Chapter Fifty-Six
Fifty-Six
Before flying to LA, Quaddra and Mary had agreed that once he was back and she was done with the two gallery exhibitions, they would fly to Vienna, in Austria, and then simply play it by ear – eleven days and as many, or as few, cities and countries as they wished.
No pressure… no schedule… just the two of them doing whatever they felt like on the day.
Mary really liked that idea. It reminded her of her days traveling the Deep South, and the more she thought about it, the more excited she got.
The first of the two exhibitions that Mary had talked about happened the night after Quaddra had flown to Los Angeles, and it had been practically a repetition of the one in which they’d first met – twenty-two brand-new artists, exhibiting their works for the very first time, and for one night only.
Mary loved the idea of giving ‘new blood’ a chance to showcase their talent.
Her biggest involvement had been with the artists’ selection – and the evening had been a complete success.
The attendance had been the largest that the gallery owners had seen since they started their ‘Indie Art Exhibition’ project just over three years ago.
On top of that, ninety-eight percent of the works exhibited that night were sold, which was the gallery’s largest sale number for a single exhibition night – across the board – not only for the ‘Indie’ night.
‘Shall I call you a cab?’ Harvey asked Mary, as all three of them finished the last of the Champagne.
‘Nah,’ Mary replied, putting down her glass before checking the sky outside. ‘It’s a nice evening. I’ll walk.’
‘Nice morning, you mean,’ Cory corrected her.
‘And what do you mean, “you’ll walk”?’ His eyes pinged to his partner before moving back to Mary.
‘It will take you at least two hours to walk to Pacific Heights from here, not to mention that at this time of night, with so many deserted streets, it’s way too fucking dangerous, Mary. ’
‘At this time of the morning, you mean,’ Mary corrected him, doing nothing to curb her smile.
Cory accepted the dig-back gracefully, giving Mary a salute. ‘I can see that the Champagne hasn’t affected your quick thinking, but seriously – way too far and too dangerous for you to walk back. Just jump in the cab with us and we’ll drop you off.’
‘You’re right,’ Mary finally accepted it. ‘It would’ve been a long and probably a little dangerous walk back to Pacific Heights, but tonight I’m staying at my apartment in Bayview.’ She pointed south. ‘It’ll take me less than fifteen minutes to walk there from here.’
Harvey and Cory’s art gallery was located at the southernmost corner of the Dogpatch neighborhood, barely a stone’s throw away from Bayview.
‘Oh yeah!’ Harvey said, giving Mary a nod. ‘I forgot that you have a place in Bayview.’
‘I don’t stay there much nowadays, but it’s a beautiful apartment, and much easier to get to from here than Pacific Heights.’
‘Everything OK between you and hubby?’ Harvey asked.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Mary chuckled. ‘He’s just away… again. He flew to LA last night.’ She paused before revealing a tiny secret. ‘I also don’t really like staying in the house when he’s out of town. It’s too big… it feels too empty… and a little eerie to be honest.’
Cory laughed. ‘Yeah, that’s a horrible problem to have – my mansion is way too big.’
Mary and Harvey laughed with him.
Cory checked his watch. ‘Still, it’s almost two in the morning and this is San Francisco – at least two hobos per block at any time – and some of them become a little feral at night, you know what I’m saying?’ He mimed snorting a line of cocaine.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Mary reassured them. ‘I’ve got my pepper spray in my bag.’
Harvey and Cory were still a little reluctant, but by now they both knew Mary well enough to know that no matter what they said, they’d never win the argument.
They all got up and put their glasses away.
‘Do you need help rearranging the gallery tomorrow?’ Mary asked.
‘Today, you mean?’ Cory hit her again.
‘Touché.’ Mary returned the earlier salute.
Cory and Harvey both knew that it was Mary’s day off.
‘Nah, we’ll be OK,’ Harvey said, looking around. ‘We’ll get it all sorted out, easy. You go rest, girl. You’ve definitely earned it.’
They all said their goodbyes, locked the shop and went their separate ways. Mary swapped her heels for some comfortable pumps and headed south in the direction of the Islay Creek Channel and the 3rd Street Bridge. At a brisk walk, it took her only about three minutes to reach the bridge.
It was a nice morning for a walk – not particularly warm, but not exactly cold either – nothing that a simple cardigan couldn’t handle.
At the bridge, the wind did pick up a little, but so did Mary’s pace, and in less than a minute she had made it to the other side.
From there, it was a quick ten-minute walk to her apartment.
She got to Hudson Avenue and turned left, and a few minutes later Mary was entering a six-digit code into the numeric keypad at the front door of her apartment building.
As soon as she entered the last digit, the door emitted a muffled hiss before its lock mechanism disengaged.
Mary pushed it open and stepped into the building, a movement that automatically activated the lights inside the long entrance hallway.
The entire warehouse had been converted into luxury flats, and Mary’s one was located on the top floor.
The lift was just to her right, a couple of steps past the entrance door, but Mary had always preferred the stairs, which were right at the far end of the hallway.
She got to them, but paused just as she took the first step up.
Something wasn’t right.
The door, the voice inside her head warned her.
That was when Mary realized that she never heard the door click closed behind her.
Sixth-sense, women’s intuition, premonition, divination, gut feeling…
it didn’t matter what people called it – since she was a little girl, Mary had always trusted hers.
They varied in type and intensity. Sometimes it was just a shiver at the base of neck, sometimes an odd, suffocating knot at the back of her throat, and sometimes, and these were the rarest ones, she would feel every inch of her body turn into gooseflesh.
Right then, at the bottom of that stairwell, Mary got all three of them at the exact same time, practically paralyzing her in place. She didn’t have to look to know that the reason why she hadn’t heard the door click closed behind her was because there was someone else there.
Fear spread through her body faster than blood, but what really made her heart freeze in place was the voice that echoed through the corridor – sharp and cold like a killer’s blade.
‘So, you call yourself Mary Smith these days, do you?’