by K. A. Tucker
CHAPTER 11
Maggie
December 3, 2015
My chest tightens as I flip the pages.
She said yes.
Some rich, lonely old geezer with an oversized nose plied her with martinis and diamonds, and an invitation for another function in a month’s time, and she said yes.
Why did she have too much pride to accept my money but not too much to sell herself? Several unread journals lie in front of me. My stomach twists at the thought of what they will reveal: that there’s enough evidence in this shoe box–sized apartment to suggest that Celine had many nights with rich, old geezers who only wanted arm candy.
As well as nights when someone may have wanted more.
And Celine may have agreed.
Taking a deep breath, I turn the page.
————
December 4, 2015
Streetlights cast a glow behind the gauzy curtain. A quick time check shows that it’s now two in the morning. I must have succumbed to exhaustion. Or vodka, based on my throbbing head.
It definitely wasn’t the reading material that put me to sleep.
Sure, it started out innocent enough. A date with an older gentleman, a bag of diamonds and money. More social functions hanging off his arm. Then the arm of another wealthy older man, who paid even more and liked to send her to Bergdorf ahead of time, to pick out dresses and charge them to his account. And then another, until she had several wealthy men taking her on “companion outings” each month. This went on for a year-and-a-half, blurring her boundaries and building her confidence, as well as a nice little education nest egg. It also allowed her to move from her dingy apartment in Brooklyn to this one on the trendy Lower East Side of Manhattan in early 2014. Making as much as she was, she figured she’d have enough saved to pay her full tuition in another nine months, right in time for the start of the program. Of course, there was still the issue of supporting herself during the fifteen-month-long full-time program, because she’d have to quit her job at Vanderpoel. But she figured it was nothing a few “dates” a week couldn’t solve.
And Celine was so happy. Finally feeling like she was in control of her life and her future, and that lack of money would no longer hinder her from doing what she was meant to do, what she loved.
She was halfway through the Hollingsworth application paperwork when Rosa was diagnosed with breast cancer. Everything changed. The extra flights home, Rosa’s living expenses and medical bills—the ones that I didn’t find out about so I could pay them—quickly depleted Celine’s nest egg, leaving her back at her starting point instead of starting school last fall. Only she had missed so many weekends with her regular gentlemen over those months that they were forced to move on to new “companions.”
It was last year, in October, that “L” suggested a new guy. A guy who “L” sold as “younger and will pay double” but . . . there was a catch.
There’s always a catch.
The new guy wanted a happy ending.
I don’t know who this “L” person is, but she better hope I never find her.
Celine, nervous and conflicted and not knowing how she’d keep her apartment let alone save enough for tuition to start school the following year, invested in some slinky lingerie and a bottle of Grey Goose. Because God forbid she ask for some help from her wealthy friend, who would jump on a plane and fly over and personally kill her if she ever knew what she had been doing for money.
I flip through page after page of journal entries, overwhelmed with relief on the days when Celine was focused on the latest antique she had scavenged, or a fun night with Dani, out for Thai food. Smiling as I read about the day Rosa was declared “in remission” and the day that Celine finally submitted her application to Hollingsworth Institute of Art, to begin her MA if they accepted her. Which they did.
But there are many days when her “dates” continue, thanks to “L’s” seemingly endless clientele list. With time, gentle coaxing, and the lure of big paydays, soon there doesn’t seem to be much that Celine won’t do, because for the first time she’s not worried about how she’s going to pay tuition or her rent, and she can do it all on her own. In fact, with the kind of money she’s making now, she’s already replenished her lost savings and then some. She’ll have enough to cover the first semester within months, assuming her mother is still in remission by then.
And she tells herself over and over again that it’s okay. A lot of girls do it to get through school. “L” did it, too.
No one will ever know.
I have to force myself to read those days—the days when Celine has to sneak a few shots of hard liquor in the client’s hotel bathroom before she returns to the bedroom, or the times that she will do the coke or Oxy offered to her, because it all makes the night easier to get through and, later, forget.
Especially if it involves strange and perverted requests, things she usually complied with because they meant extra cash.
I grit my teeth as I read every last one of those entries, looking for some bit of valuable information.
It’s in one dated mid-July that I think I’ve found something.
July 16, 2015
New York City is big but this industry is intimate. That’s what L said when she warned me that this day would come. That I would find myself in a horrible predicament, face-to-face with someone I know. I was hoping I’d be out of this racket long before that might happen. I guess not . . . Of all the people to find waiting for me on the other side of a hotel room door.
And I just spoke with him at the office earlier today.
What if he tells someone what I’ve been doing to make money? I need that job! I can’t handle doing this full-time. Plus, I don’t want anyone knowing about this!
I’m still not entirely sure that I didn’t do the wrong thing by going along with it. He introduced himself to me as Jay and asked if I was Maggie (M would strangle me if she knew I used her name with clients). I was afraid not to go along with it. Afraid that if I refused, he’d tell people what I was doing.
