Page 83 of Another Girl Lost

“You don’t.”

She blinked and rubbed her red nose with her fingers. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“Why did you?” I’d spent the last decade wallowing in Tanner’s wreckage. I’d climbed free of most of the debris, but Tiffany hadn’t. “I want to help you.”

“Why?”

“I owe you.”

She sniffed. “Then give me money.”

“I told you months ago, no more money.”

Tiffany scowled. “I’ll buy food.”

“No, you won’t. If you need a meal, knock on my door. I’ll feed you.”

“I need cash. Not a stupid sandwich.”

“I’m not giving you money.”

“Bitch.”

I raised my hands in surrender. “I’m not giving you money.”

Slowly, I turned and walked across the street. As I opened my front door, I half expected to see Tiffany following me. But when I looked back, I saw someone pause in front of Tiffany. The woman was nicely dressed, blond hair, large sunglasses. She handed Tiffany money, which she quickly pocketed. Enough for her next hit. Damn.

Gold bracelets winked from the woman’s wrists as she started walking. Recognition flickered. Was she the woman from the gym and theone who’d passed by the restaurant the other night? My latest Della doppelgänger?

I trotted across the street, dodging a delivery truck, and rounded the corner. The woman was pressing a car remote, and the lights of a dark sedan blinked. I hurried toward her. “Excuse me! Ma’am!”

I wanted her to pause, glance in my direction, and give me a good look at her face.

The woman hesitated, her hand on the driver’s-side door. When she turned, she was smiling, but large, dark sunglasses shaded most of her face. “Yes?”

I desperately searched her features for any signs of Della. The angle of the chin and the cheekbones were similar, but this woman was at least thirty pounds lighter than Della. The glasses and blond hair made it difficult to superimpose the two faces.

“I’m Scarlett. I live around the corner in the warehouse.”

The woman smiled. “I’m Margo. I just moved into the Belmont building.”

“Across the street from me.” The lights I’d seen on yesterday. “Did you take the top unit?”

“I did.”

“Your apartment has a view of my place.”

“I guess that makes us roommates,” she said, grinning. “We should get a drink sometime. Be nice to get to know my neighbors.”

“That would be great.”

Margo handed me her phone. “Text yourself from my number.”

Heart striking my breastbone, I typed. “There you go.”

As I handed Margo’s phone back to her, my phone pinged with a text. “Now you have my number.”

“Terrific.” My brain continued to process details, but I couldn’t assemble all the puzzle pieces into Della. “That girl you gave money to.”

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