She wasn’t willing to give him up or admit that her relationship was in trouble. Jodi was right, she was not good at talking about the bad or difficult stuff, and confrontation over real (or imagined) issues had certainly never been her strong suit. Beth had always argued that it was because she preferred to look on the bright side of life.
But was it that she was too scared to confront reality? Now she wasn’t sure.
All she knew was that something was going wrong in her relationship, in parallel to something good and intriguing happening elsewhere and, try as she might, she felt powerless to stop either one.
Chapter 13
The following morning, Billy was just finishing a phone call with Mrs Lovejoy in apartment 15H when a bike messenger rolled up in front of the building, jumped from his bike, propped it up against the glass partition (much to Billy’s chagrin) and shuffled into the lobby. He had his messenger bag strapped across his chest and took a bored look at his surroundings before making eye contact with the concierge.
Meeting his gaze, Billy politely put a finger up, indicating that he wouldn’t be long.
‘Absolutely, Mrs Lovejoy,’ he said. ‘I have made a note of it here. The agency is to send over a new housekeeper for you to interview this week and if she looks suspicious – oh, I’m sorry, yes, I’m writing it down now. Shifty-eyed. If she looks shifty-eyed I should not let her up.’ Billy paused as he listened. ‘I certainly understand. Yes, it’s always difficult when you suspect someone is stealing from you. Right. Of course, it wasn’t overly valuable. Just some plastic bags. Right. You never can be too careful. But I wonder, Mrs Lovejoy, if she might have just been recycling them for you? Yes. OK, I realize you had a lot of them. And sure, she might not have realised that you were keeping them for a reason.’
Billy looked again at the bike messenger and flashed a grin. He covered the mouthpiece of the phone with his hand and said, ‘Sorry, this woman can talk.’
The bike messenger shrugged.
So Billy continued on with his conversation. ‘Not to worry, Mrs Lovejoy. I will keep a watch out. And you know I have your best interests at heart. Of course, of course.’ Billy listened for another moment. ‘All right then. I have to go now, I have someone here I need to help, so thank you. Cheerio!’ And he hung up the phone without further ado, rubbing his ear.
‘Mother of God, if I get that age and turn crazy, just put me out of my misery. The woman fired her housekeeper for “stealing plastic bags”.’ He rubbed his temple for a moment. ‘Now what do you have for me, lad? I’m assuming I need to sign for something.’
‘Just this envelope. It’s for Beth Harper.’ The messenger looked at his clipboard. ‘In 28F.’ Billy took the clipboard from the messenger and hastily signed his name. He handed the clipboard back to him as the messenger passed him a manila envelope.
‘Thank you. I’ll be sure to give it to her when she comes home from work.’
The messenger snapped his gum and put his clipboard back in his bag. ‘She’s popular, huh? She works at Carlisle’s, doesn’t she?’ he asked.
Billy raised his eyebrows and quickly looked the bike messenger up and down, suddenly on full alert. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I delivered something to her there a few days ago. Has to be the same person. Cute little blonde, right?’
Billy raised an eyebrow. ‘Why do you want to know?’
The bike messenger put his hands up in front of him to indicate he didn’t mean any harm. ‘Hey, buddy, no reason. Just curious, that’s all. Just saying, she’s popular. It’s cool.’ He began backing away, clearly wanting to get out of the lobby now that Billy had shown signs of overprotectiveness about one of his residents.
The last thing I need is someone thinking I’m stalking this chick. Don’t shoot the messenger, bro.Besides, it seemed like she already has a stalker, with these weird deliveries, he thought ominously.
Just as he was about to push through the glass doors and reclaim his bike, Billy called out, ‘Wait. Who do you work for?’
The messenger pointed to his partially obscured T-shirt. ‘A to Z Messenger Service signs my pay cheques. But we have a bunch of contracts. Advertising, marketing and law firms, individuals, you get my drift. See ya, man.’
And with that, he was gone.
Billy watched him jump on his bike and speed off. The messenger himself, the name of his company, even this envelope – all were completely ambiguous, vague.
Well, when Beth came back he’d pass it on as asked. After all, he sighed, he was just the concierge. He kept the lobby safe, he signed for deliveries, made sure his residents were taken care of – it wasn’t his business to snoop. New Yorkers in general might be pretty paranoid, but Billy wasn’t Homeland Security – he wasn’t paid to do detective work.
Although, he guessed, he’d be a dab hand at that, too. Nope, this delivery had nothing whatsoever to do with him. He would make sure he passed it on to Beth and whatever happened after that, happened.
***
‘Hello, Billy,’ Beth greeted him warmly later that evening. ‘How are you today? Staying warm in this cold, I hope?’
Billy smiled and walked out from behind his desk with an envelope in his hand. ‘As warm as I can be, with those doors opening and closing all day. How are you doing yourself today, Beth? All OK with you? All good with Danny?’
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously and gave a tentative reply, wondering what Billy was getting at. ‘Of course. All good. Why do you ask?’
Billy shook his head and smiled and Beth noticed that he was blushing again. ‘Ah, no reason,’ he continued. ‘A messenger came earlier with this delivery for you. He was a bit sketchy, so I just wanted to make sure you were OK. That’s all.’ He handed the envelope to her delicately, but she could tell he was more interested than he was letting on.
