The Woman Upstairs Read online

  Tara scoffed as if this was just another typical nightmare. “You really are running a hovel, aren’t you? Surely you have some kind of insurance?”

  “Yes, I do, for tenants and their guests. Since you are neither, you’re a risk.”

  “It wouldn’t be risky if the damn place wasn’t booby trapped!”

  “Thanks to a disgruntled ex-tenant.”

  Tara laughed with a cruel hollow sound. “Such a surprise. Tell me, did this ex-tenant of yours receive such stellar service from you too?”

  Ricci pursed her lips. Mr. Carter and his family had been looked after like family. Knowing he’d sabotaged her apartment felt like a knife to the back. About to inform Tara of this fact, her phone rang. Alicia’s name was flashing on the screen as she took the distraction by hobbling across to the counter. She rubbed at the bruise on her hip as she picked up the phone. “Yeah?”

  “Did you play nice?” Alicia asked.

  “I asked her to leave,” Ricci said, meeting Tara’s inquisitive stare.

  “You what! Are you out of your mind? She just got here and you’re throwing her out in the middle of the night?”

  Ricci rolled her eyes. “It’s only gone seven-thirty.”

  “So what?”

  Ricci turned her back on Tara and dropped her head forward as she rubbed away a sudden ache in her temple. “Look, ‘Leesh, the place has gremlins. I can’t let her stay in the apartment until I’ve combed through it.”

  “So let her stay with you.”

  “What! Hell, no!”

  “Come on, Ricci, you have that fancy-ass room in the back.”

  “Yeah, full of scaffolds. It’s—”

  “Where is she now?”

  “In the lounge.”

  “She’s in your apartment?”

  “Dressed in a towel.”

  “What?” There was a moment of silence. “Is she pretty?” Alicia asked, her voice low and cheeky.

  “I’m not answering that,” Ricci said.

  “Oh. So she is. Maybe you could—”

  “Stop right there, Alicia Yvonne Reid.”

  Alicia chuckled. “Put her on.”

  “No.”

  “Ricci.”

  “No.”

  “Now!”

  With a huff of air, Ricci stomped over to Tara and shoved the phone at her.

  “What?” Tara said quietly as she frowned.

  “It’s for you.”

  “Me?”

  Ricci shoved the phone at her again.

  Taking it, Tara said, “Hello? Oh, hello Miss Reid…very well, Alicia.” Her eyes met Ricci’s with surprise a moment later. “I highly doubt that’s wise,” Tara said. Listening for a moment, she nodded and sighed. “So far it’s been a nightmare. While I appreciate your help, I doubt this arrangement is going to work. I really think—” Tara sighed again as Alicia was obviously stating her case. Tara was silent for several minutes, so it must have been one hell of an argument. “Very well. Thank you.”

  Handing the phone back, Ricci snatched it away and said to Alicia, “What did you do?”

  “Congratulations. You now have time to iron out those apartment bugs.”

  “What?”

  “Ask Tara. Night honey!”

  Alicia hung up, leaving Ricci to stare open-mouthed at Tara. “What just happened?”

  “Apparently your friend is your spokesperson. I suggest hiring her on.”

  “Huh?”

  “She tells me you’re the best landlord in Manhattan, and that apartment five is the bomb of all bombs, and that the asshole in the apartment before me is at fault for all the…quirks. Among other things. She was quite convincing.”

  Ricci’s eyebrows rose at the casual swearing Tara quoted from Alicia. She looked like a woman inclined to use multi-syllable words instead of curses.

  “And…” Tara stopped and cleared her throat.

  “What?”

  “She suggested I stay here until the place is ready.”

  “Here?”

  “She said you owed her one.”

  “Oh, hell no. She owes me.”

  Tara took a deep breath. “Regardless, I don’t want to impose.”

  “That’s just a fancy way of saying you’d rather sleep in a cardboard box. Right?”

  Tara’s lips tipped up at the corner. “Pretty much.”

