Chapter 4 - THE PACKING CREW
At 1:30 p.m., two unmarked white moving vans pulled up to the loading dock of the Belvedere Terrace.
I met the foreman, a burly, bearded man named Frank whom I had hired for five different commercial office relocations, at the freight elevator. He had four guys in gray uniforms carrying stacks of heavy-duty cardboard boxes, rolls of industrial bubble wrap, and dollies.
“Everything on the manifest, Ms. Vance?” Frank asked, chewing on a toothpick.
“Everything marked with green tape goes into the climate-controlled storage unit in Englewood,” I said, handing him an electronic keycard to the freight elevator. “Everything marked with blue tape stays in the unit. Do not touch anything in the home office. Do not touch the luggage or the clothing in the guest room closet. You have ninety minutes.”
“We’ll be out in sixty,” Frank grinned.
We rode the elevator up to the fourth floor.
I unlocked 408.
The apartment was empty. Grant had texted me two hours earlier: “Taking Sabrina to her somatic acupuncture session in Boulder, then running errands with Mom. We need to talk tonight, Nat. You can’t keep dodging my calls.”
The living room still smelled faintly of lavender.
I didn't waste a second. I walked through the rooms with a roll of bright fluorescent green painter’s tape, slapping six-inch strips across every item that belonged to my life before Grant Holloway entered it.
Green tape: The modular white Italian leather sofa.
Green tape: The 75-inch OLED television and Sonos sound system I bought with my 2024 retention bonus.
Green tape: The original oil paintings by local Denver artists hanging along the brick gallery wall.
Green tape: The Scandinavian dining table and eight smoked-glass chairs.
Green tape: The espresso machine, the Le Creuset cookware, the Japanese knife block, and every piece of crystal in the bar cabinet.
Then I walked into the master bedroom.
The bed was unmade. Sabrina’s floral silk pajamas were draped carelessly across my velvet accent chair. On the nightstand, my ivory cashmere throw was balled up like a dirty rag.
I picked up the cashmere throw. I didn't mark it with tape. I walked over to the kitchen trash chute in the hallway, shoved the $760 blanket into the metal hatch, and let the steel door slam shut. Some things are too contaminated to keep.
Frank’s crew moved through the apartment like a professional demolition team.
They wrapped the television in quilted moving blankets. They broke down the modular sofa into three clean sections. They packed the crystal, the cookware, and the books into reinforced double-walled cartons. In forty-five minutes, the living room had been reduced to bare white-oak flooring and empty drywall.
I walked into the master closet.
My clothes occupied the left side: thirty tailored silk blouses, wool blazers, raw denim jeans, and cashmere sweaters, flanked by twenty pairs of shoes in clear acrylic boxes.
On the right side hung Grant’s meager contribution: four bespoke suits, six pairs of slacks, twelve golf polos, and three pairs of leather loafers.
Beside his suits, hanging brazenly from my cedar hangers, were five of Sabrina’s dresses: two floral reformation wraps, an expensive linen trench, and a silk slip gown.
I pulled two oversized black commercial trash bags from my back pocket.
I didn't touch Grant’s suits. I didn't touch his shoes.
I took every single garment belonging to Sabrina Cole—the dresses, the silk slip, her cashmere cardigans, her organic cotton sweatpants—and shoved them indiscriminately into the heavy black plastic. I took her skincare serums from my vanity, her lavender diffusers, her organic supplements, and her white-noise machine from the bedside table, and tossed them into the second bag.
I tied the tops of the bags with tight double-knots.
I carried both bags down the hallway, opened the door to the public corridor, and dropped them directly onto the charcoal carpet outside Unit 408, leaning them against the baseboard right beneath the brass room numbers.
Beside the trash bags, I set Grant’s acoustic guitar and his four boxes of lacrosse memorabilia from the study.
At 2:45 p.m., Frank walked up to me with a clipboard. “That’s the last of the living room, kitchen, and personal effects, Ms. Vance. The truck is loaded and heading to Englewood. Unit’s empty except for what you left.”
“Thank you, Frank,” I said, handing him an envelope with five hundred dollars in cash tips for the crew.
The front door closed behind them.
I stood in the center of the vast, hollow living room. The echo was immediate. Without the rugs, the sofa, and the heavy drapery, the sound of the traffic from Speer Boulevard bounced off the ten-foot concrete ceiling like distant thunder.
The master bedroom was stripped. The platform bed—a custom piece I had included in the sale to the relocation buyer—stood bare, stripped of sheets, pillows, and blankets.
On the kitchen island, the only thing remaining was the clear acrylic pill organizer and Grant’s handwritten stationery.
I walked over to the island.
I picked up the heavy three-carat diamond engagement ring from my left hand.
It was a beautiful stone—flawless, radiant cut, set in platinum. Grant’s grandfather had purchased it in Antwerp in 1952. Grant had presented it to me on the terrace of the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, surrounded by red roses, while a photographer hid in the bushes.
“You’re the anchor of my life, Natalie,” he had told me then, his eyes shining with tears. “Without you, I’m just drifting.”
I set the platinum ring directly on top of Sabrina’s Thursday pill compartment.
Beside it, I placed an unsealed white envelope containing a single document: the formal thirty-day notice to vacate, drafted by my real estate attorney, requiring all personal property belonging to Grant Holloway to be removed from the premises by 5:00 p.m. on November 1.
I checked my watch. 3:15 p.m.
My phone rang.
Rachel Dunne.
“Natalie,” Rachel said, her voice crackling over the car Bluetooth. “The buyer’s inspector finished thirty minutes ago. He signed off on the mechanicals, the roof, and the electrical panel. Kaufman Acquisitions just waived all remaining contingencies. They deposited the full remaining purchase balance into the escrow trust account.”
“When do they want the keys?”
“Closing is funded. The title transfer records on Monday morning. You can hand them over whenever you’re ready.”
“They can have them on Sunday,” I said.
“Natalie... where are you going to go?” Rachel asked, her tone suddenly softening, dropping the commercial broker armor for a fraction of a second.
I looked out the high glass sliders at the distant, snow-capped peaks of the Front Range rising sharp and clean against the blue Colorado sky.
“I’m renting the penthouse suite at the St. Julien in Boulder for the next three weeks,” I said. “Closer to the mountain. Cleaner air.”
“Good for you,” Rachel whispered. “Drive safe, Nat.”
May you like
I hung up.
I walked out of the apartment for the last time, stepped over the black trash bags in the hallway, and took the elevator down to the garage.
