The Collector
Page 2

Then the luck or serendipity of house-sitting for an editor who’d taken an interest. Her first, Moon Rise, had sold decently. No bust-out best seller, but steady, and with a nice little following in the fourteen-to-eighteen set she’d aimed for. The second would hit the stores in October, so her fingers were crossed.
But more to the moment, she needed to focus on book three of the series.
She bundled up her long brown hair with a quick twist, scoop and the clamp of a chunky tortoiseshell hinge clip. While Thomas gleefully chased the ball, she settled in with her half glass of wine, a tall glass of iced water and the music she imagined her central character, Kaylee, listened to.
As a junior in high school, Kaylee dealt with all the ups and downs—the romance, the homework, the mean girls, the bullies, the politics, the heartbreaks and triumphs that crowded into the short, intense high school years.
A sticky road, especially for the new girl—as she’d been in the first book. And more, of course, as Kaylee’s family were lycans.
It wasn’t easy to finish a school assignment or go to the prom with a full moon rising when a girl was a werewolf.
Now, in book three, Kaylee and her family were at war with a rival pack, a pack who preyed on humans. Maybe a little bloodthirsty for some of the younger readers, she thought, but this was where the path of the story led. Where it had to go.
She picked it up where Kaylee dealt with the betrayal of the boy she thought she loved, an overdue assignment on the Napoleonic Wars and the fact that her blond, beautiful nemesis had locked her in the science lab.
The moon would rise in twenty minutes—just about the same time the Science Club would arrive for their meeting.
She had to find a way out before the change.
Lila dived in, happily sliding into Kaylee, into the fear of exposure, the pain of a broken heart, the fury with the cheerleading, homecoming queening, man-eating (literally) Sasha.
By the time she’d gotten Kaylee out, and in the nick, courtesy of a smoke bomb that brought the vice principal, another thorn in Kaylee’s side, dealt with the lecture, the detention, the streaking home as the change came on her heroine, Lila had put in three solid hours.
Pleased with herself, she surfaced from the story, glanced around.
Thomas, exhausted from play, lay curled on the chair beside her, and the lights of the city glittered and gleamed out the window.
She fixed Thomas’s dinner precisely as instructed. While he ate she got her Leatherman, used the screwdriver of the multi-tool to tighten some screws in the pantry.
Loose screws, to her thinking, were a gateway to disaster. In people and in things.
She noticed a couple of wire baskets on runners, still in their boxes. Probably for potatoes or onions. Crouching, she read the description, the assurance of easy install. She made a mental note to e-mail Macey, ask if she wanted them put in.
It would be a quick, satisfying little project.
She poured a second glass of wine and made a late dinner out of the fruit, cheese and crackers. Sitting cross-legged in the dining room, Thomas in her lap, she ate while she checked e-mail, sent e-mail, scanned her blog—made a note for a new entry.
“Getting on to bedtime, Thomas.”
He just yawned when she picked up the remote to shut off the music, then lifted him up and away so she could deal with her dishes and bask in the quiet of her first night in a new space.
After changing into cotton pants and a tank, she checked the security, then revisited her neighbors through the binoculars.
It looked like Blondie had gone out after all, leaving the living room light on low. The pair of couples had gone out as well. Maybe to dinner, or a show, Lila thought.
The little boy would be fast asleep, hopefully with the puppy curled up with him. She could see the shimmer of a television, imagined Mom and Dad relaxing together.
Another window showed a party going on. A crowd of people—well-dressed, cocktail attire—mixed and mingled, drinks or small plates in hand.
She watched for a while, imagined conversations, including a whispered one between the brunette in the short red dress and the bronzed god in the pearl gray suit who, in Lila’s imagination, were having a hot affair under the noses of his long-suffering wife and her clueless husband.
She scanned over, stopped, lowered the glasses a moment, then looked again.
No, the really built guy on the . . . twelfth floor wasn’t completely naked. He wore a thong as he did an impressive bump and grind, a spin, drop.
He was working up a nice sweat, she noted, as he repeated moves or added to them.
Obviously an actor/dancer moonlighting as a stripper until he caught his big Broadway break.
She enjoyed him. A lot.
The window show kept her entertained for a half hour before she made herself a nest in the bed—and was indeed joined by Thomas. She switched on the TV for company, settled on an NCIS rerun where she could literally recite the dialogue before the characters. Comforted by that, she picked up her iPad, found the thriller she’d started on the plane from Rome, and snuggled in.
Over the next week, she developed a routine. Thomas would wake her more accurately than any alarm clock at seven precisely, when he begged, vocally, for his breakfast.
She’d feed the cat, make coffee, water the plants indoors and out, have a little breakfast while she visited the neighbors.
Blondie and her live-in lover—they didn’t have the married vibe—argued a lot. Blondie tended to throw breakables. Mr. Slick, and he was great to look at, had good reflexes, and a whole basket of charm. Fights, pretty much daily, ended in seduction or wild bursts of passion.
They suited each other, in her estimation. For the moment. Neither of them struck Lila as long-haul people with her throwing dishes or articles of clothing, him ducking, smiling and seducing.
Game players, she thought. Hot, sexy game players, and if he didn’t have something going on, on the side, she’d be very surprised.
The little boy and the puppy continued their love affair, with Mom, Dad or nanny patiently cleaning up little accidents. Mom and Dad left together most mornings garbed in a way that said high-powered careers to Lila.
The Martinis, as she thought of them, rarely used their little terrace. She was definitely one of the ladies-who-lunch, leaving the apartment every day, late morning, returning late afternoon usually with a shopping bag.
The Partiers rarely spent an evening at home, seemed to revel in a frantic sort of lifestyle.
And the Body practiced his bump and grind regularly—to her unabashed pleasure.