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W hen I arrived home, Gertie was on the couch thumbing through one of the Civil War books I’d asked her to bring home from the library. A photo of a few wounded or dead soldiers were on the cover. It was hard to tell.

Mr. Raney had told Caiyan the sword came from the Civil War. I thought maybe watching a couple of documentaries and perusing a book of photographs might be useful. I sat next to her and we took turns making shocked remarks upon each turn of the page.

“It’s incredibly gory. Why did they take so many pictures of the dead and none of the battles?” I asked, turning my head away from a particularly gruesome still.

“Would you want to be in the middle of a battle?” Gertie asked. “The photographers stayed behind after the battle. I read they would move the bodies to stage the pictures. See, this guy’s in two different photos.”

I dismissed the mental image of nineteenth century photographers dragging dead bodies to locations of better lighting and ordered takeout on my phone. While I waited for the food, I Googled a few things on the Internet about the battles of the Civil War.

“Is this true about Gettysburg? The Confederate soldiers went to town looking for shoes and it started a battle?” I asked Gertie.

“I think that’s a fabrication, but the Rebels did meet a Union regiment and ran them back into the town.”

“Marco told me the next big battle of the Civil War is at Gettysburg.”

“When did you see Marco?”

“He came to the office today and took me out to lunch.”

Gertie smirked. “He’s moving in to claim his territory.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. He heard about Caiyan and was concerned.”

“Concerned you might need a big, muscular shoulder to cry on.”

“Gertie, about the battle…”

“That’s true. The battle of Gettysburg began on July 1, 1863.”

I chewed on a jagged cuticle as I thumbed through the information on my phone. “Gert, there’s battles all around the town of Gettysburg, I’m not sure there will be a safe place to land if the Mafusos jump there next moon cycle.”

Gertie flipped open a page of her book and showed me an illustration of the area around Gettysburg.

“Since the commanders didn’t have good forms of communication, the troops were directed by signal flags and scouts. It was like a huge game of telephone, and not one I’d want to get in the middle of.” She paused and a whimsical look came over her face. “But what I wouldn’t give to see General Lee in all his glory.” She shook off the fangirl moment. “Let’s hope the Mafusos aren’t stupid enough to jump in the middle of that heap of trouble.”

It wasn’t the Mafusos who concerned me. If Caiyan got his hands on a key, he’d be crazy enough to jump to Gettysburg and take whatever they sought there.

After we watched a documentary about the famous battle focused in the small Pennsylvania town, accompanied by a generous portion of Chicken Chow Mein and glasses of wine, Gertie clicked off the TV.

“That was intense,” I said.

“I agree. I hope you’re not going there.”

“I need to find the sword. I’m supposed to wait until I hear from Jake before I search Caiyan’s apartment.”

Gertie stopped opening her fortune cookie. “I know that look, and the answer is no. You’re not dragging me to New York to rummage through Caiyan’s belongings.”

She knew me well. “C’mon Gertie. I need someone to watch my back in case the Mafusos have the place watched.”

Jake had eyes on the apartment as well, but it would be too late by the time he found out.

“What if Mahlia’s at his apartment? Or worse, Caiyan’s home? You know how he hates you sticking your nose in his business.”

“I believe the sword has a clue to where Caiyan needs to go.”

“I’ll make you a deal. Brodie’s heading to Scotland to search Caiyan’s house and his European and New York offices. Give Brodie two weeks to do his job. If he comes up empty, you’ll contact Jake and get approval, then I’ll go to the Big Apple with you.”

“OK,” I said. My shoulders drooped as I chose a fortune cookie. My patience was running thin, but I knew Gertie was right.

She ripped off the plastic from her cookie and broke it in half, peeling the white strip of paper from its insides.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“Your true love will show himself to you under the full moonlight.” Gertie frowned. “I guess I’ll have to drag Brodie outside next cycle.”

“It’s supposed to happen naturally, like you see a guy and realize he’s standing under the moonlight.”

“Sounds kind of corny to me. What’s yours say?”

I pulled out the white paper. “No distance is too far, if two hearts are tied together.”

“Huh,” Gertie said. “Let’s hope those tangled up hearts don’t lead you to Gettysburg.”

* * *

A week and a half later, I drove home from my morning shift at the chiropractic office. I loved Fridays because we only worked half the day, leaving me the afternoon to scour the gossip sites for tales of Caiyan. My cell dinged, and I put Jake on speaker phone.

He informed me Brodie had turned up empty at Caiyan’s offices and at his home in Scotland. Jake gave me the thumbs up to check the apartment.

“My surveillance team hasn’t seen Caiyan in months, but he could be in disguise. There hasn’t been anyone in the apartment all week. I’m clearing you to search it because you have a key and prior knowledge of the interior contents. If there’s any sign of a Mafuso, you get the hell out of there.”

