Gorilla, Let Down Your Hair

Chapter 3: The Property Manager and I

The next morning, Vicky naturally woke up just before dawn, a long-engrained Monday morning habit. She stretched and rolled out of bed, craving her favorite coffee from Nancy's Breakfast Bakery, as usual. Refusing to check the news yet, she set up her yoga mat in the living room to bend her way through a few sun salutations to get her body and mind prepared for the demands of the coming day.

There would be the police to handle and her job hunt to tackle. No doubt a few of her family members had sent messages or left voicemails of concern-glazed curiosity she needed to answer, given her out-of-character radio silence all weekend. With a bit of luck, word of Mason's duplicity and her own humiliation remained a footnote in the local news. The last thing she wanted was for Claire's honeymoon in Florida to be overshadowed by her own thunderclouds. Time enough when she and Colton returned for Vicky to drop her bombshell.

By the time she completed her practice and stowed the neatly rolled mat on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, she'd settled on a rough plan for the day. She intended to keep to her usual schedule as much as possible, filling her typical work hours with applying for new positions and catching up on her messages in the morning, and contacting the police in the afternoon, if they didn't contact her sooner. More optimistic now, she hurried to dress casually and pull her hair back for the day. She slipped into her favorite running shoes and grabbed her phone, purse, and keys before heading out, careful to set the deadbolt before walking to the elevator.

When the heavy steel doors parted at the lobby level, she took an involuntary step backwards, away from the sudden assault of crowding strangers, multiple voices shouting, and flashing lights. Had she requested the wrong floor? An imperious voice in her head sang of "A Puzzlement," and she agreed with it. The indicator screen inside the elevator displayed an 'l', but the room was hardly recognizable. She rarely met another resident coming or going, but never had so many bodies filled this small space. From her limited point of view, she thought she saw still more people outside the glass front door, prevented from joining the throng inside by the coded keypad. Before she could wonder about how the group within had gained entry and shut the others out, the man closest to her glanced over and spotted her.

He shouted something over the cacophony she didn't understand. At once, every head in the room swung her direction, and a moment later, the people coalesced into a mob, and pressed toward her. Microphones bristled from the press of bodies, and cameras and cell phones were lifted high in hopes of a better view. Just when she thought she might be trapped in the elevator, Phil shoved through the crowd, yelling about trespassing and calling the cops.

His sudden appearance seemed to shock the room, and a path between him and her appeared as though by design. Still hollering, he nudged her farther into the metal box, waving his arms wildly at two men in trench coats who tried to follow him. Vicky stretched an arm along the wall to tap the button for the top floor, the closest one she could reach, just to get the doors to close between the frothing tide of reporters and herself. A beep signaled her request had been heard, and the doors groaned into motion. One of the men lurched forward, hand extended as though to halt their escape. Phil drove him back by mirroring his motion while lapsing into his native German, making his threats seem more ominous. At last the seam closed and the hydraulics hummed, sending them up and away.

Vicky allowed herself one shuddering deep breath before pasting on a smile and facing a now quiet Phil. "Thank you so much for running interference out there. What on earth was that?"

He stared at her for a minute before saying, "Perhaps you can tell me."

"What? I don't know them, nor did I let them in. I was heading out for my usual pre-work fuel up when I got stuck, just how you found me. Why are you asking me for information I don't have?"