Jennifer Sturman - The Key

I registered a fleeting moment of joy. My would-be killers had been thwarted, I wouldn’t be swimming with the fishes any time soon, and I’d learned that I should leave very specific instructions in my will regarding hors d’oeuvres to be served at my funeral.

Then I blacked out completely.

When I came to, I heard Peter’s voice nearby, in muted conversation with other, unfamiliar voices.

My first thought was to wonder what he was doing there. It was with a mix of relief, affection and shame that I realized I’d been a little quick to assume I’d been left so thoroughly on my own. I hadn’t been alone, after all. There was someone I could rely on. And he’d turned out to be very reliable.

My second thought was to wonder how he’d gotten there. Then I opened my eyes and took a good look around.

My third thought was to hope that Luisa’s insurance covered this sort of thing.

It was late by the time we were able to hitch a ride back to the city, and I’d lost track of how many law enforcement agencies had questioned us, much less which agency was actually providing our transportation. However, I appreciated that the officers in the front seat seemed comfortable leaving us to our own devices in the back seat. That the front and back seats were separated by a bulletproof glass panel also helped secure our privacy, although I found the lack of handles on the doors a bit discomfiting, especially given how recently I’d been entrapped in another moving vehicle.

“How did you know?” I asked Peter. “Jake said they tossed the transmitter out on Canal Street.”

“I was worried that everyone was underestimating Jake, and I wanted to make sure you had more backup than the transmitter. I was in Luisa’s car just below Canal as you were waiting for him.”

“You found parking?” This was almost more impressive than the way in which he’d saved my life.

“I got there early-I left the apartment right after you left to meet Ben-and I circled the block. It took awhile, but eventually a space with a good view of the corner opened up.”

“And then you trailed us up the street? And you saw what happened? You saw Jake pull me into that alley?”

“The nerve of that guy.”

“But-how did you follow us? How did you know where to find me?”

“A handy little thing I like to call a map,” he said with a smile. “I’d been studying it while I was waiting, and I knew where that alley led. I got there just as the Range Rover pulled out, and I could see Jake and Annabel in the front. I figured they wouldn’t have bothered with the car if they were going to leave you in the alley, so I followed them. Before I knew it, we were over the Manhattan Bridge and on the highway. I thought I’d keep the car in sight and call the police.”

“Didn’t your phone work?”

“I’m an idiot-I didn’t even have it with me. I’d left it in the apartment when I sneaked out on Thursday, and I forgot all about it this morning.”

“So you had to improvise.”

“Yes,” he said. “I had to improvise.” The warm chocolate of his eyes was now set off by purplish bruising from where the airbags in the BMW had exploded in his face. Ben wasn’t going to be the only one with a black eye in the morning.

“You know, nobody’s ever going to lend us a car again.”

“Who needs a car when you live in Manhattan?”

We would find out later that Luisa’s car was indeed insured; regardless, she made it very clear that neither Peter nor I was ever authorized to drive one of her vehicles again.

“Would you rather that Peter hadn’t done anything? That he’d saved your precious car but let Jake and Annabel kill me?” I asked her.

“I don’t know if you want me to answer that question,” she replied.

I also found out that all of my friends being in town the same week wasn’t a fortunate coincidence but had occurred purely by design: they’d been planning a surprise engagement party for Peter and me.

Of course, I’d ruined everything by skipping town the night before the party, but they seemed willing to forgive me.

“I just don’t know when we’re going to be able to get another date on the calendar,” said Jane. “Between the baby and everyone’s schedules, it’s going to be hard. And we really wanted it to be a surprise.”

“It was a surprise,” I said. “I had no idea that you were planning anything. So it worked. Thank you.”

“Surprising you isn’t the same thing as having a party, though. Maybe we can do a bridal shower,” suggested Emma. “Or a joint baby and bridal shower for Jane and Rachel together. That could be fun.”

“How would that be fun?” asked Hilary. “Have you ever even been to a shower?”

I probably took more pleasure than was seemly in helping Ben put together his case against Nicholas Perry and Senator Brisbane and in testifying against Jake and Annabel. Annabel’s new outfits were far less becoming than her usual selections from Prada and Gucci, but orange is a difficult color for blondes to wear well.

I took less pleasure in the statements I had to make about Andrew Marcus. He might have been a coldblooded killer, but he’d killed to avenge his family, which seemed like a more noble purpose than the money that had motivated the various other wrong-doers involved. I also appreciated the way he’d prevented Jake from shooting me at the boat basin, not to mention the thorough efficiency with which he’d completed his work on the Thunderbolt deal. Good associates were hard to find.

And I could have used a good associate, because I was soon busy at work again, helping Frank Kryzluk and the Thunderbolt board of directors put together an employee buyout of the company. There was a McDonald’s at the Pittsburgh Airport, but even though the flight from New York took over an hour, it didn’t really count as a road trip, so I couldn’t justify stopping there.

It was close to midnight by the time we reached my apartment building that Sunday night. The doorman helped us out of the squad car that had chauffeured us home from the Hamptons with an admirable lack of comment. I slumped against Peter in the elevator, my eyes closed and practically asleep on my feet. It had been a long day. In fact, it had been a long week.

“Come on,” he said as the elevator doors parted.

I opened my eyes.

“Peter, we’re on the wrong floor.” The little brass plate said sixteen, not fifteen.

“No, we’re not.” He bent and retrieved a key from under the door mat in front of 16A.

“Peter, you can’t just take somebody else’s key like that. And this is the apartment right upstairs from mine. Whoever lives here can make things pretty miserable for us if we piss them off. Stomping around, dragging things, playing loud music. It can get ugly.”

He ignored me and turned the key in the door.

“Peter, this really isn’t funny. It’s dangerous to upset your upstairs neighbors.”

He started to pocket the key, and then he caught himself. “We’ll need to make a copy of this for you.”

“Have you not had enough interaction with law enforcement agencies today?”

“Come here,” he said, propping the door open with his foot.

“What are you doing-” I started to ask. Then he picked me up.

“It’s a little premature, but I’m carrying you over the threshold.”

“Of somebody else’s apartment.”

“No, it’s ours.”

“What?”

“I bought it. It’s ours. And we can build a staircase down to your apartment. I already checked with an architect.”

“How did you-I mean, when did you-” Was this what all of his phone calls had been about? And why he’d been here instead of at his office in the middle of the day?

“Shh,” he said.