Secret Strangers in Love novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Stairwell

On Monday I carried Mr. Stanhope's lunch down from the deli and walked straight into my past.

The lobby elevator opened, and the woman inside was wearing a cream coat and the smile I would know in my sleep.

"Hold the door," said Brooke Haldane.

My legs obeyed before my brain did.

I stood with a paper bag of sandwiches against my chest and watched her step in and press twenty-nine.

She hadn't looked at me yet.

She was tapping a text, humming, and her perfume filled the car.

At floor nine, she glanced up.

Her thumb stopped.

She did not say anything for three full floors.

At twelve, she reached over without looking and pressed the red stop button.

The elevator shuddered and held.

"Well," said Brooke softly. "Alexis."

I could have said I had never seen her before.

Instead I looked at the small scar by her eyebrow.

I thought, finally.

"Hello, Brooke."

"What are you doing here?"

"I work here."

"You work in a kitchen."

"I work in a kitchen in the daytime."

Her eyes dropped to my badge.

"Lexie Dunne," she read, and she began to laugh.

It was a pretty laugh, the one she'd practiced for the assembly.

"Your mother's name. How sad. You're a spy."

"You're an impostor."

"I'm family, sweetheart."

"You were family for four years. You left when you were eighteen."

She tilted her head, and the laughter went out of her face.

"Fine. Let's talk. Not here."

She pressed the button again, and the doors opened onto a landing with no one on it.

I followed her into the stairwell because I had to know what she wanted.

The door clanged behind us, and our voices bounced off the concrete.

"Do you know what I could do with a phone call?" she said.

"Call my grandfather. He'll ask you what you're doing in my name."

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