him now, and felt as drawn to him as she had that night in Islamorada, and yet she had begun to wonder if he was distancing himself, not because he didn’t experience the same connection but because it was all too complicated, and there was too much cold, black water under the bridge.
And then he’d called today to say he was back and was hoping to see her, as soon as tonight. She had suggested he come by her place and that she’d fix them both something simple for dinner.
“I should probably let you settle in,” Baby said. “I’ll see you tomorrow for work.”
“Now that you’ve gotten a taste of working from home every day, would you prefer to do more of it.”
“God no. I feel energized coming down here. Oh, by the way, if you have the time tomorrow, I can take you to the hotel. The building’s not more than a shell right now, but it will be good for you to see the exterior and the neighborhood. That needs to be considered as we start to brainstorm.”
Last week, much to their satisfaction, they’d learned that they’d landed the hotel job. Harper would be a challenge, but Baby said she would do much of the heavy lifting when it came to dealing with him personally.
“Oh, I have a piece of good news myself,” Kit announced. “Last night I heard from a friend of Barry Kaplan’s, another single guy. Barry showed him the boards and he wants me to do something similar at his place.”
Baby laughed. “Well that’s an insider trading tip we could pass along if we wanted to. There’s about to be a huge run on pinstriped flannel.”
After Baby took off, Kit wandered back into her office. Despite the awful associations the space had with Avery’s death, it was good to be back there, too, and to realize that her business wasn’t going to go down the tubes. The next weeks were likely to be insane, but she was also determined to work smarter than she had in the past, to leave time for both play and travel.
For the rest of the afternoon, she tackled a backlog of emails, spoke on the phone to her parents—whom it had taken four days to calm down once they learned about the incident with Holt—and had her friend Chuck over for coffee. Like Baby, he was frustrated by not being able to hear many details about her situation, other than what he’d read in the Daily News and New York Post, but he was relieved she was safe.
“They were all abuzz about you at work,” Chuck said. “You know how Mavis is. She thinks the only coverage that matters is in World of Interiors or Architectural Digest. But she seemed totally intrigued. You may have turned her into a New York Post reader.”
Kit laughed. “Well, at least I gave her a glimpse of another side of life.”
At seven Kelman arrived.
He was wearing jeans and a dress shirt, with his navy pullover sweater loosely thrown around his shoulders, not like some preppy gesture but more of an afterthought. His face was clean-shaven, and she noticed that there was little trace remaining of that awful weariness. At the sight of him she felt a crazy mix of relief and desire.
“How are you, Kit?” he said, embracing her in a hug.
When he pulled back, she saw him glance around the apartment, taking it in. She knew he must be thinking the same thing as her: that it was strange for him to be standing there under such different circumstances than the last time.
“Good.”
“You sure?”
“Uh huh. Like I told Baby, it’s going to take a while to get my sea legs again, but I’ll be fine. Tell me about Miami. It didn’t seem like you wanted to say much on the phone.”
“Sorry to be so guarded when I spoke to you. I doubt the FBI has your cell phone bugged, but I can’t help but feel a little paranoid these days. And I didn’t want to say anything about the case since they warned us not to discuss it with each other.”
“Do you feel comfortable talking about it now?”
“Actually I do. As you’d expect, I promised not to divulge any specific information I’ve shared with the FBI about trades and phone calls—and I won’t—but I don’t see any harm in the two of us doing a postmortem. The only way I can make sure you’re out of danger—and I am too—is to keep communicating