Chapter 17
HANNAH
T hat evening, Hannah was exhausted when she returned from a long day at the office and still reeling from yet another unproductive encounter with Ward bloody McKenzie.
All she wanted to do was pour herself a ginormous glass of wine and get into a nice hot bath. Unfortunately, when she reached the building, the super met her in the lobby, an unreadable expression on her face.
‘I got a call complaining about noise in your apartment this afternoon,’ Julie told her. ‘Someone having a party?’
Hannah blinked, confused. ‘What? There was no party. For one thing, I was at work all day … ’
Julie shrugged. ‘All I know is that Ed kept yelling about how entitled people are these days, that there are no manners left in the world and that if I didn’t insist you keep the noise down he was going to call the police.’
‘Seriously?’ Hannah gasped. ‘There’s just no way that … ’ Then she broke off and slowly shook her head as the realization came to her.
Julie noticed. ‘What is it?’
‘The media system in the apartment is motion activated. It must have switched on while I was out.’ She’d mistakenly left the window slightly ajar this morning and Hannah’s new feline friend must have paid her another visit. Although ‘friend’ was stretching it. Not knowing the first thing about cats, she’d offered it some milk the other night and while it outright refused that, she fared better with some leftover pretzel, which weirdly it seemed to relish.
‘But if you weren’t there, how was it activated?’
Shite . . .
Too late Hannah realized that she couldn’t very well tell Julie that a stray cat had been wandering around the penthouse in her absence. Not when it was a pet-free building and some of the residents were already gunning for the newbie occupant. She was treading on dangerous ground.
Hannah shrugged easily. ‘It’s super sensitive. Happened the other night when a breeze blew in through the window, even. Don’t worry. I’ll try and take care of it with Ed and explain. We’ve been getting to know one another a little better lately, and just when I thought I was getting somewhere … ’ She grimaced.
‘Maybe the nurse was there this afternoon or something,’ Julie mused. ‘She comes in a couple of times a week and that always puts him in a bad mood.’
Hannah looked surprised. ‘I’ve never seen anyone go in or out of P-1. Or him for that matter.’
‘It’s got a private elevator.’
Of course. Made sense if he had a wheelchair. Luckily the building had street-level door access alongside the swirling pedestrian revolvers common in New York construction of the same era, and thus no need for dedicated street ramps outside.
‘Really? Does Courtney’s manager know?’ she asked. ‘Probably not – or he’d want one for her, too.’
‘It was an old feature since when this place was first built. The original occupant was some Broadway actor who liked to shall we say, entertain young ladies, but didn’t want the public to know about it – so he had a private elevator installed.’
‘Wow. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to have that kind of money.’
‘More than that,’ Julie grunted, ‘I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of a creep needs a private elevator to hide women.’
On the way back up to Courtney’s apartment, Hannah felt even more discomfited.
Now she was back at square one with the neighbour getting ornery and threatening to call the police. And just when she thought she was getting somewhere.
She knew she had to tread very carefully all the same. The very idea of the police showing up at Courtney Wilde’s building would have tabloids and gossip websites salivating. Which would not look good for her superstar client’s brand, or indeed the ongoing lawsuit. Like Hannah tried to tell Ward earlier, that was how this game was played.
So where the neighbours were concerned she needed to try harder than ever to keep the peace.
For Courtney’s sake if nothing else.