Page 66 of Man of the Year

“Did youtryto reach him?”

“Anything that has to do with Mr. Rosenberg goes through his lawyers. Right now, we have absolutely no evidence of his connection to your friend. Nothing less than a legal summons will work with a man like him.”

I curse to myself—I knew it from the start.

“The fact that your friend left the club with him doesn’t prove his involvement,” the detective continues.

“What about the other girl? The one I told you about?”

“I didn’t find a record of any admission to any local hospitals or New York City hospitals. Not with those symptoms.”

I chew on my lip, swallowing my anger at Julien. Did he lie? Everyone at The Splendors lies and cheats and commits crimes that go unpunished.

“So what do we do about him?” I ask.

The hesitation from Detective Dupin gives me a clear answer.

“Nothing?” I say at the same time the detective says, “Nothing.”

“I figured,” I say bitterly. Nothing is happening, and nothing will happen. “What now?”

“Where are you right now?”

“Home. It’s my day off.”

“You are not planning on going back, are you?”

“Goodbye, Detective,” I say sharply, hang up, and toss my phone onto the table.

Once again, the silence in the apartment is depressing.

I should turn on Spotify, but Cara has always been in charge of the music choice. Strange how you take for granted the smallest things your roommate does for you. Until she’s gone, and the realization kicks in that the choice of your breakfast muffins’ flavor wasn’t in fact yours, and you are not sure where she put the laundry detergent the last time she used it, and you need to send the rent money to the landlord, but she was the one who used to do the cash transfers, so you don’t even know the landlord’s email.

This is so way past music and muffin choices.

Cara doesn’t talk to her parents much, not after the big Thanksgiving fight they had two years ago. But I probably should inform them what’s happened to her. Though, to be fair, if she comes to and finds them next to her hospital bed, she’ll probably flip out. We, small-town folks, keep our small-town past an arm’s length away from our New York City life.

I lower my face into my hands and take a deep breath, trying to hold myself together.

What was the point of the last nine years?

When we ended up in the big city, only nineteen, broke but full of hopes, we learned to hustle. We picked up random jobs. We graduated college, and by then, we upgraded to upscale workplaces, learned the ins and outs of the big city, made friends, partied, went through multiple heartbreaks, tried nine-to-five jobs, quit, went to tipping jobs because the misery of nine-to-five didn’t justify our fancy college degrees. We wanted to experience life, party, have it all. We saw the rich and the poor, and the rich hadn’t necessarily gotten to where they were because of a college degree. We thought we could screw up and start again. We took risky chances and made questionable decisions. Because we were young, pretty, and invincible. Or so we thought.

Until our smartest friend died of cancer.

Until my prettiest and most talented one ended up in a hospital with “little brain activity.”

And my world as I knew it came to a halt.

My melancholia gives way to anger, slow and thick, getting thicker by the second. That anger pushes away the sadness and Trixy’s annoying scratching at the metal cage bars.

“Nope. Not today,” I tell myself. “I won’t just fold and wait for what’s to come.”

I might’ve screwed up yesterday by losing the letter, but it looks like the stalker guy is my only way to nail Rosenberg. Cara deserves this revenge.

I open the laptop on the coffee table and power it up. I search the web for the free apps to call a number from a computer. If I can’t use my phone, that should do it.

When I press theConnectbutton, the phone receiver emoji on the screen starts jiggling. Three rings into it, the guy picks up.

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