The Apartment

Chapter 16

Sasha tried to reach Valentina again that night to tell her about her engagement, but the call went straight to voicemail. Sasha didn’t want to just leave her a message about something that important. And the next day, she and Alex were at the hospital, and Sasha had no time to call. All the pregnant women who had held out through Christmas past their due date were delivering that day, two days after the holiday. Alex and Sasha had been engaged for three days.

By ten o’clock that night, Sasha had been on duty for fourteen hours, and she finally got a break. She had just done her last C-section, and put a ten-pound baby boy in his mother’s arms.

“There can’t be a baby left to deliver in New York. I think I delivered them all today,” she said, as Alex rubbed her back in the doctors’ lounge. Her cell phone went off as she said it. She looked, and a number she didn’t recognize came up.

“Dr. Hartman,” she said into her phone, in case it was a patient.

“Lieutenant O’Rourke, NYPD,” the voice said, sounding official. “We have your sister here. You’re listed as her emergency contact and next of kin.” Sasha’s heart started to pound as she listened. “She’s all right,” he said in a gruff tone, “but she’s been injured. There was a homicide. The victim was shot in the back, and the bullet went through him and lodged in your sister’s leg. It missed the artery, but she’s lost a fair amount of blood. She’s conscious. She’s in the trauma unit at NYU hospital. Can you meet us there?”

“Oh my God, I’m upstairs. I’ll be right there,” Sasha said, and hung up, and looked frantically at Alex.

“What happened?”

“Valentina. Someone got killed and the bullet went through him and lodged in her leg. She’s in trauma.”

“Here?” She nodded and ran out of the doctors’ lounge to the nurses’ desk.

“Get someone to cover for me,” she said, trying to sound calmer than she felt. “My sister’s been shot. She’s downstairs in trauma. If you can’t find anyone, I’ll come back. We don’t have anyone in labor.”

“Yet,” the nurse added, shocked by what Sasha had told her. “Is your sister okay?”

“I don’t know. I think so. She was shot in the leg.” She kissed Alex goodbye then—he had to go back to work—and she left the floor at a dead run and went down the stairs to the main floor to the trauma unit. She asked for Valentina, and found her in a cubicle surrounded by policemen, covered with blood from head to foot, and hysterical. “What happened?” Sasha asked her. She was deathly pale, and they were examining her leg, and had given her a shot for the pain.

“They killed Jean-Pierre. We came back today. We were making love, and someone shot him. The bullet went through him and is in my leg. But they killed him.” She was sobbing, and was in shock. Sasha watched them sedate her, and left the cubicle when Valentina got drowsy, and went to look for Lieutenant O’Rourke. He was waiting for her outside. After she introduced herself, she watched him do a double take when he saw her. He took her into an examining room to explain. Kevin O’Rourke was a burly Irishman, and he announced himself immediately as “Homicide. NYPD.”

“Your sister’s boyfriend was an arms dealer,” he said simply. “One of the biggest in France. He expanded his operation to the States and the Caribbean several months ago. We’ve been watching him since he got here. He just did some kind of big deal in France. We don’t know what it was yet—we’re waiting to hear from Interpol. Someone got to him tonight. They shot him in the back while they were…er…uh…in bed. The bullet went right through his heart, angled downward, through his back, came out his chest, and lodged in her upper thigh, where it is now. That’s all we know for the moment. We’ll need to talk to your sister to see what she knows, after they get the bullet out. She’s in no condition to talk to us now. She’s damn lucky—the bullet could have hit the artery, and she’d be dead.” He looked serious as he said it.

“Is she in trouble?” Sasha asked bluntly.

“Not that we know of. We’ve seen her with him for months. She may be able to identify some faces for us. But these big guys don’t usually share information with their women. She’s not in trouble with us, for the moment, but she will be with them, whoever killed him. She may have seen the shooter. If she did, she’s in serious danger. Jean-Pierre was no small dealer—he moved up recently to selling nuclear weapons, to Middle Eastern countries and individuals of assorted nationalities. The French authorities have been watching him too.”

