Chapter 4 - The Apartment With Two Names On The Mailbox
I didn't really wake up when the SUV started moving again. I stayed half asleep against the back seat with my bear pressed to my chest.
Lily was still beside me. I could feel her shoulder against mine and the soft sound of her breathing. The Bodyguard was driving. I saw the back of his head and his sunglasses hanging from the rearview mirror now. Marcus was in the front passenger seat, turned a little so he could see me, and behind us through the back window I saw the deputy's car with its lights off, just following.
My eyes kept closing. Every bump in the road made my bear shift and I held it tighter. I heard Marcus say, quiet, "Just a few blocks. Let her stay like that."
The deputy had given him an address before. Claire's name. I heard it twice but didn't understand at first that it was my mom's name said by someone else.
We pulled into a parking lot that wasn't Lincoln Park. It was a low building with two floors, the kind with outside stairs and railing that rattled. The paint was pale yellow and chipped near the bottom. There was a laundry room on the first floor with a buzzing light. The sun was going down fast and the parking lot lights had already come on.
The Bodyguard parked and Marcus got out. He opened my door and I blinked up at him. I didn't want to move. My legs felt heavy.
"You can stay right here with Lily," he said softly. "I'm just going to look. Is that okay?"
I nodded but I was scared to be left again. Lily put her small hand on my arm. She didn't say anything. Marcus didn't close the door all the way. He left it cracked so the air stayed on.
He walked to a row of metal mailboxes bolted by the stairs with the deputy. I lifted my head a little to watch. I couldn't hear everything but I saw Marcus stop at one box. The deputy shined his flashlight on it.
There were two white strips of tape on the box. One said CLAIRE HART in faded marker. Under it, newer tape said K. HART. The K was written harder, the letters pressed deep.
A man came out from a ground floor door wiping his hands on a rag. He was older, in a gray t-shirt, keys on his belt. He talked to Marcus and the deputy. His voice carried a little.
"Claire Hart, yeah, 2B," he said. "She passed. Three months back. Sister took over the lease. Karen. Said it was temporary for the kid."
Marcus asked something I couldn't hear.
The man shook his head. "Haven't seen the sister in four, five days. Kid too. Thought they moved. Rent's due next week and no answer."
Marcus looked back toward the SUV where I was sitting. I pulled my bear closer and ducked down a little. He turned back to the landlord.
"Can you open it?" Marcus asked. "Deputy is here as witness. I just need to see if the child was living there."
The landlord hesitated, then nodded and started up the outside stairs to 2B. Marcus followed. The Bodyguard stayed by the open SUV door, one hand on the frame, watching me and Lily.
Upstairs, the landlord knocked. No answer. He knocked again, louder. Nothing. He used a key.
From where I sat I couldn't see inside. But I heard the door open and the sound it made when it hit the wall. I heard Marcus go quiet.
Lily whispered, "It's okay," and I realized I was holding my breath.
After a minute Marcus called down, not loud, to the deputy. "You should see this."
The deputy went up. I sat up more, my bear against my ribs. Lily sat up with me. The Bodyguard looked up too.
Inside 2B, the apartment was almost empty. I learned later exactly what Marcus saw because he told the deputy right there while I listened through the cracked door. The living room had no couch. Just a bare floor and a small kitchen with the cabinets open. No food. The fridge was empty and unplugged a little, the door hanging open an inch. In the corner of what would have been the bedroom there was a child's mattress on the floor with no sheets, just a thin blanket bunched at the foot. My blanket. Next to it a plastic tote with a few folded clothes and one small shoe tipped over. The closet was empty except hangers. No toys. No second mattress for Karen. It looked like someone had packed fast and left what they didn't want.
"She cleared her own stuff," the landlord said. "Nothing of Karen's in there now. Looks like she took what was worth taking."
Marcus crouched near the mattress. He didn't touch it at first. Then he saw an envelope on the kitchen counter held down by an empty mug. It was manila and creased, with CLAIRE written on the front in my mom's handwriting. The handwriting I knew.
He opened it. Inside were papers. A clinic copy, a few receipts, and under them a photo. The photo was old, the colors a little faded. It showed my mom younger, smiling, hair longer, standing outside what looked like a downtown coffee shop. Next to her was a younger Marcus. His hair was shorter, no stubble, no tattoos showing, but it was him. Same eyes. His arm was around her shoulders and she was laughing at the camera.
Marcus went very still. The deputy saw it too.
He slid the photo back into the envelope carefully, like it might break. He didn't say anything about it there. He just held the envelope tight and looked around the empty room once more.
Down in the parking lot, I had started to shiver even though the air from the SUV was warm. Lily pulled the seatbelt blanket over my lap without asking. My bear was still tight in both arms, its faded ear against my cheek. The mark on my cheek felt hot.
When Marcus came back down the stairs he was holding that envelope flat against his side. His face was restrained, the way it had been when he crouched in the park, but his jaw was tighter. He opened the back door and knelt so his eyes were level with mine.
"We're going back now," he said gently. "You did good staying here."
May you like
I didn't know what he'd found. I didn't know he'd just seen my old mattress on the floor or my mom's handwriting or the picture that made his hands stop moving. I only knew he looked at me and Lily together for a second longer than before, and then he closed the door softly and told the Bodyguard to drive.
I fell back asleep before we left the parking lot, my bear still against my chest, not knowing that box with two names had already told him Karen wasn't coming back.
