The door opened on a small vestibule, thick with the faint but unmistakable odor of beer and other, less palatable things. The only signs of life were the mailboxes set into a stained gray wall.
Nicolo scanned the nameplates. A. Black lived in apartment 5C.
The door that opened into the house itself had no lock, either. None that was usable, anyway. Ahead, a dimly lit staircase with time-worn treads rose into the gloom.
Nicolo started up.
By the time he reached the fifth floor and apartment 5C, he was almost hoping he’d come to the wrong place. This was the kind of building that epitomized the things people tried to avoid when they lived in Manhattan.
So what? he told himself again. How Black’s granddaughter lived was her affair.
He hesitated. Had coming here actually been a good idea? What would he gain by forcing her to admit she’d enjoyed what they’d done together? Was his ego that fragile, that it needed affirmation from a woman like this?
Before he could change his mind, Nicolo pressed the bell button.
Nobody answered.
He rang again. And then again. Okay. He’d come here, she wasn’t home. That is, she wasn’t home if he even had the correct address, which he doubted…
The door swung open. Not far, just a couple of inches, but enough for him to see the woman who’d opened it.
Aimee.
She stared at him. Her eyes widened. “No,” she whispered, “no…”
What would come next was in those wide eyes. Besides, they had done this dance before.
She started to slam the door but Nicolo was too quick. She cried out and fell back as he put his shoulder to the door and forced it open. A second later, he was inside a tiny foyer.
Aimee was pressed against the wall, looking up at him with fear in her eyes.
He felt a tightening in his gut.
She hadn’t been afraid of him that night…But this wasn’t that night. It was good that she was afraid. Hell, it was what he wanted. When he was done with her…
“No,” she said again, her voice high and thin.
Her eyes rolled up. She collapsed as if she were a marionette and someone had cut her strings.
Nicolo caught her before she crumpled to the floor. It was an automatic move but he knew damned well the faint was simply another outstanding performance….
Merda. His heart skipped a beat. It was not an act. She was limp in his arms.
He looked around frantically, saw a small sofa and carried her to it. “Ms. Black. Aimee. Can you hear me?”
Stupido! Of course she couldn’t hear him. She was unconscious. What did you do for an unconscious woman?
Cold compresses. And spirits of—of what? Ammonia? Who in hell had spirits of ammonia lying around in this day and age?
A doorway opened onto a kitchen. Nicolo hurried inside, grabbed a towel from the sink, stuffed it with ice cubes from the fridge’s freezer tray and ran back into the living room.
Aimee lay as he’d left her, small and unmoving, her pulse beat visible in her slender throat.
“Aimee,” he said softly.
She didn’t respond. Nicolo knelt beside her. Slipped his arm around her shoulders and lifted her to him.
“Aimee,” he said again, and gently placed the ice pack against her forehead.