The Address(24)

Usually, Bailey was able to keep her mouth shut when a client wanted something that she found to be outrageous and in bad taste. Obviously, the truth had begun squeaking out over the past few years, fueled by her drinking, culminating in her massive verbal slap-down of Mrs. Ashfield-Simmons and her half-wit daughter. But for some reason, the idea of giving the family’s Dakota apartment a major face-lift really irked her. Bailey’s own grandfather, Christopher Camden, had spent his childhood in these same rooms, after being taken in as the ward of Theodore Camden, the celebrated architect, and his aristocrat wife, Minnie. Bailey had never really known her grandfather—he’d died when she was a baby—but she felt a curious sort of pride in the Dakota apartment because of his history here. It wasn’t a sense of ownership exactly; she understood her place too well for that.

But it was something.

Bailey’s father never said much at all about Grandpa Christopher. Bailey got the impression that he was a crusty sort when her dad was growing up, not what you’d call a warm or involved parent. A man from a different era, with a different way of thinking, who left home at the age of fifteen, joined the navy, and ended up fixing cars in New Jersey.

On the way to each pilgrimage to visit Sophia and the twins, Bailey’s mother would question her father about what exactly happened back then, only to be met with a couple of shrugs at best. The fact that Grandpa Christopher had completely cut ties with the Camdens was absurd, according to Peggy. Surely, there must have been some kind of mistake or misunderstanding.

But maybe Bailey’s grandfather wasn’t interested in living the same way his foster parents did. Maybe he thought the rest of the family were terrible snobs or something. If so, Bailey’s sentimental attachment to the Dakota was sadly misplaced. Perhaps the Camdens were so mean to Christopher, an outsider, when he was a kid that he would have loved to see the place trashed.

Like Bailey, Peggy had been enamored of the building. She would enter the Dakota courtyard wearing big sunglasses as if she were a movie star, even on the cloudiest day. But Bailey knew they were mainly for hiding her sidelong glances into the dizzying array of dark windows that surrounded them, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the famous inhabitants. How excited Peggy would have been to learn that Bailey was not only working, but living, in the building.

A cold sweat made Bailey shiver. Even though it had been years since the accident, the thought that her mother’s physical being no longer existed—or no, it did exist and, even worse, was buried in South Jersey’s sandy soil—still gutted her.

Bailey made the long journey down to the East Village, collected her two suitcases, and unpacked back at the Dakota. It took all of three minutes. Luckily, she’d stashed most of her belongings in her dad’s basement in New Jersey before moving into the ex-boyfriend’s cramped apartment, which had probably kept them from being pawned off during her stint at Silver Hill. Not that she needed much at the moment.

Her stomach grumbled. HALT. God, she had been conditioned. It was more like brainwashing than substance abuse counseling: Avoid being hungry, angry, lonely, or tired if you want to stay sober. Well, she was all four, when it came right down to it. She stood in line at a pizza place on Columbus and then wolfed down a couple of slices back in the apartment’s library, where a ratty folding table had been set up to review plans. She really should find an AA meeting nearby, but it was getting dark and she didn’t feel like wandering around without having a better idea of the neighborhood, which streets to steer clear of, which were safe. Tomorrow, for sure.

A scratching noise up in the ceiling caught her attention. Mice, most likely. What a field day the critters must have in this building, with its thick, horsehair-stuffed walls and three feet of mud between each story. Plenty of room to make nests from which to make forays into the residents’ kitchens and feast on crumbs. The thought was weirdly comforting.

The mirror on the opposite wall reflected her image back to her. At thirty, after a decade of hard living, the skin around Bailey’s eyes had lost the baby smoothness of her teenage years. But lately her face had begun to fill out, as the hollowness of addiction disappeared. Without alcohol and drugs, she’d started eating again, hence the two slices of pizza.

She’d always thought her hair and eyes to be unremarkable, brown on brown, her mouth too large. As a young girl, people often asked her if she was about to cry when she was just lost in space, thinking about something, minding her own business. Her mother had liked to say she had a “kind” face. Whatever that meant.

Bailey pushed her hair behind her ears. God, that perm. Never again.

She sat back and looked about her, her gaze settling on the spot where Theodore Camden had been murdered. Poor man, struck down in his own home. She hoped his ghost wouldn’t come back and haunt her for the destruction of his property.

Bailey walked back to the kitchen, tossed the pizza box into the trash, and reluctantly stepped into her tiny room. In the darkness, it was no longer cozy or reminiscent of Silver Hill. It was the servant’s apartment, where the kitchen maid, or whoever, had made a tiny life by serving other people, and then probably died after she was no longer of use, with no pension, no security.

That would not be Bailey’s fate. She had her wits about her now, her mind no longer clouded with toxic substances. The cot creaked beneath her as she lay flat on her back, exhausted. After being abandoned in her teens without any guidance at all, she had been shown a world of pleasure and fun by Melinda, and it had been a wild ride. But no more. Bailey had veered toward a dangerous precipice the past few years, and now she had an opportunity to straighten herself out.