Chapter One
Alexia Turso eased her apartment door open and looked into the hallway. It looked clear, but that meant nothing. She hadn’t a doubt Mrs. Morgan stood silently behind her door watching from her peephole. The lady or one of her cohorts saw everything that happened on her floor, saw everything in the building, in fact. What they didn’t see, they made up.
Just for once, Lexie thought she’d rather not be the star of tomorrow’s gossip. Granted, these old folks had little to do with their time, except for gardening and knitting mittens and booties for those in the . Still, she was getting tired of being accused of everything from being a high-priced call girl to a common criminal. All right, the thought of being a call girl actually sounded kind of exciting—except that Mrs. Dietz didn’t always have her senses about her and as often as not confused Lexie with one of her own nieces—but did she look like a criminal? Really? Normally she wouldn’t have cared what anyone thought, but the gossip mongers had gone too far when one of them had actually called the police.
Luckily she’d been able to explain the bank bag she’d brought home from work did not contain monies from last week’s hold up―different branch of the bank, in any case. Since she was opening the next morning, it was filled with heavy rolls of coins for the café’s cash register.
If her rooms hadn’t recently been renovated into a big, sunny apartment, she might consider moving. Only she wouldn’t. Her place was perfect, and the rent, considering it was just a short subway ride from downtown , was almost reasonable. And to top that, Jim Marino had moved in next door a month ago.
Jim just happened to be freaking gorgeous, which was another excellent reason to stay. Her mouth had actually fallen open the first time he’d smiled and walked past her. The night he’d moved in, while a half dozen young men had grunted beneath the weight of furniture and huge boxes, she’d left a tray of spaghetti and meatballs, paper plates and forks, on his kitchen counter. His friends had explained Jim had gone off to buy beer and would be back in a few minutes. She hadn’t stayed but left a note to welcome him to the building. Since then, he’d made two efforts to see her, and both times, she’d been on her way out—once with a date, another with her parents, who had come to stay for the weekend.
Twice, they’d met in the hall while leaving for work. During those few minutes, they hadn’t much time but for a quick hello and a remark on the heat wave currently holding in its suffocating grasp. Still, she knew he was twenty-eight, unmarried, graduated from , passed the bar a few years back, currently worked for the DA and had no one special in his life. Lexie hadn’t a doubt the man knew equally as much about her. Mrs. Morgan was always trying to set her up. Apparently, like Lexie’s mother, the woman’s one goal in life was to make sure Lexie got married. Lexie thought she’d left that kind of intrusive behavior behind when she’d moved out of her parents’ home. Obviously, all the move had managed to do was give her five more mothers and a grouchy uncle.
Normally, Mrs. Morgan and her band of nosey friends wouldn’t have mattered, except for the fact the entire building anxiously awaited her return from every date, hoping to see an engagement ring on her finger. Lately, Lexie had taken to calling out, “Not yet!” just before entering her apartment, lest her phone ring for the next hour or so with questions from the mundane to the ridiculous as each one waited for her to blurt out the real news.
Of course, the lady and her cohorts were sly about their invasion of her privacy. They never came right out and asked about the men she dated. Still, before each first date was a memory, the women somehow knew more about the man than Lexie did.
Mrs. Gilbert had once worked for a private investigator, and Lexie thought it
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