Page 65 of The Woman on the Jury

Oh, thank God.

Washing my panties and re-wearing his tee was not it.

“Oh, thanks,” I said, giving him a smile because he was a guy doing his job. And it was, objectively, probably a shitty one, compared to the other stuff the mafia must do on the daily.

I brought my breakfast to the island, finding strawberry-banana crepes and some sort of fruit smoothie.

I started to eat as I placed my bags on the far end of the island, checking to make sure it was clean, then pulling items out.

The first, smaller, bag was all white with a silver word scrawled across it.

La Perla.

I didn’t have any frame of reference for what that was until I reached inside, and pulled out several pairs of lacy and silky panties.

A lingerie store.

And now that I thought of it, I could have sworn that I’d heard Lauren mention it once or twice in the past. Like all things that were out of my tax bracket, though, I’d completely forgotten about it.

The next bag was one I was sure I’d seen a million times in the city. A simple brown bag that saidMedium Brown Bagon it. I’d always figured that it was just some sort of bag company or something that a lot of businesses used.

Nope.

As it turned out, everything inside that bag was from Bloomingdale’s.

The first thing I pulled out was the softest damn thing I’d ever felt in my life.

A cashmere turtleneck in a light, ice blue color calledGrotto Blue.

Had he picked this out for me?

No.

No way.

He probably had a mom or sister or some woman on his staff to run these sorts of errands. Still, it was perfect. The neck looked like it would cover the bruises on my throat. Which, as silly as it was, I didn’t even want to look at myself.

I reached back into the bag, feeling something buttery, but finding a completely different sort of material. Pulling the fabric out, I found a pair of black slacks, high-waisted, and slightly wide in the leg.

The final bag was a lavender color with the wordsBergdorf Goodmanon it.

There was a box inside.

Shoes.

I flipped open the top, folded back the tissue paper, and found the most amazing pair of black pumps I’d ever seen in my life. They had a heel, but not too tall or too thin, with flat leather and a dainty strap.

In my size.

I had no idea how anyone could possibly know that.

But, as I slipped the shoe on my foot, finding it fit like a glove, I had to assume it had something to do with being in my apartment.

I’d never considered before that anyone would step foot in there except me. I never even let Lauren up. I always just met her in the shop or on the street.

Maybe I wouldn’t have been so embarrassed by it if I put literally any effort into making it my own. But I’d been busting my ass at the shop, then on damn jury duty, then trying to catch up at the shop again after the jury duty ended. I barely had time to stuff something in my mouth and then brush my teeth before bed. There was no brain power or energy leftover to paint or decorate.

But, clearly, someone in the mafia had been in my apartment.

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