The Do It List (The Do It List #1) (31 page)

“I feel like I’m in one of those luxury car commercials.”

He grinned. “You’re certainly beautiful enough for it.”

“And you’re not?” I teased, flashing a little extra leg as I settled back.

He did a double take and frowned. “Please don’t do that while I’m driving.”
 

He eased the Vanquish out of the parking garage and turned north. The car accelerated swiftly and smoothly, pressing me back into my heated leather seat.

For the next few blocks I admired the way he handled the vehicle. So powerful and edgy and yet so refined—both the car and driver.
 

Eventually, my thoughts turned to Audrey. Her texts were barely coherent and weirdly provocative. A tricky puzzle to put together and crazier than the usual jealous, conniving, co-worker Audrey.
 

I chewed on my lower lip. “Just a feeling, but something could be really wrong. Audrey has never acted this unstable. Annoying troublemaker? Check. Backstabbing, thieving boyfriend stealer? Oh yeah, but…”

Bradley glanced over. “But?”

“Did she seem normal to you last night?” I turned to him. “You met at her apartment, right?”

“In hindsight an obvious mistake on my part.” Bradley thought a moment before answering. “There was quite a bit of paperwork to go over. I did a lot of reading and she did a lot of drinking. At one point, she veered into me and I held her up.

“That’s when she kissed you.”
 

 
He nodded. “I left shortly thereafter. I told her to get some rest, sleep it off.”

The mere mention of the kiss set my teeth grinding. “On the other hand, this could just be another throwback to junior high. Audrey is good at playing these kinds of games, but I never learned.”

At the yellow light, he down-shifted, but there was no stick anywhere to be seen on the console.

“How did you down shift like that?”

He grinned. “This is a six-speed, sequential-shift, manual gearbox. It utilizes F1-style paddle shifters.” He moved his hand and showed me the shift buttons on the squared-off steering wheel. “Ferrari was the first one to introduce them.” He tilted his head. “Do you know much about performance cars?”

I shrugged. “I grew up in a richy-poo community, pretty much everyone drives great cars.”

His gaze moved over me possessively. “As we left Madison Square Garden tonight, Derek told me he blew it with you.” The engine rumbled quietly, confidently waiting for the light to change. He leaned close and kissed me, sensuous and soft, with a bit of tongue. “Do you still care that Derek fucked Audrey?”

“Not really, why?”

Bradley’s scrutiny went beyond the usual perusal of my features. His gaze probed deeper—reading hidden thoughts—uncovering the fragile girl no man had ever known. “I don’t want you to care about him. Not much anyway. Actually, not at all.”

A love tingle traveled through my body, similar but different from a tingle of arousal. “He’s a coworker in the same way you and Audrey are co-workers.”

Bradley raised a brow and I exhaled a sigh. “It’s not that I don’t like Derek…as a friend. It’s just that I like you so much more.”

The sweetest, most charming grin spread across his face, but all I could feel was the scrape of my upper teeth on my lower lip.
 

“Glad you’re happy. I’m terrified,” I murmured

He reached over and pulled me close. I wrapped my arms around him and let him rock me in his solid embrace.

 
“This is all happening so quickly.” When I trembled, he held on tighter.

“I could fall hard for you.” He rubbed his weekend beard stubble over my cheek. “I probably already am.”
 

I eased away. “Do you think we should slow down?”

The light turned green and he gunned the engine. “Not possible for us, Gracie.”

BRADLEY WHIPPED A U-turn and slipped into a space yards away from the apartment building entrance. Apparently his parking karma matched his luck hailing cabs. Totally unfair and so wrong, but I wasn’t complaining.

I picked his phone out of the cradle. “She’ll pick up if she thinks it’s you.”

He helped me find the number in a list of recents. The phone rang and rang, then a click. I listened to a second of two of atmosphere. “Audrey? Are you there?”

Alarmed, I gave the phone to Bradley.

“Audrey, answer your phone. We need to know you’re okay.” He waited a few seconds. “I can hear something in the background. I think it’s the news.”

I nodded. “She’s home.”

He pressed end call. “We need to get in there.”
 

