to go right up.”
“Yeah, I know. He rang to say someone named Kit was on the way up. I said I wasn’t expecting anyone but by that time you’d hopped on the elevator. I figured he got the name wrong, and it was probably a friend of mine dropping by to say hi.”
Instinctively, she bit her lip, trying to think, trying to make sense of the rabbit hole she seemed to have fallen down. Maybe, by a freakish chance, there were two guys named Matt Healy in the building. But this was the apartment number Matt had given her. A revelation fought its way across a threshold in her mind. Had she been played? Tricked for some reason she didn’t understand?
“Look,” the guy said, “maybe there’s an explanation. Do you want to come in for a minute and we’ll try to sort it out?”
Down the long hall, the drone of a TV leaked beneath the door of another apartment but that was the only sound. No, she certainly didn’t want to come in.
Shaking her head, she wondered what to do next. Her confusion began to morph into anger. If the man she’d had dinner with hadn’t wanted to see her again, why set up this whole charade tonight?
The guy flipped over a hand in a kind of “I’m-as-stumped-as-you-are” gesture.
“I’m sure this isn’t any fun for you,” he said, “but let me at least help. I bet there’s more than one Matt Healy in New York. How did you get the address?”
“From him. We met in Florida a few days ago and he invited me for dinner.”
He took a slow breath and brought his hands to his mouth steeple style, holding them there. She wondered if he might be amused by her predicament, but his expression was intense and a couple of seconds later he raised an eyebrow in alarm.
“Oh God, I think I know what’s going on,” he said. “A week or so ago, someone robbed me. I mean, they stole my wallet. I cancelled my credit cards but the thief would still have my license, which of course has my address on it.”
It felt as if someone had kicked her legs out from under her. Did this mean that the man she’d slept with was a thief? She could see him clearly in her mind’s eye. Confident, self-possessed, a bit mysterious. But no way had there been a hint of anything criminal.
“I really should go,” she said. She wanted to get as far away as possible from apartment 18C.
“No, wait.” The guy’s voice was almost pleading. “I can understand why you don’t want to come in. For all you know I’ve got the real Matt Healy hogtied in here. But I don’t and I really need to hear more details from you. This guy may have stolen my identity. Would you be willing to go someplace public with me? There’s a little bar a few doors down from the building.”
“Okay,” she said finally. Though the idea had nada appeal for her, it seemed unfair not to help him.
“Let me just grab my jacket,” he said.
“I’ll meet you in the lobby,” she told him. She needed a minute alone and a chance to think.
In the elevator, she flopped back against the wall and groaned. Maybe there was an explanation. Somewhere the real Matt Healy had to be waiting for her, maybe right this minute popping a cork from a bottle of wine or stirring a stew pot in anticipation of her arrival.
She checked her phone, where she’d programmed Matt’s info when he’d called on her way to the airport. She groaned again as she saw that she was definitely at that address. There was a chance, of course, that she’d taken down the details incorrectly. But it was too huge a coincidence that a building she ended up in erroneously would have an occupant with the same name in the very same apartment.
What if the guy in the apartment really wasn’t who he claimed to be? An imposter. But about a minute later, when he hurried around the corner from the elevator bank into the lobby, the concierge nodded at him and called out, “Evening, Mr. Healy.”
There seemed little room for doubt now. She’d been hoodwinked.
They stepped outside and Healy—yeah, she had to start thinking of him that way now—gestured toward a building a couple of doors down. As they reached the entrance she saw that it was an Italian restaurant, one of those faux rustic ones with yellow and