Chapter 7
The townhomes were taupe building blocks conjoined in staggered heights. Unit numbers were impossible to find. I’d lived in a similar apartment community once, when I had still been on my parents’ payroll, unwilling to tell them my compensation was hardly commensurate with the fourteen-hour workdays. I had been poor enough I was adding water to the jug of laundry detergent to get one more wash, and I was too tired to commit to a roommate, boyfriend, or whatever euphemism was used in 1991.
The season robbed me of easy external clues. Nothing betrayed where Oliver Argyle, nemesis and assassin although we’d never formally met, had wrung his hands and plotted my professional demise. Patio furniture was still covered, so I couldn’t tell if it was gay wrought-iron or hetero resin, an
