I upset you, which I didn’t intend.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded.
“Just forget it, all right?” he asked with a small smile. “I already have. See you in the morning.” Then he was out the door and gone.
Chapter Ten
I slept the afternoon away, and when I woke around dinnertime, I felt much better. The headache was gone, thank God, and I was starving. I decided some fresh air and exercise would help blow the rest of the cobwebs from my brain, so I changed into shorts and a shirt, grabbed my purse, slung the strap across my chest, and headed outside.
There was a favorite Chinese place of mine three blocks away, so that’s where I went. A half hour and a stomach full of beef and broccoli later, I felt human again. As I was digging in my purse to pay, I saw the envelope Tania had given me.
Hmm.
I knew Chicago pretty well, but had to pull out my laminated pocket map to find the address she’d written on the back of the envelope. It wasn’t in that great a part of town, but it was still light outside. I figured I’d be able to catch a bus there, deliver Tania’s message, and get home before it was full dark.
The bus driver looked at me a bit strangely when, forty minutes later, I was passing by him to exit the vehicle.
“Are you lost?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No. I’m visiting a friend.”
He shrugged, but the skeptical look on his face didn’t make me feel any better. Too late to turn back now.
The streets were darker than I thought they’d be at this hour, but a lot of the streetlamps were broken, so that was probably why. The tall brick buildings on either side of the street were showing their age and then some. I watched the taillights of the bus as it lumbered away from me, spewing gray exhaust, wondering if I’d just made a bad decision. Maybe I should catch a cab home and visit Tania’s sister tomorrow?
But there were no cabs in sight, and the cars that did pass had me taking a few steps farther back onto the sidewalk. Eyes stared out at me from behind tinted windows or no windows at all. I swallowed, my palms suddenly sweaty.
I’d memorized the path to the address from my map, so I headed that direction. It was only a couple of blocks from where the bus had dropped me off. I skirted quickly by dark alleyways that gaped like empty maws as I passed, threatening to gobble me up. I could hear dogs barking a street or two over and I prayed they wouldn’t come in my direction. Being chased by rabid dogs wasn’t high on my To Do list. Of course, walking through parts of Chicago I’d only seen on the news wasn’t either, yet here I was.
After what seemed an interminable walk, passing a few people who I avoided making eye contact with, I was finally in front of the right building. The paper said apartment 3C, so I went inside and started up the dilapidated stairs. An incandescent light flickered tiredly over the stairwell, illuminating the gloomy interior, and I could hear through the paper-thin walls—a television tuned to a game show, a baby crying, two people yelling at each other.
For a girl who’d grown up in Lake Forest, this was definitely out of my comfort zone.
Standing in front of 3C, I took a deep breath, raised my hand, and knocked. I heard nothing from inside. I tried again, knocking harder. This time, the door opened a scant inch and the sliver of a woman’s face peered through the crack.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Niki? Are you Niki?”
The woman shook her head. “Niki doesn’t live here anymore.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to do then. Tania hadn’t said anything about her sister moving. “Do you know where she moved to?”
“Who are you?” she asked again.
“My name is Sage. Niki’s sister Tania sent me to find her.”
“How do you know Tania?”
“I met her in New York,” I said. “Her…boyfriend…is doing a deal with mine. Do you know where Niki is?”
“They took her, a few weeks ago,” she said. “Accused her of being a snitch to the police. They made an example of her.”
A sense of foreboding crept over me. “What happened?” I was afraid I already knew the answer.
“They killed her.”
I felt sick to my stomach. “I-I’m so sorry,” I stammered, at a loss