“What are you going to do to protect my sister?” Sasha asked in panic, still concerned she could wind up in trouble with the law herself.

Kevin O’Rourke was unhappy when he answered. “Ten minutes ago I thought we had a problem. Now we have two of them. I didn’t know she had an identical twin. We may have to help her disappear for a while.”

“I can’t disappear with her,” Sasha said firmly. “I’m a senior resident on the OB ward. I can’t take time off while you look for the killer.”

“You may have to,” he said grimly.

“I can’t,” Sasha said, without giving him an inch. She was not going to screw up her residency for Valentina. She had worked too hard for it.

“Your life could be at risk too.”

“No one has any reason to connect her to me. She hangs out in high-flying circles all over the world. I’m here all the time, delivering babies.”

“We’ll talk about it,” he said, sidestepping the issue, as the surgeon came to talk to Sasha. They were about to take Valentina into the OR to remove the bullet. He said she had lost blood, but her vital signs were stable, and they were giving her a unit of blood. Sasha went back to see Valentina again, she was woozy from the pre-op sedation, but Sasha kissed her and told her she’d be fine, and then they rolled her away. Sasha didn’t go into the operating room with her, and a few minutes later Alex joined her. He had found someone to cover for him for a little while. She filled him in on what had happened, and what the lieutenant had told her about Jean-Pierre. It was all seriously unnerving, particularly about any future risk to Valentina from the shooter.

“I had a terrible feeling about him when I met him. I don’t know where she finds them. But this one was the jackpot.” Sasha was deeply upset.

“Maybe this will teach her a lesson,” Alex said, looking unhappy. Sasha nodded, but in the meantime, this was going to change Valentina’s life dramatically, if she had to go into hiding, possibly for a long time. And Sasha was not going with her. She didn’t tell Alex about the risk to her, and what the lieutenant had told her, and then he went back to work upstairs.

Valentina was in a private room on the surgical floor two hours later, with two policemen outside her door, and a nurse with her in the room to make sure that she didn’t bleed again. Sasha spent a few minutes with her, but Valentina was sleepy from the anesthetic and pain medication, and she wasn’t making sense. Sasha left her and was about to go back to work when the lieutenant came looking for her again.

“How is she?” he asked her.

“Pretty out of it from the drugs. Otherwise she’s okay.” The surgeon had told her how lucky Valentina was—the bullet had done no major damage. Anything could have happened—she could have lost her leg or died. It was serious proof to Sasha that her sister’s life was out of control, and she had terrible judgment about men.

“Did she ever say anything to you about the guy?” he asked Sasha.

“Only that he was a wonderful person, and treated her like a queen. I met him once and thought he was scary. She’s got a weakness for bad guys.”

“She won the prize this time,” he said, echoing Sasha’s own thoughts about her sister. “We’re going to talk to her tomorrow about disappearing her for a while, and we want to know if she can ID the shooter. And we need to talk to you too.”

“I told you, I’m not going anywhere. I have a serious job here, and he wasn’t my boyfriend.”

“Maybe not, but you’re the mirror image of your sister. If you won’t let us protect you, then you’re going to have to make some major changes to your appearance. We can help you with that. But you can’t go around looking like her, or you may run into the guy by accident and he’ll kill you. These people mean business—they don’t fool around.” She had learned that tonight, and so had Valentina.

“Where would you put her?”

“Someplace safe, out of the city. We have secure locations. She’ll have to cooperate with us. And you have to do everything you can to change how you look, so you don’t wind up being a decoy. We don’t want you to get hurt by these people,” he said kindly. She was an innocent, unlike Valentina, who had taken the risk of consorting with criminals, even if she didn’t know to what degree. Jean-Pierre clearly wasn’t a simple businessman, and she must have known it, even if she knew no details. There was nothing wholesome about him. They had seized his plane that night and found the cargo hold full of concealed weapons. “Are you on duty tonight?” he asked her, and she nodded.

“Until six A.M.”

“I’m going to send two of my men upstairs with you, and I’m sending them home with you. I want two cops with you at all times until further notice, and we catch the killer.”

