a huge wave had sent her hurling into the water where she was now fruitlessly screaming for help and straining desperately to stay afloat.
Her parents quickly sold their house, as well as most of their lovely possessions. Their next home was a tiny one-bedroom apartment, with Kit in the bedroom for the time being and her parents sleeping on the pullout sofa.
Kit spent the spring trying to convince a few state colleges to give her a financial package, a mix of aid and loans, but it was too late in the game to pull it off for fall. It would have to happen in the next calendar year. Following graduation, she’d found an assistant job at an interior design firm in New York. After throwing herself a pity party that stretched for at least three months, she realized that she loved the work, and from that point on there was no looking back. She took courses in design at night but, as her career took off, it seemed unnecessary to go back for a full-time degree. Besides, in light of what she’d lived through with her parents, she didn’t have the stomach for taking on huge college loans. And yet even now, she still flinched when someone asked about her college background.
There were two things she had taken away from that awful year her father went bankrupt. Nothing was ever going to hold her back from creating the life she wanted. And she would never let anyone outsmart her and ruin what she’d built. If X was after her or her business, she had to shut him down.
She forced herself off the couch and began to plot how to handle the meeting with Sasha. She needed to find out what she could about Healy, particularly what he was doing in Florida. But she couldn’t make it seem obvious or Sasha would smell a rat.
Early that afternoon, she took the subway uptown and walked several blocks east. Sasha lived in one of the many white brick high-rises that dotted the Upper East Side, though this one looked newly renovated and tres chic. After being cleared by the concierge, she took the elevator to the fourteenth floor.
She was glad she’d bothered with her outfit because Sasha looked impeccable. She was wearing slim black pants, a tight-fitting, black V-neck sweater, and large gold earrings shaped like bamboo. It wasn’t until Kit had stepped fully into the apartment that she saw that the woman had a phone to her ear. After closing the door, Sasha motioned with a free finger that she would need a minute.
Discreetly Kit eyed her surroundings. She was standing in a large foyer that featured not a lick of furniture or a single piece of art. The walls had been painted a pale gray, maybe Benjamin Moore’s Balboa Mist or Dove Wing, suggesting that the apartment might have once been a model that was shown to prospective buyers. Over Sasha’s shoulder, Kit caught a glimpse of the living room. It was two spaces really, with a double-sided fireplace partially dividing them. Shockingly, there was hardly any furniture there either, just a white leather couch, a glass coffee table, and a few framed black-and-white photos leaning against the walls.
“It’s going to have to be handled,” Sasha said into the phone, her voice authoritative and yet slightly strident. “But I need at least twenty minutes to get there.”
“This is extremely rude on my part,” she said to Kit after disconnecting. “But something’s come up and I need to reschedule with you.”
Kit fought to keep her frustration at bay. All this way for nothing. But she couldn’t settle for nothing. She had to leave with something.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said easily. “I know things can come up. . . . Does it have to do with Matt Healy’s death?”
“What makes you ask that?” Sasha said.
“I—I just figured that the company must still be reeling from what happened. I’m sure plans have to be made.”
“Actually, I’m dealing with a client matter today. But you’re right—people are reeling.” Sasha stared at Kit intently. “How about you? Has his death affected you?”
“Uh, yes, of course,” Kit said, momentarily flummoxed. Sasha seemed to have no filter. If she wanted to know something, she just asked it. “As I told you, I didn’t really know him, but it’s always unsettling when someone you’re acquainted with dies.”
“Apparently it was a homicide. We just heard this weekend.”
“How dreadful,” Kit said, faking surprise at the news.
Sasha reached for the door