It took her only twenty minutes to pack her things. She opened a suitcase and a garbage bag. When she was done, the garbage bag was stuffed to overflowing, while all her worldly possessions totaled only three-quarters of the suitcase. It made half of her sad to be such a vagabond, the other half proud that life had taught her economy. Her life was a Bob Dylan lyric. What little else remained, she left for Margo’s next tenant, if there ever was one. People weren’t exactly flocking to relocate to Niobe.
A single garment bag hung in her closet. She unzipped it and laid the yellow dress out on her bare mattress. She remembered the way her father had surprised her with it, draped casually over the back of her chair when she’d come down for breakfast that morning. His nose in the Wall Street Journal, pretending not to hear her squeals when she discovered the jewelry box where her breakfast should have been. The necklace inside had taken her breath away. What a lucky girl she’d felt that morning to have such a generous daddy. Poor, spoiled, foolish Chelsea Merrick. The dress matched the tie he’d worn that day. She’d thought that a wonderful touch but now saw what she’d been—an accessory to complement his big moment. They’d driven into his offices together, and she’d stood proudly at his side while he’d announced the launch of Chelsea—his third and final fund, named in her honor. The one that had spelled his downfall. She smoothed the dress with her hand and plucked a stray black hair from the sleeve. She’d worn it only that once, a lifetime ago.
She got to work in the bathroom—not bothering to read the instructions on the bottle; she’d been dying her hair for years now. Afterward, she took her time putting on her makeup and went through a roll of toilet paper before she was finally satisfied. Her seventeen-year-old self would have been horrified at the results, but it was the best Lea could manage now. It had been years since she’d worn anything but lip gloss.
The dress still fit, snug in the shoulders and hips, but not so anyone would notice. She’d been tall at nine and average by fourteen, never growing another inch. She checked herself in the mirror and wondered at the ludicrous girl looking back. Had she really once dressed like this on purpose? The pretentious ballerina collar, the cinched waist, the overly structured skirt—she felt like someone else’s idea of a princess. Which, she supposed, she had been. Someone really ought to have slapped some sense into that girl. The whole getup was way, way over the top . . . and hence, perfect. After all, over the top was Charles Merrick’s lingua franca.
But not if she looked like a war refugee . . . She forced a tight, jagged smile that wouldn’t do much except scare small children. Not attractive, Chelsea, she heard her mother’s voice say. She didn’t want to be Chelsea Merrick again, but she would this one last time. For him. She practiced in the mirror until the smile radiated warmth and love. Her parents had fought over her acting classes when she was in high school. She’d harbored fantasies of becoming an actress, performing someday at the Public, Cherry Lane, Minetta Lane. Her mother, never the warmest of women, considered it a foolish, impractical hobby, but her father encouraged it. Clearly, he’d always been playing a part himself—upstanding member of the community, charitable donor, loving husband, doting father—so perhaps he saw the value in it. Or maybe he knew it would bedevil his wife.
Lea still didn’t have a relationship with her mother. Veronica Merrick had struggled with pills and alcohol in the years since the scandal. They’d had a disastrous reunion in Miami six years ago, and since then Lea had stayed away. But she’d never forgotten her father’s words the day of his arrest, on the phone with one of his shady accountants, moving money around in an effort to hide it from the government. And his family, as it turned out.
The bitch gets nothing.
Lea slipped the thigh holster into place. Hopefully, her father would appreciate her performance today. At least up until the third act. In the mirror, she studied the rigid swing of the skirt; its structure had one advantage—the holster was invisible. She checked her Walther PPK .380 one last time. The men at the gun range had spent the last year trying to convince her to upgrade to something with more stopping power and a larger magazine. But she valued its small size, which made it easier to conceal. The .380 felt comfortable in her hand, and her groupings were tight out to twenty-five feet. If she needed more than eight shots, then she was dead anyway. Plus her father had always loved James Bond movies; she hoped he would appreciate the homage.
A little before noon, Lea left the apartment above the Toproll for the last time. She locked up, went down the back stairs, and loaded her suitcase into her trunk. Then she walked up to Tarte Street. The hotel parking lot was mostly empty for the first time in weeks. It was checkout time at the Wolstenholme. Two men in dark suits stood on the steps of the hotel. One of the men ignored her entirely, his eyes fixed down the street, but the other watched her from the moment she turned the corner until the moment she went into the Toproll. Not the leering way a man ogled a passing woman, but a cold assessment of her threat.
Inside, Margo stood behind the bar, restocking the reach-in coolers. Old Charlie, alert at his post, stared down his first beer and shot of the day, communing with whatever voices that wouldn’t let him be. Margo did a double take when she saw Lea. Old Charlie gave her the once-over, saw nothing that interested him, and went back to the matter at hand.
“Didn’t know it was Cinderella day,” Margo said.
“Hi, Margo.”
“Look at you, you really are a Gilmore Girl.”
“You know, I’ve never actually seen that show.”
“Oh, it’s really good; you’d hate it. So what’s with the hair? Since when were you a blonde?”
“It’s actually my natural color.”
“I don’t like it. People will be confusing us now.”
“Take more than hair to confuse y’all, you evil harpy,” Old Charlie muttered and threw back the shot.
“Did you bust up with your partners?”
“Have you seen them?”
“No, but one of them came and got the van last night.”
Lea smiled. Gibson . . . pain in the ass didn’t know how to quit. Well, she hoped he found what he was looking for. She put the apartment key on the bar top. Margo looked at it and came out from behind the bar, wiping her hands on a bar rag.
“Is it in good shape? I’ll take it out of your security deposit if it isn’t.” Margo’s voice was thick with feeling.
“Better than when you rented it to me.” Lea handed Margo two envelopes, one for her and one marked “Parker.” “I’m sorry it isn’t more. Things haven’t gone the way I’d hoped.”
“It’ll do.” Margo tossed the envelopes onto the bar. “You sure about this, Gilmore? You know you could just let whatever this is go.”
Lea’s felt her own throat tighten, and her eyes felt heavy and wet. She remembered why she’d stopped wearing makeup in the first place. There wasn’t time to redo it now so she couldn’t afford tears, but then Margo drew her into a fierce hug, and Lea knew it was a lost cause.
“Let it go,” Margo repeated.
Lea choked back a sob, shook her head.
“All right, then,” Margo said, conceding defeat. She let go of Lea and took a step back.
“I need a damn drink after all that,” growled Old Charlie.
Lea agreed entirely.