  Ricci sighed heavily and slumped down onto her sofa. Covering her face with her hands, she groaned. She needed a few days to stalk her top-floor apartment for sighs of damage, and another who-knows-how-long to fix any problems. Essentially, she could be stuck with Tara underfoot for a week. I hate you, Alicia, she thought as she pulled her hands away from her face. “Fine.”

  Tara lifted her eyebrows again. “Pardon?”

  “You can stay here, but be warned, the guest room is currently being used for storage.”

  “What makes you think I want to live with you?”

  Ricci shrugged. “Nothing. I’d rather you didn’t to be honest. I don’t really like you.”

  Tara smiled for the first time since Ricci had known her. “The feeling is mutual.”

  Chuckling under her breath, Ricci got up from the couch.

  “It’s getting late. Maybe stay the night and look for somewhere else tomorrow?”

  Tara took a deep breath and considered the proposal. With a short nod, she said, “I find that agreeable.”

  “Good. How about I go get your things. Mr. Saubor will have a cardiac arrest if he came across you dressed like that. He has a thing for scantily dressed women.” Ricci let her eyes drift over the long expanse of toned legs and back up. Tara gripped the towel self-consciously. Ricci looked down to the bronzed chest on view and wished a moment later that she didn’t lick her lips. Damn the lack of humidity at this time of year.

  “Do you mind?” Tara said as her hand slapped over her bare chest.

  “Oh, get over yourself. You’re not my type.” Spinning on her socked feet, Ricci snatched her master key from the bowl near the door and stormed off. Great, now not only is the apartment broken, but she thinks I’m ogling her. “Ugh!” she yelled when the elevator doors shut. “Whatever karma I’ve screwed up, I’m sorry already.”

  Chapter Three

  Of Gremlins and Witches

  Ricci woke with a stretch and tightly shut eyes. Her alarm was yet to sound, but something stirred her from her sleep. Perhaps it was knowing that super-bitch was in the room next door. Never-the-less, she could feel the glow of the spring morning coming in through the window, and after a pleased groan, she opened her eyes.

  “Christ!” Ricci leapt to the other side of the bed and promptly fell to the floor.

  “Morning to you, too,” Tara said, adding a chuckle. An evil sounding chuckle.

  “What are you doing in my room looming over me like some freaky serial killer?”

  “I couldn’t find your coffee machine.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not here at the moment.”

  Tara frowned. “Where is it?”

  Ricci pursed her lips. “Gone. And that’s not a good reason to come barging in here.”

  “And I didn’t barge. I knocked…twice. What do you mean by gone?”

  Huffing and getting off the floor refusing to feel self-conscious in her thin tank top and boy shorts, she mumbled, “I broke it. It’s in the shop.”

  Tara leveled her with a look that screamed ‘You’ve got to be kidding me?’ With a roll of her eyes, she asked, “Does anything in this place actually work?”

  “Would you like me to ask Mr. Saubor if he’ll make you a coffee?” Ricci’s eyes drifted over Tara’s silk nightgown. “He may offer you a little more than you bargained for, though, but the coffee is worth it.”

  Tara pursed her lips and skulked out of the room.

  With a sigh, Ricci followed after pulling on a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a t-shirt. She found her unlikely roommate in the kitchen staring out at the garden.

  “I have instant in the cupboard
if you like. Knock yourself out.”

  “It has mold growing on it.”

  Ricci noticed the glass container on the counter already and screwed her nose up. “Ew.”

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  Slumping her elbows to the counter, Ricci propped her head on her hands and shook her head. “It’s Sunday, do you have anything you needed to do?”

  “I had planned to spend it settling in and sticking pins in a voodoo doll.”

  Ricci’s head snapped up. “You what?”

  Tara shrugged at the view afforded by the window.

  “Right. Umm…well…I’m going to go do a coffee run and go through your apartment. Feel free to, umm, hang out here or something? Maybe set up some freaky witchcraft shrine or whatever in the garden. Or you could pull weeds?” she finished in a mumble.

  Tara looked at her over her shoulder. “Coffee?”

  Seriously? She didn’t bite on the witchcraft thing? “Yeah. How do you take it?”