Bradley approached the security guard at the desk. “We have reason to believe that a resident here, Audrey Lacoste, might not be feeling well.”

“We’d like to check on her, just to be sure,” I added.

“My name is Bradley Craig. I was here last night. I should still be on the list.”

The security guard checked Bradley’s I.D. and waved us through.

At the bank of elevators, Bradley took me by the hand. “It’s been what? Two weeks since we were alone in a lift together?”

We entered the walnut-paneled car. “Two and a half.” I grinned.

“That’s a relief.” He exaggerated an exhale. “For a moment there I thought the relationship might be moving too fast.”

 
He led the way down the carpeted corridor, to apartment 17C. He knocked quietly at first, then louder. After awhile I joined in, creating an even greater disturbance.
 

An elderly woman with her hair in foam rollers peeked out from behind a squeaky door.

“Sorry to disturb.” Bradley apologized.

“We’re concerned about Audrey,” I explained. “We know she’s at home, but she’s not answering her phone or the door.”
 

The nosy neighbor opened her door wider. “I saw her this afternoon. We haven’t been too friendly since Mr. Lacoste moved out.” The woman tsked. “Such a nice man.”
 

I checked in with Bradley. Without a doubt the marriage was troubled. Audrey’s affairs were at times, the talk of the agency. Then, more recently, there was the cancer story.

Bradley got out his phone. “Let’s see if security will let us in.”

“772-7300.” The neighbor offered with a smile.

“Thanks,” Bradley explained the situation to the man at the desk downstairs. “If you would, please.“ He ended the call. “He’s coming up.”

We waited for the guard to knock several times, and call out.

“I have to ask you to remain here, in the hallway.” He inserted an electronic passkey and the entered the apartment.

 
All I could make out were a few modern furnishings and some interesting art on the walls.

 
“Mrs. Lacoste?” He walked through the empty living area, moving toward what must be the bedrooms.

 
There was another series of raps as the guard called her name. A cold chill ran through me. Yeah, I had been worried about her, but reality was closing in. I slipped my hand into Bradley’s.

Less than a minute had ticked by when we heard a door bang open. The security guard was on his phone.

 
“S…she’s breathing but unresponsive—looks like a possible overdose—there’s an empty bottle of pills on the dresser.” The guard approached us and spoke to Bradley. “I need you to go down to the lobby and direct the paramedics up here.”

He turned to me. “You know her?”

Wide-eyed, I nodded. “We work together.”

“I’ll need you to come with me, she might respond to you.” The guard turned to the neighbor. “Go back to bed, Mrs. Jacobs, everything’s gonna be fine.”

New York’s finest miraculously showed up quickly, with the paramedics right behind them. Bradley and I waited in the living room while they worked on Audrey. I heard snippets of communication—possible opiate overdose, empty bottle of Oxycontin, confirmation of so many ccs of Naloxone—whatever that was. Bradley’s arm went around me, and I leaned into his strength and warmth.

He frowned. “Urgent Care gave her a few Percocet—five milligrams—I saw the envelope.”

I nodded. Oxycontin was a mega potent painkiller. Not something generally prescribed for a sprained ankle. “Her husband’s possibly?”

 
“How was she when you saw her?” He asked quietly.

“Scary pale and cold. I tried waking her, and she moaned. I’m not sure she was breathing when the paramedics got here.”

I had just dialed Sarah when they wheeled the gurney out. An oxygen mask covered a fragile, pasty-gray face. Audrey appeared closer to death than life.
 

I lowered the phone. “Where are you taking her?”
 

Bradley had been called away to give our contact information to the police. One of the paramedics looked up.

“Mount Sinai.”

I returned to Sarah. “Did you hear that? Meet you in the emergency waiting room.” I joined Bradley and two police officers. “Can we go now?” I asked.
 

An officer nodded. “We’ll contact you if we have any more questions.”
 

We followed the paramedics out of the building and onto the street. We watched them load her into the ambulance and drive away.
 

Back in the Vanquish, Bradley pressed the ignition button and the car growled to life.

“You all right?”

I nodded. “You?”

