Free All About Eva by Deidre Berry Page B

moment. My primary concern was getting upstairs to see what had gone on in my home while I was gone, and the last thing I felt like dealing with was a self-important doorman who gossiped like a bitch.
    I had always been cordial to Clarence, tolerating his compulsion to tell me which tenants were into swinging and wild orgies, who was having money woes, and who had out-of-control sexual perversions and/or drug habits.
    However, this was not the time.
    â€œNot now, Clarence,” I said over my shoulder as I ran for the elevator bank.
    â€œYou’re trespassing!” he said in a loud, commanding tone that I had only heard him use with service people who failed to give him his due respect, and sightseers who really were trespassing on the property.
    The words you’re trespassing made me stop dead in my tracks. They were like daggers in my back, serving as further proof, just in case I needed it, that my life had unequivocally changed. And not for the better.
    I straightened my back and turned to face Clarence the doorman with steely resolve.
    â€œI’m sorry, but what did you say?” I had heard him right, but I was just stalling for time. Wishing and waiting for someone to suddenly jump out and say, “You’ve been PUNKED!!” and that everything I’d been through in the last twenty-four hours was all part of an elaborate hoax.
    That would have been too good to be true, which is why it didn’t happen.
    â€œThere’s no need for you to go up there,” Clarence said, in a kinder, softer tone. “The locks have been changed, and the place has been cleaned out and sold.”
    â€œSold by whom?” I asked tightly.
    â€œBy Mrs. Dorsey, of course. I mean, after all, she is the rightful owner of the apartment—well, she was until last week when the new tenants closed on it.”
    I felt my mind and emotions spiraling out of control, as my once-friendly neighbors briskly passed me by as if they didn’t know me from a can of paint. The fact that Donovan had registered the apartment in his mother’s name was news to me.
    Without being asked, Clarence went into great detail, repeating much of what I had already heard from Kyle and Tameka.
    The federal authorities had shown up at the co-op with a search warrant just two days after Donovan and I had left the country. Since Mrs. Annette Dorsey’s name was on the deed, the building manager called her to come over and handle the situation.
    Clarence bore witness as authorities carted away everything that they perceived to be evidence in Donovan’s wrongdoings, including computers, a safe, and an entire file cabinet full of documents. “Word is, Mrs. Dorsey got so spooked that the feds could possibly seize the penthouse that she quickly sold it to the highest bidder, even though she had to sell it at a huge loss,” said Clarence.
    What was worse, Clarence went on to say, was that he and many of the tenants in the building had been hounded mercilessly by hordes of photographers and by journalists looking for a quote or a scoop, and it had taken weeks to get the situation completely under control.
    â€œYou should have seen ’em out there, camped out like they were waitin’ on a Michael Jackson concert or something.” He shook his head, clearly still awed by the memory of it all. “Stuff like that doesn’t usually go on around here,” he said, his voice dripping with accusation.
    By the time Clarence had finished relaying all that information, Tameka had joined me in the lobby, claiming that she was now pressed for time and was late picking her kids up from the baby-sitter’s.
    â€œSo where are my things?” I asked.
    â€œWell, everything had to be moved out to make way for the new tenants,” Clarence said as if that alone should have satisfied my curiosity.
    â€œThat still doesn’t answer the question,” I said, feeling rage threatening to overtake me. “I