before she died.
The sight of her smiling face makes me flinch, even though it looks like the kind of picture I might take with Lizzie, two girlfriends clinking margarita glasses and having a good time. It seems so ordinary, given what happened less than a week later. The caption April wrote reads: With Fab24—BFFs! A dozen people commented, stuff like luv this and sooo pretty.
I stare at April’s features. This is the girl behind the number assigned by Dr. Shields. She had long, straight dark hair and pale skin. She was thin; very thin. Her brown eyes appear too large and round for her narrow face.
I write down Fab24/best friend on a fresh sheet of the notepad under April’s name.
I scroll through the photos one by one, scrutinizing each for clues to record: A background location. The name of a restaurant on a printed napkin. The people who make repeated appearances.
By the time I’ve reviewed the fifteenth picture, I know that April also wore silver hoop earrings and owned a black leather jacket. She loved cookies and dogs, just like I do.
I return to the photo of April and Fab24. I know it’s not my imagination. April looks happy, genuinely happy. And then I spot it—the fringe of a taupe wrap on the chair behind her.
My head jerks up at the sound of footsteps in the hallway.
They seem to be heading toward my apartment.
I wait for a knock, but it doesn’t come.
Instead, there’s a rustling sound.
I unfold my legs and ease off my bed. I creep across the floor, hoping the whisper of my socks against the wood isn’t audible.
My door contains a peephole. As I move to position my eye behind it, I’m gripped by the fear that all I’ll see is Dr. Shields’s piercing blue eye filling the other side of the thin glass.
I can’t do it. My breathing sounds so ragged I’m certain she can hear it through the door.
My adrenaline surges as I press my ear to the door. Nothing.
If she’s there, I know she won’t leave until I do what she wants. I imagine she can see straight through into my apartment, just like she was able to watch me through the computer all those months ago. I have to look. I force myself to turn my head and bring my eye nearer to the peephole. My chest tightens as I gaze through it.
No one is there.
The absence of anyone feels almost as jarring as a presence would be. I step back, gasping. Am I losing my mind? Dr. Shields and Thomas are at dinner together. I saw them. That much is true.
Leo’s high, staccato bark pulls me out of my thoughts. He’s staring at me with a quizzical expression.
“Shh,” I whisper to him.
I tiptoe over to the window. I pull down the slat of a blind with my fingertips and peek out. My eyes scan the street: There are a few women getting into a taxi, and a man out walking his dog. Nothing appears amiss.
I ease out my fingers and scoop up Leo, bringing him to bed with me.
He’ll need a walk soon. I’ve never been afraid of taking him out at night. But now I don’t like the thought of descending the stairs, with blind turns at every corner, and making my way down a street that, by then, may or may not be empty.
Dr. Shields knows exactly where I live. She’s been here before. She knew how to get to my family. Maybe she knows even more about me than I ever imagined.
Ben is right. I need to get my file.
I continue looking through April’s photos, enlarging one so I can make out the lettering on a street name. Then I come to a picture taken in early May, of a guy asleep in bed with a floral comforter rumpled around his bare torso. A boyfriend? I wonder.
His face is mostly obscured because of the angle of the photo; I can just see a sliver of it.
My gaze roams over the nightstand next to him. It holds a few books—I jot down their titles—a bracelet, and a half-full water glass.
And one other thing. A pair of glasses.
My body is collapsing; it’s as though I’ve stepped off the precipice into thin air and now I can’t stop my plummet.
My hand trembles as I enlarge the photo.
The glasses are tortoiseshell.
I zoom in on the sleeping man, the one April presumably photographed in her bed.
It’s not possible. I want to grab Leo and run,