real estate agent? she thought, feeling her body tense. But no, she was overreacting, she told herself. The woman had promised to come, so it must be her.
Grabbing a breath, she left the master bedroom and poked her head into the room next door. It was incredibly small, a space suited for either a child or a houseguest grateful just for a bed.
She backed out of the bedroom and looked back toward the front of the building. No sign of Holt. She wondered if he’d gone down in the elevator looking for the agent.
Something continued to stir in her as she stood there, waiting, wondering what to do. She realized how much she disliked the curt, icy tone Holt had used when she’d told him she’d have to pass on dinner. His remark had been weirdly proprietary.
Had she been reading him wrong these past couple of weeks, failing to suss out an attraction on his part that might be propelling him to work with her? When he’d asked her for dinner the first time—the day they met at the café—she’d been a little concerned his intentions weren’t purely business, but no alarm bells had gone off. She’d been meeting Garrett that night, and when she’d explained to Holt that she had to run out at seven o’clock for a meeting, he’d seemed to take it in stride. No harm done.
And then, like a rogue wave, fear quickly engulfed her. Ever since Avery’s murder, an end that had been earmarked for her, Kit had been mystified as to why the killer chose to wait in the stairwell just before seven. Who could have assumed she was going out at that time?
But there was one person who surely would have assumed it. Keith Holt—because she’d told him that was her plan.
chapter 23
No, she thought, shaking her head, it couldn’t be true. It was too absurd, too improbable. But memories tumbled forward in rapid succession: Holt popping up as a new client without a specific referral; Holt seeing her in the trench coat the day of Avery’s murder; Holt not taking her call the morning afterward, even though he was in the office. Was that because he’d assumed he’d killed her and was too stunned by the fact that she was on the line?
She recalled a comment that Garrett had made earlier, that there could have been more than one doctor involved in the insider trading situation. But Holt was an orthopedic surgeon, not a cancer doctor.
And if he’d lured her down here to kill her, why go chasing noises. Another thought rammed her. Maybe he’d arranged for a confederate to meet him here, someone from Ithaka.
Again, she told herself that it was all too farfetched. And yet the panic coursing through her overrode every argument her brain was making. She couldn’t take any chances. She had to get out of there.
She rushed the few steps back to the entrance of the master bedroom and glanced down the larger hall toward the front of the apartment. Holt was still not in sight, and the loft was utterly quiet. She didn’t dare sneak out the front door—he would be coming back in. But there was the service exit.
She inched as quietly as she could down the hallway, past the laundry room and the storage units, until she reached the service door. Please be unlocked, she begged. She tugged and the door flew open. It was dark in the corridor and she had no clue where the light switch was. She patted the wall frantically with her hand without any luck. After a moment, outlines emerged. She could see a door that was clearly to the stairs. She rushed toward it, yanked it open, and began to descend, holding tight to the handrail.
On the landing she jerked to a stop—to listen, to get her bearings. If she just kept going, she would reach a door that opened onto the lobby and from there she’d be free. She thought of the phone in her purse. She needed to call Garrett, to get him to come, but she didn’t dare lose the seconds it would take.
She started to move again, quickly reaching the next floor. Just five more floors, she told herself. She listened again, straining to hear over her thumping heartbeat. A faint noise made a tear in the silence. It was the sound of a door being quietly opened and then sucked closed. Someone had stepped into the stairwell. But she couldn’t tell if it