Page 49 of Daddy's Dirty Little Secret

25

XANDER

Iwoke up with a crick in my neck and the smell of someone’s microwave dinner lingering in the air. The hallway light above me buzzed faintly, flickering every few seconds. My legs were stiff from being folded under me, and my back ached from slumping sideways against Amelia’s door. For a second, I couldn’t remember where I was.

Then I saw the worn floral mat under me, the mail slot, the closed door I’d been staring at for hours. I sat up slowly and rubbed the side of my face. My drool had left a faint mark on the denim of my jeans and dried to my jaw. My phone was dead in my pocket. I must’ve fallen asleep sometime after midnight, maybe later. No messages. No footsteps on the other side of the door. No signs of life at all. Just silence.

A shuffle of movement pulled my attention down the hall. A woman carrying a folded newspaper and a chipped ceramic mug passed by. She was older, mid-sixties maybe, in a faded house robe and slippers with a sag to them. She slowed when she saw me, her brow knitting in quiet concern.

“You waiting on someone?” she asked.

I stood, brushing off the back of my pants. “Amelia Johnson. This is her place. Have you seen her?”

She shifted the mug to her other hand and squinted. It was an expression that revealed disdain, as if the folks who lived in this apartment building bound together and hated outsiders just for existing. “Not for a few days, no.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure. I live two doors down. Usually when she’s going out of town, she lets someone know. Leaves a note, asks for the mail to be brought in.” She nodded toward a small stack of envelopes tucked under her arm. “She didn’t this time. I figured maybe it was a quick trip, but it’s been…four days now…I think?”

I stared at the mail. Utility bills, a magazine, something official-looking from a doctor’s office. There were more letters, but the return senders’ addresses were hidden. Still, nothing anyone would leave behind on purpose.

“Has anyone else been here? Someone picking her up, stopping by, anything like that?”

She tilted her head, thinking. “Well, there’s that friend of hers, the one with the glasses. Comes by sometimes, nice enough. Little over friendly.” She leaned in and spoke out the side of her mouth for a second as she narrowed her eyes in judgment. “Might be a poofter.”

“Godwin?” I shook my head wondering what the heck that was supposed to mean, but I figured she knew and the expression on her face being one of criticism, I figured it wasn’t good. People were so judgmental these days.

“That’s the one. He’s been around lately. Last week I saw him here twice in the same day.” She frowned. “This just doesn’t feel like her.”

No. It didn’t feel like her at all.

I nodded, thanked her, and watched her disappear around the corner. The door closed softly behind her, and I was alone again—privacy to obsess and stew in my own concern.

Godwin had said she needed time, said she wasn’t in danger. I believed him when he said it. Or I wanted to believe it. But Amelia didn’t just vanish like this. She didn’t go radio silent, didn’t quit a job she’d worked her fingers to the bone to earn, didn’t let someone else collect her mail without saying a word.

And now I was standing here like some half-drunk idiot who’d passed out on a hallway floor instead of doing something useful. Instead of paying attention sooner.

I turned back to her door and knocked again, even though I knew it was pointless. My voice came quieter than I expected.

“Amelia.”

No answer.

The silence didn’t feel neutral anymore. It felt wrong.

I stepped back and stared at the lock, running over every conversation we’d had in the last few weeks. Every word I missed. Every shift in tone I should’ve questioned. Every moment she looked like she wanted to say something and didn’t.

Space was one thing.

This was something else.

And if I was right—if she was in trouble—then I might already be too late.

I took the stairs down instead of the elevator, not sure why. Maybe I needed the movement, something to distract me from the quiet scratching under my ribs that said something was off. The building felt hollow. The hallway was still, and the city outside felt colder than when I’d arrived. I walked without rushing, hands in my pockets, the kind of tired that sinks into your shoulders and makes everything a little slower.

Outside, the street was still. My car was parked under the same dim streetlamp I’d left it under hours ago. I slid behind thewheel, turned the engine over, and sat there for a moment with my hands still on the ignition.

I pulled out my phone and plugged it in, then called Laurence. It rang once, then went to voicemail. I didn’t bother with a message. He wouldn’t hear it tonight anyway. I wasn’t sure what I would’ve said if he had picked up. That I’d been camped out on Amelia’s hallway floor like some idiot with no sense of boundaries? That her neighbor said she hadn’t been home in days, and it didn’t line up with anything I’d been told?

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