since it was eleven, and getting a little late to be knocking on doors. But even so, I tried to knock softly, holding on to the doorknob so the whole thing wouldn’t go flying open. “Cary?” I called quietly.
I didn’t hear anything—and I was about to knock again when the door swung open, and there was Cary, in black pants and a white button-down, his hair parted and combed, like he was about to go somewhere fancy.
“Stevie!” he said, with a surprised, happy smile. “Hi!”
I held up the leather key chain. “I found keys,” I said, shaking my head with a short laugh. “Finally.”
“That’s great,” Cary said. “I’m so relieved. You got in and got your stuff?”
“I did. I hope you haven’t been calling my phone. It kind of… got run over.”
He nodded. “Kat told me.”
“Kat?” I echoed. How had Kat and Cary been in communication?
“Yeah, we ran into each other at a bodega,” he said. I raised an eyebrow. He said “bodega” the way other people might have said “top of the Empire State Building” or “bank of the Seine,” like it was the most romantic place imaginable. He was crushing on Kat, that much was apparent.
“So you guys… hung out?”
Cary shrugged, his face getting flushed. “For little bit. She helped me with my job.”
I nodded, just trying to get my head around this, and all the adventures we’d both had, independent of the other, neither of us knowing the full story.
“He’s fine,” I assured him, and he visibly relaxed. “But if you could tell Flora that he’s with her sister? Mallory’s sister,” I clarified. “Just so she won’t worry.”
“Of course.”
“And here’s the other set,” I said, handing the keys back to him. “For when Mallory needs to get back in.”
“Got it,” he said, taking them from me. “Thanks.” He looked at me for a moment, like he was considering something, then nodded, like he’d made a decision. “I have to get going to work, but would you—if I gave you something to give to Kat, would you pass it along for me?”
I took a breath to tell him that I wasn’t sure where Kat and I were, what would happen when we finally saw each other again, and that I might not be the best person to be serving as a go-between. But I saw the nervousness and hope on his face and knew there was only one answer. “Of course.”
“Oh, thank you,” he said, giving me a happy, relieved smile. “I didn’t want—I mean, I just wasn’t sure when—anyway. I’ll just be a second. You’re welcome to come in,” he said, opening the door wider and disappearing inside.
I stepped inside a small, scrupulously clean apartment, most of the lights on low. I could see a door right across from the entryway, and as Cary pushed his way inside, it swung wider. “Are your aunt and uncle…,” I started, and Cary poked his head out of the room he’d disappeared into.
“Still stuck in Pennsylvania,” he said, shaking his head. “They’re going to be there until tomorrow at least. My uncle feels so bad about the key thing. He keeps apologizing.…”
Cary kept talking, but his voice faded to background noise, because I’d seen something the moment his door had swung wide.
It was like how you can see just the side of someone’s face for a fraction of a moment and recognize them. How a second of a song or movie clip is enough to recall the whole thing. How a blur in your peripheral vision is enough to make you jump back from the curb and avoid the bike barreling toward you.
This was like that. It was seeing something I’d been searching for my entire life, even if I didn’t know what exactly it would look like. It was familiar and unfamiliar, and even though it was just a flash, a moment, I knew it.
And so I walked up to Cary’s room and pushed the door open, startling him—he’d been hunched over his desk, writing something. But I didn’t care if I was being rude, because that half second had been enough to let me know I was right.
I had always thought that New York Night number three would be in blue. But it wasn’t. It was golden.
Hanging on the wall in front of me was Hugo LaSalle’s lost painting. It was right there.
I’d found it.
“Hi,” Cary said, sounding surprised. “Sorry—I’m almost done. If you need to go, I can hurry.…”