The Dollhouse(84)

“Who lives here?” Jason asked.

The time had come to tell the truth. Now that the story had been killed, maybe Jason wouldn’t be too horrified. Rose grabbed a towel from the bathroom and dried off her hair, avoiding his gaze. “This is Darby’s apartment. Or Esme’s. I can’t quite wrap my head around who she is anymore, to tell the truth.”

“You appear to be quite comfortable here.”

“I’ve been taking care of her dog.”

“Whoa. Back up a minute.” He lowered himself onto the couch and exchanged glares with Bird. “First of all, why did you quit?”

She sat cross-legged on the chair. “I don’t want to make stupid lists. That’s not why I signed on with Tyler.”

“I can understand that. But we could have convinced him to do the Barbizon piece at least.”

“No, he was done with it, and done with me. I’m tired of playing games and being played.”

“So what will you do?”

“I’ll pitch the story to someone else. The New York Times Magazine, that kind of thing.”

“And what about all this?” He gestured around the room. “How will you explain to your editors that you’re living in a source’s apartment? The Times doesn’t like that type of thing, you know. No good news source does.”

“I know. It wasn’t planned.”

“Obviously, there’s something you’re not telling me. You’re taking care of her dog, yet you don’t know much about her, and have no idea where she went. “

“It all happened at once. Stella Conover was dog-sitting but she had to go to the hospital, so I took over. Apparently, Darby hasn’t made many friends on the floor. She’s standoffish.”

“Why didn’t you take the dog back to your own apartment?”

“It was Griff’s apartment. Until we broke up. Griff and his ex-wife, who you just had the pleasure of meeting, got back together, and she wanted to live there. He gave me only a few days to move out, and I was desperate. It’s a temporary solution.”

“You haven’t spoken with Darby since she left, right?”

“Right.”

“Does she know you’ve been holing up here?”

She took a deep breath. “Not yet.”

He rubbed his chin. “I hate to ask this, but how exactly did you get all of your information? The book of spices, the letter, that kind of thing.”

Without thinking, she glanced at the bookshelf.

“You went through her belongings?” His eyes widened with shock. “You’re living in a woman’s apartment, squatting. If she comes back and finds you, she could call the police. You’re trespassing. And snooping.”

“I wish I could explain. But I feel this strange connection with her.”

“With an eighty-year-old woman you’ve only met in passing? That makes no sense.”

“I know, none of this does.” Her words tumbled out. “But I’ll be out of here before she returns. I’m moving into my friend Maddy’s apartment. I’ll take Bird with me and leave Darby a note. When she calls, I’ll explain everything. And she’ll be so grateful that I took care of her dog, she’ll agree to be interviewed and we’ll have a truly tremendous story. And if my hunch is correct and the woman who calls herself Darby is actually Esme in disguise? Can you imagine how huge that would be?”

He took a deep breath, his broad chest rising and falling. “What about this scenario: She comes home, finds out that you have the dog, and considers what you’ve done is a major invasion of privacy, not to mention dognapping, and turns you in to the cops.”

“I have Stella to back me up, that I helped out in a pinch. And what’s going to happen to me? I’ll get fired? Too late for that.”

“Never mind getting fired. What about the ethics of what you’re doing? What if someone did this to you? It’s criminal, no question about it.”

“No.” She punched the word. “The story is much more than that.”

“In what way?”

“It’s about losing the people you love, being alone in a big city with nothing more than the four walls of your apartment to protect you. Ending up lonely and bitter with no one around.”

“This isn’t a Grimms’ fairy tale, Rose. Darby, or Esme, whoever she is, made her choices, from what it sounds like. We don’t know what she got involved in. But she wasn’t an innocent. Whatever happened up on that terrace in 1952 was tragic, but not unavoidable. Heroin, drugs, informants. They were involved in some serious shit.”

God, he was right. His words sunk in with a bitter force. She’d deluded herself these past weeks, crossing lines and making bad judgment calls about a series of events that had nothing whatsoever to do with her.

But there was no going back now. Rose stood. “Everything you say makes sense, Jason. But I want to find out exactly what happened. I have to.”

“Why? So you don’t end up the same way? A crazy old lady with no friends, living in a dingy, rent-stabilized apartment?”

It was as if the wind had been knocked out of her. “That was cruel.”

He softened, only slightly. “I get it. With your father being so ill, with everything you’ve been going through, I understand why you might be inclined to fixate on this woman. But you shouldn’t. It’s not healthy. Maybe Darby-slash-Esme is off on a beach in Tahiti, sipping rum punches with her sixty-year-old lover.”