THE SMILE BEGAN like a thin check mark. Slowly, it lifted one cheek, lightened the creases of my brow. My lips parted and an excited sound slipped out. Not a laugh. More a quiet snort. I was alone. And I felt free.
Like a bullet firing from the barrel of a smoking gun, I moved. In a beat, I had returned to my room. My fingers danced across the surface of the phone, redialing the number from which Jasper had called. The line rang and rang. I was about to give up when someone picked up.
“Hello?”
I didn’t recognize the voice, but I could tell it belonged to an older woman, maybe in her seventies.
“Who is this?” I asked.
“This is Edith. Who are you?”
“Edith? Where am I calling?”
“The hallway phone. Look, who do ya want?”
She sounded strange to me. Almost as if she was pretending to have a Brooklyn accent.
“What? I … Someone just called me from this number.”
“Wasn’t me.”
I paused. “Did you see anyone? A small guy with kind of orange, stubbly hair? Moves like a bird?”
“No idea. I gotta go.”
“Wait. Where … what hallway?”
“Huh?”
“What building?”
“Look, this is gettin’ weird.”
I thought about telling her the truth. That a deadly man had stood exactly where she did moments before. I stopped, though, because she’d call the police. And that wasn’t what I wanted. Not anymore.
“Is this Hell’s Kitchen?” I paused, and told her the address of my building.
Edith sounded suspicious when she said, “Across da street.”
“Shit,” I said. “Really?”
“Yeah. Why? What’s it to ya?”
“You might want to get out of there.”
I ended the call. My eyes narrowed. A new resolve straightened my back. If I had been in my apartment and if Jasper hadn’t stolen all of my stuff, I’d have dug into the why. Latched on to it and clawed even deeper. Because I felt it. Strong. Something big. I’d been lied to. Misdirected. But these people didn’t know who they were dealing with. I was Theo fucking Snyder. I’d made The Basement. I’d been underestimated. Maybe used. I knew it. And now I was going to figure out why.
He thought he’d blinded me, but Jasper had made a mistake. I’d lost my papers, but not all the audio and video files on my phone. I lay back against the wall of pillows, slid my dirty shoes up onto the pure white duvet, and went to work.