“Sure thing, boss.” I disconnected and smiled as I pulled into my driveway. I couldn’t wait to tell Gertie she was taking a little trip.

* * *

We landed in Central Park at my normal hidey hole amongst the Ramble. My summer mini-shift dress stuck to my skin as we walked toward Caiyan’s apartment. The June afternoon lent itself to humid and hot, the breeze off the Hudson blocked by the jungle of concrete surrounding the park. I tapped my flip-flop as we waited for the cars to clear Central Park West. After we jaywalked across the street, the sturdy doorman stopped us at the entrance.

“Miss Cloud.” He bobbed his head in my direction.

It always surprised me the doorman knew my name. I guess it was their job to know the comings and goings of their tenants, but it still caught me off guard. His dark brown eyes assessed me as I spoke.

“Hi, I’m going up to 10A.” I nonchalantly started to pass him.

He held an arm out, halting my advance. “Sorry, ma’am, Mr. McGregor left strict orders. No one allowed upstairs. Only the missus and her assistant.”

Gertie looked sideways at me. I paused then explained I was the missus.

“No ma’am, you’re the ex-missus.”

The heat flushed my face as Gertie dragged me away from the door.

“What did he mean by the missus?” I asked Gertie. My voice cracked as I spoke. “You don’t think Caiyan has her living here, do you?”

Gertie shrugged. “Wouldn’t surprise me, the rat bastard.”

“We need to get up there.” I leaned back and counted the floors to ten, identifying the windows belonging to Caiyan.

“How are we gonna do that, when he’s got it guarded by stubby Mike Tyson? They know you by sight.”

“There has to be another entrance,” I said.

The large, white building stretched the entire block from 86th to 87th street. As the doorman greeted another resident, we skirted around the west side of the building.

A delivery driver unloaded boxes onto a dolly. Gertie and I stood next to the subway stop pretending to check my phone for routes. As he pushed the boxes through the iron gate leading to the back of the building, we followed him.

He knocked twice on a door and it opened. As he let the door shut behind him, I stuck my flip-flop in the jam. Gertie and I waited. No one returned to find the door ajar. We tiptoed inside to find the hallway empty. My guess would be whoever let him inside returned to his post. I replaced my flip-flop, and we took the service elevator to the tenth floor.

Gertie knocked on Caiyan’s apartment door.

I released a breath when no one answered and palmed the key Caiyan had given me. It was his way of establishing a sense of trust between us and to prove he had surrendered his womanizing ways.

“I don’t think anyone’s home,” Gertie said.

“Caiyan gave me the key, but I think he meant for me to use it in case of an emergency.”

Gertie harrumphed at me. “He’s engaged to Satan’s bitch. If you don’t figure out why, he’s going to marry her. Think of it as an emergency for your biological clock and time’s a tickin’.”

I inserted the key into the lock, and turned it open. We entered the apartment, and I stopped short in the hallway. Gertie bumped into me.

“What’s wrong? Is he here?” she asked, looking frantically around the foyer.

“No, it smells like him.” The apartment smelled of cinnamon and leather. My knees felt weak, and I stood paralyzed in the entry.

Gertie pushed past me. “Toughen up, soldier. There’s no time to get gooey, we need answers.”

She was right. I needed to get a grip.

“Yoo-hoo!” She called out. No answer.

I pocketed the key and shut the door behind me. The Scottish coat of arms hung on the wall opposite me. My Scot hadn’t moved out of his digs. I eased into the main room to join Gertie.

The apartment seemed tidy. There were no coffee cups in the sink, unopened mail on the breakfront, or dead bodies lying in the guest bathtub. I sighed with relief. In fact, it didn’t look like Caiyan had been home in a while. The apartment was entirely too clean. Caiyan wasn’t a slob, but he abandoned socks on the floor and liked to read the New York Times old school style, the daily sports section left strewn across the coffee table until his cleaning lady came by on Wednesday.

I looked down the hall that lead to the bedroom and cringed.

Gertie put a hand on my shoulder. “You take the kitchen and the study. I’ll get the bedrooms.”

I didn’t want to walk in on Caiyan and…Mahlia. In my anger, I forgot to ask him if he was sleeping with her. It should have been the first question to come to a woman’s mind when her boyfriend tells her he’s going to marry another woman, but the only thing I could think of at the time was why would he choose a key over me?

The study seemed untouched. His laptop wasn’t on the desk, but he normally took it to work. I went through a few drawers but knew he wouldn’t leave anything important in any of them.

I stood at the big window with my arms wrapped around me and stared out over Central Park. The busy lives below me rushed, and the ones who had time to enjoy strolled through the winding trails of the vast park.

Caiyan didn’t leave the sword here. He wouldn’t have hidden a vital piece of the puzzle at his home, but some part of me wanted to touch his things again.

