Chapter 6
The call had ended but Dante still held the phone to his ear for a second too long, like he was listening to dead air to make sure no one was listening back. He lowered it slowly and slipped it into his jacket pocket without looking at me. His other hand stayed open at his side, not reaching, not threatening. I was backed against the dark wooden door, the brass knob cold against my lower back, the envelope he'd said they wanted crushed against my chest.
We didn't speak. The lamp behind him buzzed faintly and threw our shadows long across the wooden floor. I could hear the radiator ticking and my own breathing, too fast, and his, slower, controlled. He'd just admitted he'd been hired to retrieve me. That word, retrieve, kept looping in my head like it meant package, not person.
Then the knob moved.
It wasn't a rattle from us. A hand on the other side in the hallway tried to turn it. The brass was cold through my blouse and I felt the vibration up my spine before I saw Dante's eyes flick to it. He went completely still. The knob turned again, a careful quarter turn, stopped by the deadbolt. Whoever it was didn't knock.
I pressed harder against the door without thinking, as if my weight could help. Dante took one quiet step toward me and put his hand flat against the wood next to my head, not touching me, bracing. He mouthed, don't move.
From the hallway came a soft metallic scrape. Not a key. Something flatter. A card, maybe, sliding against the jamb, testing the latch. I heard it catch, slip, try again. My fingers tightened around the envelope until the paper bent. Dante leaned closer, his shoulder almost against mine now, both of us holding the door with our bodies.
The deadbolt held. Whoever was out there gave the knob one more firm twist, harder this time, and the whole door shuddered in its frame. The wall light switch beside my hand jittered. I stared at it, at my own hand inches away, remembering how I'd reached for it when he first came up behind me. I didn't reach now.
Dante's breath was at my temple. He didn't whisper. He just waited.
After a few seconds the pressure on the knob released. I thought that was it. Then I heard the faint scuff of shoes on the hallway mat outside, not leaving, just shifting. A shadow passed under the door, blocking the thin line of hall light.
Something white appeared at the crack.
It started as a corner, then a slow slide. A single sheet of paper being pushed under the door, inch by inch across the wooden floor until it cleared the threshold and lay face-up at our feet. On top of it, a small glossy photo.
Neither of us bent to pick it up right away. We stayed braced against the door for another ten seconds, listening. Footsteps finally moved away, unhurried, down the hall toward the stairs. No hurry at all. A door downstairs thudded shut.
Dante eased off the door first and crouched. He didn't touch the paper with his bare fingers — he used the edge of his sleeve to turn it over.
It wasn't a note in the way I'd imagined. It was a printout of a photo of me. Me outside the diner on 5th, two days ago, carrying a grocery bag. The timestamp in the corner. And under it, three words typed in plain black letters: WE KNOW INSIDE.
The smaller photo underneath was of my apartment door, taken from the same hallway where someone had just stood, same brass knob, same chipped paint on the frame. Taken earlier today, while I'd been at work.
My legs gave a little. I slid down until I was sitting with my back against the door, envelope still clutched to me. Dante stayed crouched, staring at the papers like he'd seen this exact play before.
"They want you to know they can get close," he said quietly. "They don't need to break in tonight."
I looked at the line of light under the door, at the dust on the floor where the paper had dragged. "You said this place was safe until morning."
"It was," he said. "Before I made that call. Now they know I didn't bring you out."
He picked up both sheets by the edge and set them on the small table by the lamp, where the light hit them hard. Evidence. Proof I wasn't imagining the pressure that had been building for a week — the wrong number calls, the feeling someone had been in my mailbox.
"We can't stay here past morning," he said, and it wasn't a suggestion. "They'll come back with someone who has a key, or they'll wait till you have to leave for work. This door won't hold twice."
May you like
I nodded, because my throat had closed up again. I held the envelope tighter. Whatever was inside it had kept me from being just a girl in a photo. Now it was the reason someone had tested my lock while I was leaning against it.
Dante stood and checked the deadbolt again, then the chain, even though we knew neither would matter if they really wanted in. He didn't ask me to trust him. He just stood with his back to the door, between me and the hallway, and let the silence answer for him.