He must have known how nervous I was, my hand shaking when he handed me that glass of vodka and watched me down it in one gulp. He even laughed and promised that this would be just between us and told me to relax, as he opened his wallet and pulled out a stack of bills, fanning it out on the coffee table so I could easily count it.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he were an old pro at hiring escorts, the way he settled into the couch, loosening his tie with a casual tug, calling me by my fake name, that disarming smile of his aimed at me, reaching a hand out to me.
Beckoning me.
It worked because I felt my body relaxing and reacting and believing that I might actually enjoy this.
We did it right there on the couch, with all the lights shining down on us. And it was the best I’ve ever had, client or otherwise. For a while after, when he just stared up at me, it even felt “real.”
The extra $250 in cash that he handed to me at the end put a small damper on that, but then I did the math in my head and my spirits lifted again. L expects a cut when the tip is over 20 percent but I need this money more than she does. She’ll get her cut off the grand and we’ll be square.
Did he really mean what he said when he kissed me goodnight and asked if I’d like to do this again sometime soon, “Maggie”? He winked at me when he used that name.
My heart is racing by the end of this entry. The guy paying for an escort has to be Jace Everett. He works in her building; he knows enough to recognize that she was using a fake name. My name. It sounds like he had this all planned out.
Which means Jace lied to me about knowing Celine. Maybe because he doesn’t want anyone knowing that he has sex with escorts.
But this entry was from July, and it’s the last one in this journal. Did they ever connect again?
I flip through the first page of every diary scattered around me to see that I’ve already read through them all. I search the crates, behind the crat
es. I squeeze my body between the wall and mattress and press my cheek to the floor to check beneath the bed once again, using my phone as a flashlight.
There are no more diaries to be found.
The diary that contains the last four months of Celine’s life—and any proof of what may have led to her death—is gone.
CHAPTER 12
Maggie
My boot catches the corner of a planter and I stumble, catching myself seconds before going face-first into the asphalt. “Fuck!” I hiss, yanking my blanket, caught on something. I hear a loud rip before it breaks free, sending me on another three-step tumble before I regain my balance.
No twinkling Christmas lights illuminate Grady’s rooftop oasis, nor would I expect them to at four a.m. I wonder what he’d say about me invading his private space. The light coating of snow on the ground will expose my tracks. Hopefully the snowflakes still falling—large, fluffy white flakes that melt when they land on my skin—will cover up the evidence soon enough.
I make quick work of the tidy pile of logs that sit beside the fire pit, warming my hands in front of flames within minutes. That’s a definite benefit to living in the developing world for the last five years; I’ve learned how to start a fire, and fast.
With that going, I locate the main power source, and soon I’m cocooned within my blanket and lying in Grady’s hammock, my side warmed by the flames, thinking about my best friend.
Celine wrote something every single day of her life for the last fifteen years, and on the rare occasion that she missed a day, she’d make specific mention of it in the next entry. It was clearly an obsessive practice. People don’t just quit obsessive practices cold turkey, for no reason.
But there are no more diaries anywhere in Celine’s apartment. I spent the last two hours searching. Not in her desk, not in her dresser, not even tucked in with the other books on the shelves. I have to believe that she kept the current one in her bedroom. Maybe on top of that crate of boxes, where she could easily reach over to grab it, already changed into her pajamas and curled within her sheets, ready to fill the page with her curly purple-inked scrawl. It was likely the very last thing she did before switching off her lamp.
There must be a diary somewhere that will tell me what happened between July 16 and the night in November that Celine died. Specifically, what happened with “Jay.”
And, if it’s not in her apartment, then it must be because someone stole it.
Perhaps because something in it would incriminate them.
A soft creak sounds from behind the gate, making the hairs on the back of my neck spike. It’s the door into the building. At four in the morning, I can’t see why anyone would be coming up to the roof. Anyone other than me, that is.
The padlock clicks and the wooden door swings open. Grady strolls through in a pair of flannel pants and a jacket and slippers, his wool blanket tucked under his arm, not stopping until he’s standing over me. Judging by the sleepy look in his eyes, he just woke up.
“I’ve had a really bad few days and I thought I might feel better up here.”
He still says nothing, his gaze rolling over me, over the fire, over the lights that I’ve plugged in. Finally, I get a slight nod. “You climbed over the fence?”
“I impressed myself, actually.” I may have kicked a hole through the lattice, but I’m not going to bring that up right now.
After stoking the fire with another log, Grady walks around to the other side of the hammock and eases himself in, tugging on my blanket until he has enough to wrap around himself, before layering his thicker, heavier one over both of us. “That is quite impressive.”
“How did you know I was up here?”
He leans in until his temple touches mine and then stretches an arm out, pointing to a corner of the fence, the tip of his finger helping guide my line of sight. A tiny red speck of light catches my eye. “Motion-activated camera. An alarm goes off in my apartment if someone comes in here.”
Seriously? “Paranoid much?”
He shrugs. “I just like my space to be . . . mine.”
“And here I am, invading it.”
He chuckles.
