The Craigslist Murders - Brenda Cullerton [44]
Charlotte sat there, her mouth open. “I’m sorry. I had no idea,” she said, contritely.
“And now I must go. My wife and children are waiting.”
Charlotte usually preferred to be first at the door, to preempt other people’s departures. But tonight, she followed meekly after Pavel.
“We have to talk about work,” she said, pointing towards the sketches and swatches that she’d laid out near the fireplace. Pulling on his coat, Pavel grinned. “Of course. That is why I am here … to talk about furniture.”
“If you are here Monday during the day, I would like to take you up to meet Max,” Charlotte said, pulling out a leather book. “He has a shop I think you’ll love.”
“I am yours. But only if you promise to have dinner with me before I go back to Moscow? Will you do that, Charlotte?” Charlotte pretended to check her book.
“I think I’m free on Tuesday night.”
“Then Tuesday it is,” Pavel said, giving her a gentle peck on the cheek.
Charlotte accompanied him to the elevator and, as the doors began to close, leapt into the gap. “Wait!” She shouted, sliding up against the wall inside. “I’ll take you down.” The two shared an easy, companionable silence all the way to the lobby. It was only when Charlotte stood beneath the awning, gawking at the bodyguards that she spoke. “They’re as big as armoires, those guys,” she said.
Pavel flinched. “A necessary evil,” he replied, as one of the men opened the door to the limo and Pavel lowered his head to get in.
“See you Monday,” he said, disappearing into the darkness.
Riding up in the elevator, Charlotte wondered if Pavel had been referring to himself in his story. Was he one of the rich men who killed for billions of dollars? Had she found a kindred soul? A man who would understand the extraordinary thing that made her so different from others? Money hadn’t yet thinned Pavel’s blood. There was something that felt so fresh about his struggle. So raw.
Sipping a final glass of Dom and making room for the Tupperware bowl in her fridge, Charlotte thought about the old lady and her dream of the church. It reminded her of her own recurrent dream. Was the dream about being chased by her mother a premonition, a message? Scrubbing her hands in soapy water, she touched the old marble sink, as if to reassure herself. And as she had done so many times before, Charlotte wondered what it might have been like to have had a sister in her life.
After giving her hair its usual one hundred slow luxurious strokes, she slipped into Vicky’s old cashmere and touched the silver framed photo next to her bed. Sometimes, she’d find herself speaking to Aunt Dottie, hoping that she was alive somewhere, listening. Was it worth the price that her mother had paid, losing an entire family? she wondered. For what? For party invitations? For an apartment on Fifth Avenue and a membership at the Cosmo Club?
Charlotte closed her eyes and slept like the dead.
26
Charlotte was admiring the work her French painters had done in Rita’s foyer (twelve coats of a lovely two-tone gray lacquer) when her client stormed in the front door. She was wearing a brace on her right wrist.
“My God!” Charlotte said. “What happened?”
“Don’t ask. Don’t even ask!” Rita said, making a clumsy effort to remove a black kid glove from her left hand.
“I’m asking anyway,” Charlotte said, leaning down to help remove the glove.
“You won’t believe it,” Rita added. “But yesterday I went to the orthopedist. I’ve had these horrible pains in my wrist, Charlotte, for weeks.”
“It sounds like carpal tunnel,” Charlotte said, feigning sympathy.
“So the doctor says to me: ‘Mrs. Brickman, you’re the third woman in here this month with the same complaint.’ I’m kneading my arm, anything to get rid of the pain, Charlotte. And then he says: ‘Do you,