Page 64 of The Betrayer
Chapter 26
Will
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“THANK YOU, WILSON.”As I exited the car, I thanked my driver, who stood by the door he had opened. “This the place?”
“It’s the address you gave me,” the man replied with a slight shrug.
I stopped and looked up at the brownstone that had been converted into apartments, counting up to the third floor, wondering which apartment was Rita’s.
“I’ll wait here,” my driver said, shutting the door I had just exited and walking back around to the driver’s side.
Searching for the apartment number on the buzzer pad, I found 301 and pressed the black button.
“Hello?” the answer crackled a moment later over the intercom.
“Rita, it’s Will.”
“Oh, you’re early. I’m not quite ready yet. Why don’t you come up?”
The door clicked unlocked to the tune of the ear-spitting buzzer. I thought about waiting downstairs for her instead, wondering if it was too early. But she had invited me up, after all, so I pulled it open to make my way up the stairs to Rita’s apartment.
When she answered the door, Rita was still in her work clothes, her makeup half-finished.
“Sorry, I’m not ready yet.” She blushed slightly, the first time I’d seen her do anything of the sort. “I had a meeting at work that ran over, and then the train was late. I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes. Is that okay?”
“Of course,” I followed her inside and shut the door behind me.
“Great. Just get comfortable wherever.” Rita gestured to the room at large over her shoulder before she disappeared into the only other door in the place beside the coat closet.
I glanced around, feeling a sense of déjà vu. I hadn’t been in an apartment this small or old since I had first been married and Paul had been a baby. It reminded me a lot of the one my ex and I had lived in when I had been trying to get the business off the ground, and we’d been struggling to pay the bills.
Looking around, I could almost intuit where everything was—it was the same in small apartments the world over—tiny kitchen, the counter crowded with food boxes and unread mail. The living room was a single couch that had seen better days, a disk chair, and a dining room table that could fit only two people with a few boxes piled on top. A shopping bag had fallen over, its items spilling onto the scratched top. More boxes, a paper bag, and a pile of discarded shoes were near the door.
“So, is your son bringing a date?”