“Were you coming up here to kick me out?” I’m guessing not, seeing as he came with a blanket. I feel his gaze on me, but I keep my eyes focused upward, enjoying the added warmth that his body is providing me. I wandered up here fresh from a shower, my hair still damp. It now crunches against the hammock, frozen.
“No. But you should tell me, Maggie . . . why have your days been so bad that you’ve resorted to breaking and entering?”
I smile despite my bad mood, because I love the way my name sounds with his accent. But it slips just as easily. “I found Celine’s diaries.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. “And I take it you found things in there that you didn’t know about?”
“Yeah, you could say that.” I haven’t had enough time to process all this, to decide who—if anyone—I’m going to tell. Or who I should tell. And yet for some reason I have the urge to tell Grady. Maybe because he knew Celine but didn’t really know her. Maybe because I doubt he’s the type to run off and tell everyone he knows. He’s a quiet guy. Private, most definitely, if the security camera up here tells me anything. Maybe because we’ve already lounged up here once, and he didn’t try anything on me, didn’t seem to want anything from me. He was content to simply be with me.
Or maybe just because I’m still too shocked to think straight. “Celine had been moonlighting as an escort to make extra money.”
Grady lets out a low whistle. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“I know, neither did I.” I shake my head. “It’s like I didn’t even know her. The girl I grew up with would never have had the nerve to do that, not for all the money in the world.” I turn to look at him, his rich hazel eyes muted in the darkness. “I have money, Grady! I have so much fucking money that I don’t even know what to do with it. I would have paid for everything—her rent, her tuition, everything—but she would never accept it!” A hot tear rolls down my cheek.
“Some people don’t want to be charity cases.”
“I don’t care. I should have made her take it. I should have been here more for her, paid more attention. Called her more. Flown to New York to see her more. I should have gone straight to that admissions office and paid for her tuition and made her go. I should have come here and handed you twelve rent checks and made you tear hers up whenever she tried to pay. Then she never would have felt forced into it.”
He frowns, his mouth opening but hesitating.
“What?” I snap, unintentionally.
“From what I hear, some girls . . . enjoy that line of work.”
“Celine didn’t. I know she didn’t. I read about how much she didn’t. For the most part,” I add quietly, because that last diary entry with “Jay” would suggest otherwise. “She enjoyed having money, that’s what she enjoyed. To not have to worry about how she would pay her bills, and instead live out her dreams.”
He sighs, lifting his arm to fit beneath my head and pull me into his chest. “Money is a tantalizing whore, isn’t she?” I tense and he immediately apologizes. “Sorry, poor choice of words. I just meant that people will find themselves doing things they never expected to just to get their hands on it. Sometimes it’s for a good cause; sometimes it’s not. I hate money for that reason.”
I can’t relate. But can Grady? “And what disgraceful things have you done for money?”
He smirks. “I’m a simple man, who appreciates the simple things in life.”
“Like fixing old ladies’ sinks?”
“Like fixing old ladies’ sinks.” He chuckles, reaching up to swipe my tears away. “And enjoying the great outdoors with a beautiful woman.”
His compliment—however undeserved it may be, after my thirty-six-hour diary-reading marathon has left me with dark bags under my eyes and sallow skin—warms my heart slightly. I sigh. Yes, having someone to talk to abo
ut this helps. “I just don’t know what to tell her mother.”
Grady frowns. “Why on earth would you tell her mother? There are some things that parents just shouldn’t know about.” He adds quietly, “Let that secret die with Celine.”
“It’s not that simple. I think one of Celine’s diaries is missing. The latest one. It’s nowhere in the apartment, and diaries aren’t something you simply misplace. If it’s missing, it’s because someone took it. And I can only think of one reason why someone would take it.”
He thinks for a moment. “Because maybe she was servicing someone she shouldn’t have been with?”
“Exactly.” Like the governor of Illinois’s son.
“But that would mean that the guy had to be in her apartment. What are you saying? That you don’t think she killed herself?”
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. “It’s just strange, is all,” I say, backpedaling, realizing that perhaps I’ve shared too much. “It’s a loose end, and I don’t like loose ends.”
He nods slowly. “Did you ask Ruby? If someone walks down that hall and she’s awake, she knows about it.”
“I did. She never noticed any men visiting. Ever.”
“Did Celine mention names or anything like that in the diaries you did find?”
“Nothing to clearly identify anyone.”
Grady heaves a sigh. “I don’t know, Maggie. That’s some theory.”
“I knew you wouldn’t believe me.” I need someone to believe me. I can’t be alone in this.
“It’s not that. It’s just . . . When my brother OD’d, it took me months to come to terms with it. I wasted so much time trying to prove that the drugs were laced with poison, even though no poison was found in the toxicology report. I even tracked down the guy who sold them to him and threatened to kill him if he didn’t confess. You can imagine how well that went over, threatening a drug dealer.” The sound of his chuckle reverberates against my ear, sending a tingle through my limbs.
“Finally, I just had to accept it: My brother was a drug user who mixed things he shouldn’t have mixed.” His deeply accented voice cracks with emotion.