“Can they be in plain clothes?” He thought about it for a minute and nodded. It would be better that way. “Good. I want them in hospital scrubs while they’re here. I don’t want to be the talk of the hospital, trailing policemen behind me.”

“You can thank your sister for that,” he said tersely, and Sasha nodded.

“I know.”

He assigned two policemen to her, and she had them change into blue surgical pajamas before they went upstairs. Their weapons showed under the thin scrubs, and Sasha had them put white doctors’ coats over the scrubs. It worked, and the lieutenant laughed when he saw them.

“Just like on TV,” he teased his men. “Try not to get sued for malpractice—the department won’t pay for it.” They followed Sasha back upstairs then. And miraculously, no women in labor had come in. The two policemen in costume followed her around, and sat in the doctors’ lounge with her, while she dozed. They were on their feet at full alert, the minute Alex came through the door to check on her. He took her into a corner of the room to talk.

“What’s with the two guys in costume?”

“They’re here to protect me,” she whispered. “I may need them for a while.” She realized that she was going to need permission from the head of the residency program. Her sister had put her in a hell of a position. And when she left at six o’clock with Alex, the two cops followed them home, ready to stand at the door of the apartment. She invited them in to have coffee at the kitchen table. The Great Dane looked up with interest, lifted his giant head, and went back to sleep. Alex and Sasha said goodnight, went to her room, and went to bed. He was worried about her and didn’t like what was going on.

“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked Sasha. She didn’t want to lie to him.

“They’re afraid the shooter may go after Valentina, if they think she can identify him.”

“Shit. And you look just like her.”

“But they don’t know that. No one in that crowd has ever seen us together. I met Jean-Pierre once. No one is going to come after me. They just don’t want the guy to run into me by accident, and mistake me for her.”

“So what are they going to do?” Alex asked grimly.

“Disappear her, until they find the killer, maybe with the help of an informant. And I told them I can’t go into hiding, so they may change my looks for a while.”

“How? With a clown nose?” He was not amused and had never dealt with anything like this before. Nor had she.

“I don’t know. They’re going to tell me tomorrow.”

“What a fucking mess,” Alex said, lying on the bed with an arm around her, worried sick. “I may kill your sister myself.”

“I hope it teaches her a lesson. She needs to clean up her act. This better be her last bad guy forever.” He nodded, and they lay there together until they fell asleep, with the policemen sitting in the kitchen.

At eight o’clock, Sasha got up quietly, to call her parents in Atlanta to tell them what had happened. Her mother sounded cool about it, although Sasha could tell she was upset, and their father was panicked, and offered to fly to New York. She told him she’d let him know but thought they were going to spirit Valentina away pretty quickly to a safe location.

She talked to Valentina after that, on the hospital line, and she sounded awful, and was crying over Jean-Pierre.

“He was selling nuclear weapons,” Sasha said in an angry tone.

“He was wonderful to me,” Valentina cried.

“He was killing other people. You have to wake up after this. They could have killed you too.”

“I know,” she said sadly. “They almost did. The doctor said if they’d hit an artery, I’d be dead.”

“Exactly. Did you see the guy who shot him?”

“No. We were making love. I had my eyes closed, and then he was on top of me, bleeding everywhere. I couldn’t see anything. What are the police going to do with me now?”

“I think they’re going to take you somewhere to keep you safe.”

“My agency will be pissed,” she said, sounding worried. “I have two shoots next week with Bazaar.”

“I’ll be more pissed if they kill you,” Sasha said, and promised to come and see her later, if the police let her.

The policemen in the kitchen had changed shifts, and Alex got up two hours later and found Sasha talking to the lieutenant who had come to see her, with three police intelligence agents, specialized in undercover work. They were looking her over carefully, her bone structure, her hair, her eyes. It took them an hour to decide what they needed to do. And they made their recommendation to the lieutenant while Sasha listened with a sinking heart. It didn’t sound good to her.

