Page 85 of The Quiet Tenant

A little later, she gets up. Could she be? No. Bathroom break. False alarm. It’s not until late in the afternoon, when the rectangles of light around the shades have begun to fade, that she shuts the book for good and heads upstairs.

You wait a couple of minutes. Listen for the sound of her door opening and shutting, thetap-tap-tapof her feet on the floor.

Silence.

The coast is as clear as it will ever be.

You wrap your hand around the doorknob.

It doesn’t turn.

Shit.

It’s locked.

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YOU SEARCH. WITHyour eyes and your hands. You see potential keys everywhere.

It’s the same type of doorknob as the one on your bedroom door, round with a lock at the center. You try a fork. You try a knife. You try a pen. You try the fucking corner of a picture frame, as if that could do anything.

Nothing works.

Your fingers shake. You have worked so hard. You have done so much. You cannot catch a break, and it angers you.

It was your necklace. Your own fucking necklace. The one your friend customized for you, because she loved you.

You need to keep trying.

You need a room that hasn’t been staged, a place he couldn’t sanitize.

You need his daughter’s bedroom.

CHAPTER 59

The woman in the house

You knock on Cecilia’s door. She opens it with aSeriously?written all across her face.

“How’s it going?” you ask.

She frowns, then catches herself. Sweet kid. You don’t know what her father has told her about you, but he has convinced her to humor you, always.

“Did you need something?”

You do, but you don’t know what. You will know it when you see it.

If only she could let you in.

“Do you have a…”

You peer over her shoulder. Her room is purple and blue and something you think is called teal. There is a twin bed. There is a small desk from the Swedish furniture store. Fingers around your throat: you used to have that desk. You used to have a computer and you used to have access to paper and…

“Pens.”

“You want a pen?”

You do not want a pen. You already tried a pen, and it didn’t work. But if a pen gets you inside her room, then so be it.

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