Page 57 of Locke

Not the same girl from before, and I wasn’t normal to begin with.

Sylvia was beginning to notice and had chalked it up to the shooting. “Thank God you left that bathroom or else you might have been shot.”

I never told her I’d been in it when the murder happened.

I never told the cops either when they grilled the club goers about that night, or when Sylvia wanted her five minutes of limelight with them and called them to our unit to let them in on the fact she had been there that night—that we both went.

I’d stood there impassively as she talked, and when it was my turn, all I said was, “When I got out, I went straight home.”

“Who took you home?” the officer asked, bored. Perhaps he was realizing this was a wasted trip.

“I took the bus.”

“The bus doesn’t run that late,” Sylvia had inserted, giving me a funny look.

“I just don’t like talking about it,” I replied back, clutching for an excuse. “Because, you know, I got stood up and all.”

She rolled her eyes. “How many times have I told you that Eric tried searching for you after everyone ran out? He even texted you like five times, and you never got back to him. He drove all the way here with your clutch and knocked on the door for ages, and you never even answered him.”

“Why haven’t you texted him?” the officer proceeded to ask, like suddenly he was invested in my drama more than the violent murder that took place that night.

“It got lost when I ran out.”

Sylvia looked at the officer. “Have you recovered a phone at the scene?”

The officer hummed in thought. “It’s an ongoing investigation. If you want me to see if it’s been recovered, I can do that.”

I just shrugged. “Sure.”

They wouldn’t find it, though.

Max Locke had it last.

He had never even given it back to me.

What a headache that was because I needed that damn phone to call my employers, to schedule my appointments, to inform Sylvia of my comings and goings. I had mined out a generations old phone from my closet, and the phone’s storage was so low, all the apps kept crashing. But calls and texts went through just fine, so it was an acceptable alternative for now.

Derek’s building was in view now, and outside it was a fenced area. The yard was filled with groups of homeless people and bikes. Some of them were nodding out, high off their drugs, while others were talking to a few hookers that had stopped by to talk to them. They usually hung around the corner directly across the street, and they unnerved me the most because they had a couple rugged looking men hang around them. Either they were protecting them, or they were their pimps. I wasn’t sure. I just knew they also dealt with the homeless, passing along drugs, and if they were dealing drugs, you bet they were armed for it. Strapped to their belts were machetes, which was more than just a quiet threat.

Machete attacks were not out of the norm.

It was upsetting because the recovering addicts didn’t stand a chance. Every time they stepped out of the building, they were facing the very people they hung around with, or bought drugs from.

When I walked past them, I made sure not to stare, but I felt their looks as they quietly assessed me. It wasn’t hard to appear underwhelming. No fancy clothes, no bling-bling. I blended in well.

There were no cameras around, but the building had a security system inside, and you couldn’t just waltz through without buzzing in, so I sped my steps and hurried to that buzzer. I clicked it straightaway and waited. One last time, I glanced over my shoulder and nearly collapsed on the spot.

There it was again: the black car, stopped in front of the building. My breath hitched in my throat as my legs went weak. I clicked the buzzer again, feeling anxious.

It was just a car—just a car—any car.

The staff let me in immediately. I took a moment to calm down in front of the doors as I peered out to look at it. It sat for a good ten seconds, and then drove off.

Was it him?

Or just a random passer-by?

After I’d calmed down, I weakly said hi to the staff at the office right next to the doors. I was given Derek’s unit key, which was a card, and I took it into the elevator. I tried not to stare at the out-of-service elevator next to mine, and the poor janitor cleaning up questionable fluid. Waving the card in front of the scanner, it beeped, flashing green, and the elevator closed, taking me up to the third level where Derek was.

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