of being watched by sentient, cherubic wall sconces.
Or by a woman on a third-floor balcony.
He shifted in his seat, frustrated. He’d been doing so well the past few hours, putting her out of his head, focusing on the right thing about this whole disaster. He did not have the time or inclination to be distracted. He did not have the time to be who he’d been this morning. He had to be responsible. To focus.
“That’s good, in terms of bylaws,” Sally said. “If the building’s neglected, their documents probably are, too.”
“I wouldn’t say neglected, exactly,” he said, for no good reason. He had no idea about the bylaws; they were in the same pile as all the other documents he’d taken with him from the attorney’s office. But still, he had that guilty feeling again.
Sally ignored him, picking up the tablet again.
“What’s the address?”
He rattled it off without thinking, then furrowed his brow as she tapped away. “What are you looking up there?”
“I’m seeing if any LLCs are already listed as unit owners. If so, it’s almost certain you won’t be the first to do a short-term rental.”
“You can see that?”
“Cook County website,” she said, tap tap tapping. She frowned. “Hmm.”
That didn’t sound great.
“Privately owned, all of them. That’s a bummer, but it’s not the worst thing. My place on Western was like that when I bought in. You’ll probably have to do some campaigning.”
Campaigning. He had a vision of himself in the now-treeless backyard, staring up at that third-floor balcony. His heart hiccupping, his hands full of half-eaten tomatoes.
But that was ridiculous, because he wasn’t that kid anymore.
And anyway: It. Wasn’t. Her.
“Have you had any contact with anyone in the building?” Sally asked.
He coughed. “Uh. Briefly. I spoke to a woman on the third floor this morning.” During the golden hour, his brain supplied, unhelpfully.
“Hey, no,” Will said, once he realized Sally had gone back to typing. Looking for an LLC, that was one thing. It didn’t feel right to get details about individual people who lived in the building this way, let alone about the woman on the balcony. “You don’t have to—”
“Eleanora DeAngelo Clarke,” Sally said, before Will could finish.
His heart hiccupped; his hands twitched. He would not do the chest-rubbing thing.
That was a beautiful name, though. Eleanora.
Sally barreled right on, which was for the best. What did her name matter, after all?
“I mean, I’m assuming. The other third-floor resident is a guy called Jonah. Eleanora, she’s probably the one.”
Goddamn these hiccups. Medicine had really never found a cure for them, not that his were the typical kind.
“Anyway,” Sally said, “Gerald told me—grudgingly, if I’m being honest, but you know how he is—that everyone here thinks you’re real charming. You gotta translate some of that famous bedside manner into this job! Some smiles and reassurances while you clean up the place, and you could have this whole thing sewn up quick.”
Will cleared his throat, straightened in his chair. Right. Two weeks, basically. He could do that. And he was charming! Witness his coffee jokes, or the way he always got called in for crying kids. Or crying adults, frankly. He could do this. Get some goodwill, get the apartment into shape, get money, get Donny out of his head. The woman on the balcony had nothing to do with it.
He just had to stay focused.
Sally snapped the tablet shut, smiled across the table at him as though they’d shaken hands on a deal. “If I were you,” she said cheerfully, “I’d start with Eleanora.”
Chapter 3
“He called you Ms. Clarke!”
Nora pursed her lips and prayed for strength as murmurs of disapproval spread through the assembled group. This building meeting was really, really not going well.
That made two in a row, not that Nora was counting, and since the last one had been what basically amounted to a collectively devastated debrief over Donny’s death, that was really saying something. But this morning—called together hastily once again—Nora’s neighbors seemed almost as shocked, almost as shaken as they were during that last meeting. Their regular business—maintenance reports, budget updates, event calendars—all of it shunted to some other day.
All because of the man on the balcony, and his awful letter.
His letter!
“Marian,” Nora said, trying to keep the exclamations that were in her head out of her voice. “Why don’t you let me have that back for now?”
“Ms.!” Marian repeated, drawing it out, fully exclamated— Mizzzzzzz!—obviously not ready to let Nora have the letter back. She was staring down at it through the