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crankier, heading toward full-out rant. “Look at them all! Anyone could just walk in and take a bag. Who would know? And they just hope they grab one with good stuff in it, and head for the door.”
    I pause for breath. Wondering who took home my bag with the only jeans that have ever fit me. Wondering who’s wearing my had-to-have-them boots. I hate flying.
    Todd furrows his forehead and flips the phone mouthpiece up over his spiky hair. “Aren’t you Charlie McNally?” he asks. “On TV?”
    Fine. Now he’ll probably call the Boston Herald’ s gossip columnist to say that I’m a complete bitch and describe how I lost it at Baggage Claim C.
    “So how come your luggage is under someone else’s name?” he continues, narrowing his already squinty eyes. “You’re not supposed to do that.”
    “Who cares?” I say, hands in the air, newspaper threat forgotten. “Anyone could have picked it up and they probably did. It’ll never get returned.”
    I turn my back on Todd, and lean against his desk, my arms crossed, frowning at the universe. Then, slowly, one click at a time, my brain shifts gears. What if there’s a bigger story than phony purses?

Chapter Four
     
     
    I

’m starving. I’m exhausted. But my eye is on the prize. Josh . Grabbing the curlicued wrought iron railing with one hand and my keys with the other, I drag myself up my front steps. The motion detector flips a spotlight onto the red-lacquer front door, where someone’s placed an elaborately twisted wreath of flaming orange bittersweet and a blaze of amber maple leaves over the brass lion knocker. Pots of tiny golden chrysanthemums in concrete urns flank the front stoop. In the entryway, a slender cherry table holds a crystal vase of red gladiolas. My condo fees at work. I clamber up the zigzag stairway, fueled by hunger, lust, my airport idea, and the knowledge that this day could possibly have a happily-ever-after ending. What was Josh getting at this morning? Am I almost—engaged? I pause on the second-floor landing, stopped in my tracks by the weight of my own question. What if?
    One way to find out. One more flight to go. Maysie will go bananas. Mom, too.
    I can hear Botox before I even hit the landing. She’s probably been in full-blown feline pout mode, clawing open paper pouches of cat food, knocking over wastebaskets and flipping kitty litter as far as she can. Themeowing gets louder as she hears my key turn in the lock.
    “Hey, baby cat,” I say. I bend to pick her up, but after a baleful glare, she flips her calico tail at me and flounces into the kitchen.
    “Fine, be like that,” I call after her. Amy, the cat sitter, has piled the mail on the dining room table, an outrageously expensive mahogany antique cleverly converted to a staging area for my embarrassing stack of definitely-going-to-read-them-soon Vogues and New Yorkers . It’s also a handy storage spot for to-be-paid bills. The curvy navy silk-upholstered dining room chairs are gorgeous, too. Those I use as coatracks.
    Mom’s wedding album—the new one—also currently lives on the dining room table. She and Ethan sent me my personal copy soon after they got home to Chicago last month, fresh from their honeymoon. With a note. “You next. Love, Mrs. Mom.”
    Honeymoon.
    With a burst of energy, I sprint down the hallway, past my gallery of family photos, as always, saluting the framed shot of Dad in his cub reporter days, and head into the spare bedroom I’ve cleverly converted into a walk-in closet. I peel off my tired white T-shirt, now permanently infused with two days of stale airplane air. Pants, too, wrinkled beyond redemption, into the hamper. I can’t even imagine wearing either of them again.
    I’ll shower. Twist my hair up and ignore my salon-needy brown roots. Throw on my good Levi’s. No. Dammit. They’re in my “lost” suitcase.
    The blast of hot water and foaming grapefruit shower gel erases my annoyance. I continue mapping out my unalterable