the bottom was about to fall out of it. “Need help?” she asked hoping to earn directions to her sister’s apartment for her trouble.
The old man looked at her over his shoulder, a scowl making his wrinkled face resemble an apple carving, rheumy eyes awash with hostility. “No!” he snarled. “Leave me be.”
“Sorry,” she said, backing away. His anger was almost palpable but she doubted it was truly directed at her—or Katie. The man appeared mad at the world. He finally got his door open and went inside, using his foot to slam it behind him.
“All righty, then…” she mumbled.
There were five additional doors leading off the hall. Tess began knocking on each one. She’d ask the first person to answer to point her in the right direction. The only problem with her plan was that no one seemed to be home. She found an apartment across the hall and down one with a Dalmatian doorknocker—easy to imagine who lived here! Maybe she should go outside and wait for the woman with the dog to come back and point the way.
Knocking on the last door at the end of the hall, she was surprised when it flew inward at the first touch. “Hello?” she called. “Anyone home?”
The apartment was dark, but light from the hall illuminated a wedge of wall at right angles to the door. In that wedge of light hung a framed photograph that caught Tess’s attention immediately, and she stared at it with wonder. The photo was of a six-year-old child sitting in a wading pool and a man standing alongside, the two connected by a glistening stream of water arcing between his hose and the child’s pool.
Tess’s heart stopped beating. The child could have been her, except that Tess had never had a wading pool. And the man? Her father, undoubtedly, and she’d never had one of those, either. She touched the image of his face with her fingertip, trying to see something of herself in his features. This was Katie’s apartment. This was a picture of their father.
For a second Tess thought of the times ahead, God willing. The getting-to-know-you phase where she and Katie would review their childhoods, the informational phase where they’d each learn about the parent they didn’t know from the sister they didn’t know and, eventually, the build-a-future phase where they would finally get to be twins, finally get to share their lives. How odd that would be. How odd and how wonderful….
Tess flipped on the light. She gasped. Drawers had been pulled out and emptied; cabinets flung open, contents spilled onto the carpet; cushions slashed and thrown aside; knickknacks broken against the wall as if in spite.
Fear came back with a body slam. What in the world was she doing in a place that had recently, she assumed, known such violence? Ryan’s words of warning suddenly seemed perceptive rather than paranoid. She stepped back into the hallway, her hand on the knob.
And paused.
If she left right now, she’d lose whatever modicum of control she had by virtue of apparently being the first person on scene. Alone she could search the rubble for more photos. She could get a sense of Katie’s life. And that’s why she’d come, that’s why she’d been drawn here. If she left, she might never be welcomed back.
She stepped inside and waited a second. The place had the feel of emptiness. Whatever had happened here was over.
Decision made, she closed the door behind her, noticing for the first time that the door frame was splintered where the lock had been broken. Stifling a renewed trickle of alarm, she made her way to a pile of books in front of built-in shelves. Maybe in that jumble she’d find a photo album. She’d search fast and get out.
She’d barely begun digging through the chaos when she heard a noise in the hall like approaching footsteps. In a blink, without thinking, she stumbled over the debris and hit the light switch, plunging the room back into darkness. She expected to hear voices, keys, a dog, the sounds of a close-by apartment door opening and shutting. But though she strained to hear a nice, ordinary, unscary sound that signaled someone benign, she heard…nothing.
She backed deeper into the room, stepping over glass and shattered pottery, overturned plants and clothing, her own noises in the dark sounding more like an elephant stampede than a furtive retreat. A tingling in her scalp let her know that for some reason she was afraid.
The sound in the hall stopped. Tess stood absolutely still for what seemed a century.
Finally she took a deep breath. Nerves had gotten the best of her. Spying definitely wasn’t in her future.
The steps started again, closer this time. They sounded stealthy. Surely another door would open and close as a neighbor came home.
The footsteps stopped outside Katie’s door.
Heart racing, Tess hugged the wall and backed into the bedroom, feeling her way, grateful there were few wall ornaments on which to bump her head. Stumbling over rubble, she found the bedroom closet, slipped inside and tugged the door. It was stuck open. She flattened herself between hanging clothes and the wall.
Footfalls came from inside the apartment. A tinkle of glass. A muffled oath. Her heart beat like a jungle drum, crashed against her ribs like a bumper car.
The bedroom light came on suddenly, the clothes in front of her jerked aside. Tess threw up an arm to cover her eyes.
A hand closed on her wrist and pulled it down.
She found herself staring into the barrel of a gun.
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