Chapter 58
MONDAY MORNING AFTER I drop Hailey off at school, I drive until my phone GPS tells me, “You have arrived at your destination.” Really?
Luis’s address in Stamford, Connecticut, turns out to be an elegant high-rise near Long Island Sound, a tall, lean, stone-and-glass structure with a rooftop pool and a health club just off the lobby. Surely there’s been some mistake.
This is where Luis lives?
Luis, who spent the last few months pasting FedEx labels on crates?
Luis, who showed up at the party looking like he was there to fix the air conditioner?
There’s got to be a simple explanation:
He’s dog-sitting. Or plant-sitting. Or something-sitting.
He’s got family money, or he’s dating someone who does.
He’s the super here.
Or, the simplest explanation of all: Luis has made a fortune doing something illegal.
I pull into the building’s circular driveway and try to figure out my next move. I can’t just ring his doorbell the way I was intending to. Nor can I ring the neighbors’ doorbells to dig up some dirt. I need a game plan here, and I need it fast.
A doorman in a silver uniform is walking toward my car and pointing to a NO STANDING sign on a pillar.
I react with a simple shrug that I hope he understands means Where should I go?
“Lot’s around the corner,” he says, gesturing to the right.
I pull my car (actually, it’s Amber’s car, which is good—mine would be embarrassed to show its face here) around the block and park in one of the visitor spots between another Lexus and a Tesla.
Even the visitors here are way above my tax bracket.
Then I go through the marble entrance into the lobby.
There’s no way I can bluff my way into Luis’s apartment. Or is there? I have a sudden flash of brilliance—I wish I was wearing my white nanny uniform. But it might still work.
“May I help you?” asks a second doorman. No. Wait. This man’s not a doorman, even though he’s dressed like one. He’s standing behind a desk. He must be the concierge.
“I’m here to see Luis Escarra,” I say.
“Is he expecting you?”
“Yes, but it might have slipped his mind,” I tell him. “I’m the visiting nurse who takes care of his father. I told Luis I’d stop by to give him an update.”
“Whom shall I say is calling?” he asks. I like the whom part. That’s what separates a concierge from a doorman.
I’m about to use my usual go-to Megan Greer alias when the elevator door opens and a bowlegged man walks out, looking down at his phone and scowling. Oh God. Another face from my past. Mr. Snake Tattoo himself.
It’s Carlos!
I turn sharply, but I miscalculate the space I need for my foam bulk and bump into the concierge desk. Carlos never takes his eyes from his phone. He doesn’t see me. He pushes through the revolving door and heads to the parking lot.
Now what?
I text Metcalf and tell him what’s going on. His advice: Get in your car. Follow him.
Is he kidding? What does he think this is? The French Connection? And even if I could tail Carlos without being spotted, what would I do when we got to wherever he’s going? It’s not like he’s on his way to the library.
I can see it all now: I follow him into a building and find myself in a room full of cold-blooded killers. Before I could even say Gee, is that a real machete? I’d be surrounded. Forget beheading—they’d probably chop me up into tiny Imitation Nanny Bits and feed me to livestock.
I text back: Can’t.
Just that one word. No excuse given.
Metcalf. Luis. Ben. The guy with the ponytail. Loxton. Carlos. Multiple men over a series of weeks. Weeks filled with confrontations, surprises, disappointments, and plenty of emotions. I feel like the lone single woman on a potentially violent season of Dating Around.
Like every woman, I’ve had my share of problems with men.
But never like this.