Lily sat at the far end of the couch, her small frame swallowed by the oversized fleece. She twisted the hem of the fabric
The scratch on the metal casing of the breaker panel was bright, a silver gouge that showed someone had used a heavy flat-head screwdriver within the last hour.
“We need to check the rest of this floor,” I said to Carey.
Carey, my partner, pointed his flashlight down the narrow corridor toward the utility closet. The door of the closet was ajar by three inches, leaving a dark vertical slit in the yellow wall.
We walked down the carpeted hallway, our eyes scanning the doors of the neighboring units, which remained shut and silent.
As we passed apartment forty-four, the dark unit right next to Clara’s, a floorboard groaned inside. It was a single, heavy shift of weight that did not sound like the settling of an old building.
I stopped, my fingers resting on the heavy flashlight at my belt.
“You hear that?” Carey whispered.
“Probably the building settling,” I said, though the sound had been too sudden, too localized to be a draft.
We continued to the utility closet at the end of the hall. I pulled the door open, the old hinges screaming in the quiet of the third floor.
Inside, three shelves held yellowed plastic jugs of industrial bleach, several dusty mop heads, and a rusted metal bucket.
I shone my beam along the floorboards, past a heap of dirty rags that smelled of floor wax and stale water.
The light glinted off a small metal object nestled in the corner behind the bucket.
I knelt down, my knee pressing into the cold linoleum, and reached behind the plastic pail to retrieve it.
It was a heavy silver key ring holding four identical brass keys and a blue plastic tab. The blue plastic was scratched, but there was no writing on it to indicate which locks the keys fit.
I stood up and held the ring under Carey’s flashlight, letting the keys dangle.
“These do not look like apartment keys,” Carey said. “They are too long.”
“They are commercial keys,” I said. “The kind that fit heavy brass padlocks.”
I slipped the silver key ring into my trousers pocket, the cold metal settling against my thigh.
“Let’s see if we can find the manager,” I said.
We walked back toward the stairs, passing forty-four again. I felt a distinct sensation of eyes on the back of my neck, but the peep-hole in the door remained dark and empty.
We descended the concrete stairs to the ground level, our boots echoing in the narrow stairwell.
The superintendent’s office was situated in the north wing of the courtyard, behind a heavy wooden door with a brass nameplate that read Grover Sterling.
A single yellow bulb burned in the porch light overhead, casting long, jaundiced shadows across the gravel walkway.