  “Black. Very, very black.”

  Big surprise.

  One creamy mocha and very dark, bitter coffee-run later, Ricci left her new roommate scowling at the newspaper, and reached the fifth floor apartment with her tool bag in hand. Peering around the door as if something was about to spring out at her, she breathed a sigh of relief to find nothing unusual. Nothing obviously unusual. That smell, however…

  “Enjoy sniffing around,” her temporary roommate had said when she left her apartment.

  Ricci contorted her face. What was that?

  Moving into the spacious abode, she wandered about finding nothing standing out as broken or smelly. In the kitchen, she stood, hands on hips, and turned in a slow circle. The fridge was ajar, and walking over to it, she swung open the door.

  “Gross!” she yelled, jumping away from the enormous fish that flopped out. “Damn it, that’s just wrong.” Distastefully eyeing the ex-creature half in and half out of the fridge, she determined this must have been what Tara was referring to. Refusing to touch the rank smelling thing, Ricci started opening doors and cupboards all over the kitchen. Finding a pile of dead cockroaches under the sink, something slimy in the dishwasher, and something looking like socks down the garbage disposal, she growled long and loud. “Prepare yourself for a law suit Mr. Carter,” she mumbled.

  Calling the cleaner she had on speed dial, she organized an urgent appointment and warned Mrs. Wong of the state of the kitchen. The woman sounded as unimpressed as she felt. Fair enough, Ricci thought, she’d only cleaned the place last week.

  An inspection of the remainder of the apartment left Ricci angry, sad, and thinking up creative ways to string Mr. Carter up by his privates. There was water standing in the shower Tara tried to have, and an inspection of the other plumbed features revealed things she wished she could un-see. Ricci shuddered as she remembered the sight of the main toilet. Power cords had been cut on state-of-the art appliances, holes about the size of a hammer head covered a significant portion of the third bedroom plaster, and all the windows had been glued shut. Her executive apartment resembled something more like a third-world hovel, and angry barely encompassed what she felt about it.

  She almost pushed her finger through her phone as she dialed the man she wanted to toss of the nearest bridge.

  “Hello? Ricci?”

  “Mr. Carter,” she said, low, firm and angry. “I don’t suppose you’d like to explain to me why you felt the need to take your emotional baggage out on my apartment?”

  There was a pause. “What?”

  “I appreciate you’re going through a difficult time, and I realize being evicted from your home isn’t pleasant, but is it not my fault that your life fell apart, so what the hell!” She didn’t mean to raise her voice, but staring across at the dead fish in the kitchen inflamed her again.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The fish.”

  “The…huh?”

  “Not to mention the plumbing, the walls, the freaking dishwasher. What gives you the right to damage my property?”

  Mr. Carter was silent. “Sorry, but I have no ties to that place anymore, you made sure of that, so whatever you’re talking about, go and whine to someone else.”

  “I did nothing to you.”

  “You evicted me!”

  “I had no choice!”

  “Oh, like I did? Did I choose to walk in on my wife screwing another man? No. Did I choose to watch my family tear itself apart? To lose access to my kids simply because I gave the asshole banging my wife a black eye? No! I didn’t! Nor did I choose to go broke and get kicked onto the streets. I don’t give a flying shit what issues you’re having with the apartment, because it’s no longer mine to worry about. Actually, I’m glad it’s damaged. Serves you right. Now, leave me the hell alone.” Mr. Carter hung up, leaving Ricci growling and ready to throw her phone across the room.

  “Damn it!”

  Slumping down into the sofa in the living room, she searched through her contacts and connected another call.

  “Hello, Patrick, Carrillo, and Williams, how may I direct your call.”

  “Hi, it’s Rica Velez, could you please put me through to Stevan Carrillo please?”

  “One moment.”

  “Ricci?”

  “Steve, how’s things?”

  “Good. Great. You?”

  “Half and half. I have a tenancy issue.”

  “Oh? Need to evict another one?”

  “Nope, I want to murder one. Mr. Carter has sabotaged the property. I want him to pay damages.”

