WHEN I LEFT the house this morning, I double and triple-checked to make sure I locked my front door. And sure enough, it’s still locked when I get home.
The first thing I do when I walk in my front door is flick on all the lights. It’s wicked dark outside. It feels like it’s the middle of the night, when it’s actually only like five-thirty.
I hate having roommates, but this week I’ve been feeling increasingly uncomfortable about living alone. After all, Dawn lived alone, and look what happened to her. Well, we don’t actually know what happened to her. But nothing good. I found a bunch of blood on her floor and nobody can find her anywhere. Whatever the outcome, it doesn’t look good for Dawn. I still can’t stop thinking about the way she sounded during that phone call.
Help me.
My phone rings inside my purse. I fumble for it, my fingers crossed that it’s Caleb, having changed his mind about dinner. Or maybe it’s Kim. But instead, it’s a blocked number.
Just like when I got home yesterday.
Months ago, I was getting a lot of calls like this. Blocked numbers, hanging up on me or hissing threats in my ears. Except the difference is that back then, I knew who was responsible for the calls, and that person has no reason to bother me anymore. It seems even less likely to be related to Dawn’s disappearance—it’s probably just another one of those stupid spam calls. I shouldn’t even answer it, but before I can stop myself, I swipe on the screen to take the call.
“Hello?”
It’s the same as yesterday. No sales pitch. No strange foreign languages.
Just silence.
My fingertips squeeze the phone. “Who is this?” No response.
After waiting another beat, I press the red button to end the call. I look around my empty house, which is so quiet, I can hear myself breathing. I kick off my red heels and walk over to the coffee table. I grab the remote and flip on the television.
There. Now it’s not so quiet.
Except I have unwittingly tuned into the evening news. The top local story is about the disappearance of Dawn Schiff. The camera is panning in on her little yellow house, then a shot of the four-story building where we work. Then it skips to a shot of Detective Santoro.
“We have not yet located Dawn Schiff.” His dark eyes flash under the lights of the camera. “But we have identified a person of interest in her disappearance.”
A person of interest? What does that mean? But he doesn’t elaborate.
“We feel confident that we’ll be able to find out what happened to Miss Schiff,” Santoro continues.
Am I the person of interest? Would I know if I were a person of interest? Do they tell you stuff like that?
I grab the remote and change the channel. It’s Wheel of Fortune.
Somebody is buying a vowel.
I pick up my phone from where I dropped it on the sofa next to me. I stare at the screen, which is black. The truth is, there’s only one person I want to talk to right now.
But I shouldn’t. I really, really shouldn’t.
Then again, making stupid decisions is my specialty.
Hey. Could you come over?
I send the text message before I can overthink it. It’s a mistake. I know it’s a mistake. But… well, I’ve already done it.
Barely thirty seconds later, a text appears on my screen:
When?
How about now?
I watch the three bubbles hovering on the screen. A few seconds later, the reply pops up:
I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.
