The receptionist adjusts her headset. “Do you have an appointment?”
“Tell her it’s Maggie Sparkes.” I hesitate. “For Celine Gonzalez.”
The layer of frost on the receptionist’s face melts with a small, sympathetic smile. She must have known Celine. I’m sure she liked her. Everyone liked her. “Please, have a seat.”
I’m not sitting for more than a minute before a striking woman around my age pushes through the door, her arms laden with a box, her three-inch heels echoing through the narrow corridor. She’s dressed for the outside, her royal blue coat complementing her eyes.
I stand to meet her. “Daniela?”
“It’s Dani.” She drops the box down on the table and then envelops me in slender arms, like we’ve known each other for years, her soft, ebony-colored corkscrew curls brushing against my cheek. Even though I grew up with Rosa, a very affectionate woman, I find hugs from strangers awkward. But this is for Celine, so I grit my teeth and try not to stiffen when she touches me.
“How are you doing?” Bright, almond-shaped eyes, with flawless strokes of smokey shadow and smooth eyeliner, peer at me.
“Still in shock.” I don’t know how else to answer that.
She nods sympathetically. “So are we.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence as I trace Celine’s writing on a piece of paper in the box and then Dani says, “I was just heading downstairs to grab a late lunch. I’ll walk you down?”
Given it’s nearly four p.m., it’s a very late lunch. That could be my dismissal. I’ll take it, wanting to get this elevator ride over with as soon as possible. I hold my breath as the doors close. If Dani notices my discomfort, she doesn’t say anything. I normally hide my issue well.
“So, I packed up everything from her desk drawers that wasn’t company-specific, and the few pictures on her desk. There wasn’t much there, though, even after five years. She kept her space tidy.”
I manage a tight “Thank you.”
She nods. “How long will you be staying in New York?”
The doors open and I rush out, releasing a lung’s worth of air and plenty of tension. “A couple of weeks, probably. It’ll take me that long to sort out all of her things.”
“Right. I remember her apartment being . . . full.”
I follow her out the front doors and into the brisk December air. She leads me to a hot dog stand. “I wish he’d move his cart somewhere else, far away from my building. This is my second one this week. It’s a sickness,” she explains as she pays the vendor for a foot-long and dumps hot peppers and mayo over it. I don’t know where she puts it. From what I saw beneath her previously open coat, she has the skinniest waist I’ve ever seen, accentuated by a fitted black dress. “Are you going to eat?”
The smell of it is actually tempting. I haven’t had a solid meal in two weeks. But I shake my head and take a seat on a nearby bench in the courtyard, huddling against the chill. I’ll never get used to this kind of cold.
“Celine told me about what you do. You know, your charity organization. It’s pretty impressive. I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to do it.”
I smile. My first genuine smile today. “You’d be surprised how good it feels at the end of a long day.” That’s my party line. That’s how I recruit most of my volunteers.
We kill the next fifteen minutes talking about life in Africa, about the kinds of initiatives I’ve funded—giving one village of children iPads to learn how to read, outfitting another with solar panels to generate electricity for every home, training locals to teach in the one-room schools that I built. The answers roll off my tongue as if I’m being questioned by the media. It’s relaxing. It certainly helps distract me from other, darker thoughts.
“You sound like you miss it.”
I pause to take in my surroundings. The horns blasting, the looming buildings casting shadows even when the sky is blue, the hordes of people rushing past like ants running for their hills, many weighed down by multiple shopping bags. Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, people’s thoughts are on Christmas. ’Tis the season to build credit card debt on material things. It’s not me. “I can’t wait to get back.”
Dani purses her lips together, deep dimples forming in her cheeks. “I still can’t believe she did it. I just talked to her earlier in the day that Sunday, too. She sounded down, but you know Celine, always putting up a brave front.”
“On her phone? You called her on her cell phone that day?”
She frowns. “Yeah. Why?”
“No reason. I just haven’t been able to find it. What time was that at?”
“I don’t know . . . around noon, I think?”
So Celine had her phone up until noon that day, at least. While the delay in finding her body made it hard for the medical examiner to pinpoint time of death, he estimated that she died between eleven p.m. Sunday night and six a.m. Monday morning.
What happened to her phone between noon on Sunday and her death?
“Did she mention not feeling well? Or maybe that she had plans later?” I ask.
Dani’s curls sway with her head shake. “She just didn’t show up to work the next day, or the next, and I started to worry.”
“Are you the one who called the police?”
Dani nods. “I know she was desperate to get to California, but she still had another week at work. We were even planning a farewell party for her that Friday.”
I frown. “Farewell party? What are you talking about?”
She pauses, giving me a funny look. “She was leaving Vanderpoel and going back to San Diego.”
Going back to San Diego? I don’t know what to say. Finally, I mutter, “HR never said anything about that.” Did Rosa know?
“She didn’t want to lose any more time with her mom. Such a sad story. But Celine was still hopeful,” Dani rushes to say, dabbing a napkin at a smear of mayo on her lip. “Not . . . suicidal.”
Such a sad story?
“Vanderpoel was only willing to give her a three-month leave of absence, and she didn’t know how long it would be before . . . you know. So she quit.”
Blood rushes to my ears, blurring her words. Lose any more time with her mom? You know? No, I don’t know! What the hell is she talking about? Rosa is in remission!