The ends of his mouth curled upward, as the car ate up Madison Avenue. At least one of us was in his/her element.
 

I inhaled a breath and exhaled a deep sigh. “I was so angry at her. She’s obviously been through an emotional crisis and hasn’t said a word to anyone.”

Bradley glanced at me. “Gracie, if it hadn’t been for you, who knows? You have great instincts, you should trust them more.”

We made the light on Ninety-Sixth. “Don’t turn toward Central Park, Madison will take us straight to the trauma center. There’s valet parking there.”

Bradley grinned. “A hospital with valet parking.”

So boyishly cute and a sports car enthusiast. Something I hadn’t known about him until this evening. The reveal added another shade of interesting to Bradley Craig.

“I’m afraid this has ruined your plans to take me out and burn up some unsuspecting Long Island Parkway.”

“We’ll go tomorrow.” Bradley drove up to the valet stand but didn’t shut off the engine. “I forgot to ask, do you like the color?”

“I love the color, why?” It truly was an extraordinary shade of silver. As we traveled uptown, the metallic finish had taken on all the colors and lights of the city.

“I didn’t realize this, but when I picked up the car today, I went over the delivery receipt and the manual. The color is called Skyfall.”

Not sure why, but the name made me as happy as Bradley appeared to be. “Are you really going to let the valet park this car?”

Bradley shot me a sideways glance. “He’s not going to park it because, he’s not going to let it out his sight.”

I made a note to go online and find out more about the Vanquish. It was obvious Bradley was used to living well, yet his genuine regular-guy-ness often belied the kind of money he came from. He wore expensive suits, but nothing out of the ordinary for a department head professional. Perhaps he was a savvy investor like his mama. He had made a tidy sum on the sale of his flat in London and appeared ready to plow the profits into a six million dollar apartment on Gramercy Park West.

Until recently, I would have never thought of him as one of those zero point one percenters with an over-the-top lifestyle. The exception was this extraordinary car. It seemed Bradley Craig had an additional personal vice besides masterful fucking.
 

The parking valet helped me out of the silver bullet and we entered a foyer busy with emergencies. Mount Sinai Hospital hadn’t changed much in two years. Deja vu flashes of me sitting in the waiting room, staring at the same row of sea-green seats and industrial-grade carpeting.
 

I decided not to fight the inevitable replay of Leah’s brief hospital stay. Bradley tucked me in beside him and kissed my temple. “You’re thinking about your sister.”
 

I nodded. “I sat here for hours. No one told Mitch I was downstairs.”

Sarah and Derek showed up. We waited for over an hour before anyone from the trauma team got word to us. Their first report, “critical, but cautiously optimistic.” Sobering to say the least. Not one of us wanted to hear that Audrey could die.

There was a big debate about whether to involve Axel or Frank. Audrey reported to Frank and Frank to Axel. If we called there were bound to be questions. In the end, Derek and Bradley both left messages without much detail.

Finally, one of the attending ER doctors met with us. “She’s awake and resting, but she’s asked not to see anyone right now. Overdose patients usually need a bit of time. Go home, get some rest. Try again this evening.” The young Asian woman turned away, then turned back. “She’s lucky to have friends like you. She’ll need you even more, now.”

Bradley checked his watch. “Three-thirty. I’m ready for bed, you?” A sleepy nod was all he needed to see. He whisked me outside and into the car.
 

 
The ride back to Gramercy was quiet, except for the car, which purred like a contented jungle cat. I tried not to think about rescuing Audrey, but the more I tried, the more I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
 

“Something’s bothering you, Gracie.”
 

 
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that Audrey is going to make it. But is this going to be like the Japanese thing where you save a person’s life and then they owe you and follow you around?” My sigh turned into a yawn.

His mouth twitched. “You’ve been watching too many flying ninja movies.”
 

“I don’t mind being supportive from a distance. It’s just that I don’t want to hang around any woman who’s constantly ogling my man.”

“Don’t tell me that you aren’t aware of how other men look at you. It’s not easy for me either.”

 
I stared at him. “Are you talking about those ‘hey pretty bitch come suck my dick’ looks?”