Chapter 18: The Condo

The condo was on the thirty-first floor, and I had not been inside it since the night of the gala.

My key did not work.

I tried it twice in the corridor.

The lock gave a small red blink.

"He changed it Tuesday," the building manager said.

He was a nervous man who held his master key.

"Mr. Gaines asked for new cylinders. I thought he was keeping you safe, miss."

"From what?"

"I didn't ask."

"What I need from inside is a box of photographs," I said. "It's in the hall closet, marked E."

Winslow stood a step behind me with his hands in his pockets.

He had looked at the door once, the way he looks at a thing he could take off its hinges.

Then he had looked at me.

"Your call," he said.

"Open it."

The manager turned the key.

The door swung back on a hall I knew, with the long runner and the console table.

The first thing I saw was a laundry cart.

It was the big canvas kind, from the Tower's own housekeeping floor.

It was full of silver.

Forks and ladles lay in it in a heap, and a soup tureen rode on top.

Down the hall, in the dining room, Vivian Gaines stood at my table in the pearls and a pale blue cardigan.

She was wrapping a gravy boat in a bath towel.

Her head came up, and the towel hit the floor.

"What are you doing here?" she said. "This is my son's home."

"It's a corporate unit, Vivian. And I'm the corporation."

"You have no right to walk in."

"I have a key."

Across the corridor behind me, a door opened a hand's width.

Then another.

A woman in a quilted robe stood in the first, with a small white dog under her arm.

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