Her long blond hair had to be cut short and dyed brown. They had contact lenses to change her eyes from green to blue. They wanted her in flat shoes and loose clothes, nothing tight and sexy like her sister, which she didn’t wear anyway, and they didn’t want her to appear as tall as Valentina, who always wore heels. They thought the hair color and length and blue eyes instead of green would do it. There wasn’t much else they could do. They wanted her to be nondescript instead of striking like her sister, but Sasha was still a pretty woman. And they were debating brown contact lenses instead of blue.

Sasha cried when they cut her hair, and dyed it brown. They cut it short in a boyish cut, which actually suited her, but Alex looked upset. He loved her hair.

“It’ll grow back,” she told him, and then learned how to put the contacts in. They settled on the blue ones, and they were all shocked at the difference it made. She really did appear like a different person, and nothing like Valentina now, or herself. When Abby and Morgan came in for breakfast, they were amazed, and she told them what had happened the night before. Lieutenant O’Rourke left a little while later with his crew. Two plainclothes officers wearing jeans and T-shirts with baseball jackets to conceal their guns stayed behind. And Sasha felt like her life had been turned upside down. The lieutenant told her she couldn’t visit her sister—they didn’t want anyone to see them together. And Valentina would be removed from the hospital before noon, to an undisclosed location, until they found the man who had shot Jean-Pierre.

The three women and Alex were sitting at the kitchen table discussing it, and the two policemen had retreated to a discreet corner of the room and were playing with the dog. It had been a hell of a night. And Sasha had to see the head of the residency program to explain it to him before she went back on duty that night.

Morgan went to work at the restaurant then, and Alex went out for a while to get some air and pick some clothes up at his apartment. He was going to stay at the loft with Sasha until the killer had been found. He was back later that afternoon and went for a walk with the dog, while Sasha slept and Abby worked at the computer.

And at five o’clock, Claire came home from San Francisco and was confused. There were two men she didn’t know hanging out in the kitchen. Sasha looked like someone she’d never seen before, and there was a dog the size of a horse snoring on the couch.

“What the hell is going on here?” she asked Alex, who looked at her ruefully.

“Good question. Valentina turned our life to shit last night, and nearly got herself killed.” Sasha explained it to her, and Claire was stunned. It was the worst story she’d ever heard. And on a lighter note, she couldn’t believe the size of the dog Abby had brought home, but she admitted that he seemed sweet. And he held out a paw to her too, and then licked her hand with a tongue the size of a ham. She sat down on the couch after a while and laughed.

“Well, at least it’s not boring around here,” she said, and Alex laughed.

“No one would ever accuse this place of that.” They were allowed no contact with Valentina, and as far as he was concerned, that was a relief. Sasha had told her they were engaged, and Claire congratulated them both. And shortly after, Valentina called from the hospital with a tearful goodbye.

At seven o’clock that night, Sasha went to meet with the head of the residency program, who wasn’t happy about the situation, but agreed to let her work since she was heavily disguised, and she would be accompanied at all times by armed undercover policemen. But he warned her that he wanted no disruption for the patients or staff, and Sasha promised him there wouldn’t be. All she wanted was to do her job.

And at eight o’clock, she met the others at Max’s restaurant, and they had a relaxed dinner, with the two policemen at a nearby table. Claire talked about the shoe business she was starting with her mother, and they were all excited for her. Sasha and Alex had traded their shifts that night, and it was a relief to be together and act like normal people, even though Sasha didn’t look like herself, but she got to show off her ring. They all agreed it had been a crazy month, which included an engagement, a murder, and a dog. Not to mention Claire’s broken heart, getting fired, and the business she was starting with her mother.

“And what are we all doing for New Year’s Eve?” Oliver asked when he and Greg showed up for dessert, and everyone looked blank.

“We’re working,” Alex and Sasha said in unison. Morgan always helped Max at the restaurant, which left Claire and Abby free, without dates. Greg suggested the four of them go to Times Square to watch the ball drop and then go to Max’s restaurant for supper with Max and Morgan when things calmed down.

“Sounds like a plan,” Oliver said, smiling at the two women.

“Let’s hope it’s the start of a great year,” Max added, and they all raised a glass to that, and then toasted the newly engaged couple again.