  “Sabotaged how?”

  “He came in after handover and ruined the place. Dead fish, cockroaches, goop in the locks, what looks like wads of paper down each of the drains, socks in the disposal unit…ugh…and lots of other stupid shit.”

  “You have proof it was him?”

  “No, but I know it was. He all but said so.”

  “You’ve spoken to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “He denied it, then ended the call saying he’s glad it’s damaged.”

  Stevan was silent for a heartbeat or two. “That’s hardly a confession.”

  Ricci huffed. “The place was inspected after the cleaners came last Monday. It was fine. Now…not so much. Who else would want to wreck the place like that?”

  “And you believe it was this ex-tenant?”

  “No, I know it was him.”

  “Ricci…”

  “Look, I get what you’re going to say, but there’s no doubt about it. He’s the only one with a key, and the only one pissed off enough to do something stupid. I’m losing money because of him.”

  Stevan sighed. “Look…why don’t you write a detailed list of damages, then at least you’ll have a record for insurance purposes. Send it through to me and put down some names of people you think might have access to the key while you’re at it.”

  Ricci made a noise of displeasure. “It was David Carter.”

  “And you know full well it could have been anyone with a key to the place. Innocent until proven guilty.”

  “The law is stupid.”

  “And effective.”

  “Whatever.”

  Stevan sighed. “Stop whining. You sound like a brat.”

  “You’re the brat.”

  “Prissy princess.”

  “Tosser.”

  Stevan chuckled. “I have to go do grown-up work now. Ring the police and report the damage, then go fix up your place. It’s not like anyone is renting it yet, anyway.”

  “Uh…”

  “Seriously? Wow. That was fast. You feeling okay?”

  “Blame Alicia.”

  “Ah…makes sense. Did she want her lover in there? What’s his name? Teddy?”

  “Close. It’s Keddy.”

  “Keddy? What the heck kind of name is that?”

  Ricci shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “So who’s the lucky tenant then?”

  “Ugh. Some
annoyance called Tara. She arrived yesterday and has made my life a living hell ever since.”

  “She sign a contract?”

  “No.”

  “Then tell her to move on.”

  Ricci bit her lip. “I would, but Alicia made a deal with her. She’s…” Ricci took a deep breath. “She’s living with me. Temporarily.”

  “What!” Stevan was silent for a moment. “You have a roommate?”

  “For a week…tops.”

  He began chuckling. “She must be pretty.”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that? She’s a paying client…well, she will be.”

  “Is she Latino?”

  Ricci pursed her lips, knowing exactly where this conversation was heading. “No.” Predictably, Stevan began to cluck his tongue. “Don’t you dare tell Mom. I’m not dating this woman, and nor is she living with me. She’s a tenant that I’m stuck with because the apartment is a wreck.” Stevan’s chuckles made her scowl. “Why don’t you concentrate on finding me a way to castrate the asshole who damaged the place instead of making up rumors?”

  “It’s hardly a rumor if she’s under your roof.”

  “Don’t,” Ricci all but growled.

  “I think Mom is free today, come to think of it. She mentioned she hadn’t seen you in a while when she was over visiting the kids last night.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  The evil chuckle that was followed by the dial tone riled Ricci up to a whole other level. Fearing the idiot she’d known her whole life as Estevan Carrillo Velez would pull through on his prank to call their mother, she decided to forego list making for getting Tara out of the house.

  Tara was nowhere to be found…thank God. Maybe she went shopping for voodoo dolls to massacre. Despite her relief her apartment was empty, her ire at Mr. Carter, and now her brother, culminated into one loud cry of, “Asshole!” She strode out to the terrace, across the lawn, and threw her tool bag into the shed. It skidded across the clean, polished concrete and slammed into the back wall with a satisfying clang.

  A scream promptly scared the life out of her and alerted her to nearby company.

  Rushing outside, Ricci ran around the small toolshed and found Tara on the other side clutching at her chest with a pair of gardening gloves on. Her jaw dropping open, Ricci said, “What the hell are you doing?”