I left the study and ruffled through a few papers on the coffee table in the den. There was a receipt from Bergdorfs for two thousand dollars. Was he buying her presents? I pushed the notion aside and moved on to the kitchen.

I opened the pantry in the kitchen. There wasn’t any food in the pantry. No surprise there, Caiyan always ate out. The refrigerator contained enough essentials to indicate a human was living here, but not a well-nourished human.

I moved to the door next to the pantry. My hand rested on the crystal doorknob of the closet Caiyan had built for me. I wished my things were inside.

There were so many reasons why I hadn’t moved in when he asked me the first time. Mainly because the Thunder key was influencing his judgment. Once he was free of the key’s energy, he built the closet as a promise we would be together after he obtained his key. The closet I hadn’t even been allowed to put a single shoe on the rack of because he ran off to join the Mafusos for the greater good—or so he told me. I was calling bullshit.

I turned the knob and opened the closet door. The automatic light flipped on and I blinked, then froze.

Clothes hung on every rod. The shoe racks were filled with designer shoes. Not mine. The dresses were not my size either. Nor were the colorful bottles of perfume displayed on the custom-made lingerie island, or the perfect line of designer purses.

I yanked open a drawer and rifled through piles of dainty lace panties, also not mine. I dropped to the white satin tufted footstool. My chest tightened, and I couldn’t breathe.

Gertie came around the corner. “Hey, I was—” Her eyes went wide when she saw me.

She plucked the white cheeky panties from my grasp. “Just breathe.” She pushed my head between my legs, and I panted for a few minutes.

“You OK?”

“I’m fine.” I said, raising my head.

Instead of tears blinding my eyes, I saw red. How dare he let Satan’s bitch put her slinky dresses in my closet. It was like giving the next girlfriend the same engagement ring. I wanted to rip the clothes from their hangers, toss them out the window, and watch them float down to Central Park West. Where they would lie helpless and crushed by the oncoming traffic.

“How could he let Mahlia move into my closet?”

“He’s scum,” Gertie said. “No, he’s below scum, a real rat bastard.”

Smoke and mirrors.

I envisioned Mahlia burning at the stake, surrounded by her designer undies.

“Whatever he’s involved in, it has to be really important to allow this to happen.” My words cleared my vision.

“You give him a lot of credit.” Gertie twisted her mouth.

“You should have seen the look on his face when he told me about Mahlia. He sounded worried.” I glanced up at Gertie. “When have you ever seen him worried?”

“Never. That’s his problem, the guy doesn’t worry.”

Gertie returned the expensive underwear to the drawer and we made haste getting out of Caiyan’s apartment.

Gertie and I exited through the front door. She stuck her tongue out at the doorman, and we walked back to Central Park in silence.

“I should be done with him, right?” I blinked hard to fight the tears. I didn’t want Gertie to see me cry over him, again.

“Serves him right if you do. You shouldn’t put up with that. Especially when he comes over, gets all frisky, then drops a bomb.”

It was true he didn’t tell me up front about the engagement, but part of that was my doing. I was Miss Horny Pants. He tried to stop things. I was the instigator.

My inner voice pointed out, he could have told me when I filled the pan with water, or while I was rummaging through the pantry. But instead, he told me after he ravaged me on the table.

“Shame on him,” Gertie said as if reading my mind. “Besides, he has ugly silk shirts in his closet. You don’t want to be seen with a guy in those clothes.”

I didn’t recall ever seeing Caiyan wear a silk shirt. Clothes were more of a utility to him. He tended to stay on the dark end of the color wheel. Mahlia was probably buying his clothes, too. The idea was depressing.

We passed a street vendor selling Halal food and another with a selection of pretzels. “Since we’re here,” Gertie said, “how about we grab a hot dog?”

“Sure.” We found a park bench and watched the sun set over Central Park. Since I’d already maxed out my junk food quota for the week, and after my fiasco at Caiyan’s apartment my appetite was zero, I sucked on a giant dill pickle while Gertie ate her sauerkraut-covered hot dog.

“It’s hard for me to believe he’s doing all of this to get his key back. There has to be another reason.” Gertie wiped a smudge of mustard from the side of her mouth and demolished the remainder of the hot dog. “If not, he’s a selfish prick and you’d be better off without him.

“I wish he had confided in me. I mean, what could be so important that he needs to keep me at arm’s length?” My mood felt as sour as the pickle.

“We’ve got to find that sword. Where else would he hide it?” Gertie sucked soda through a straw.

I racked my brain to remember places Caiyan talked about, places that were important to him.

“He still owns the flat in London, but his sister lives there. I’ve never seen it, and he only stays there when he has business in England. He could have left it with her, but he wouldn’t endanger her.”

“Yeah, he would be more likely to endanger you first.”

I sprang off the park bench. “Oh my gosh—Gertie that’s it! I know where the sword is.”