced her to recognize. Her Florida trip was supposed to have been a turning point, the beginning of a more daring, more