A bellowing roar coming from my hallway.
“Galileo.” I whisper it, but it’s enough to bring my two-hundred-pound dog to my side.
He doesn’t rush to the door like many curious dogs might. Instead, he comes to me, climbs up onto the couch, and settles so his chin rests on my thigh, and his breath comes out on a heavy sigh.
“Good boy.” I run my right hand over his floppy ears and try to relax my breathing.
I was going to eat and go to bed. Instead, I guess I’ll be eating, then making phone calls until I know who’s in my building.
I can’t sleep until I know. I can’t relax, because my subconscious already fucks me on a nightly basis. Throw in uncertainty about strange men, and it would almost be a suicide mission to try to go to sleep without knowing.
“We don’t have to worry,” I tell Galileo. Or at least, that’s my excuse as I climb off my couch and snag my phone.
I tiptoe along the timber floor with bare feet, set my half-eaten candy bar on the counter as I pass, then I press my eye to the peephole and study the door across the hall. Blindly, I reach across my body and tap the button on the side of my watch, three times, three taps.
Just a moment later, I accept the call that comes in.
“Kane?”
“What’s wrong?” His voice is deep, dangerous. It’s not always that way, but I’ve activated my panic alarm. I’ve set him on edge. “You in danger?”
“No,” I whisper, so my breath bounces off the door and hits my chin. “I have a new neighbor. He’s loud.”
“Gimme a sec.”
I listen as he stands – from the sofa? – and makes his way across a room. The sounds of television turn softer as he moves, until finally, he pulls out a squeaking desk chair. “What’s he look like?”
“I don’t know.” I squeeze one eye closed and focus on the open doorway. “I haven’t seen him. I only saw moving boxes, then I heard him.”
“Why didn’t you do this search yourself?” He types at a computer. “You know how.”
“I’m sorry for bothering you.” My voice cracks. “I’m sorry, Kane. I know it’s family night—”
“I didn’t say you’re bothering me,” he interrupts in a firm tone. Firm, but not mean. “I only asked why you didn’t do it yourself when we both know you’re capable.”
“I—” I swallow. “I panicked. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” he croons. “I’ve got your back. Okay… Tucker Morris, twenty-nine years old. He’s a mechanic at Ang’s shop. Hmm…” I can almost see the mask of confusion flittering across his face. The scowl that replaces that. “I don’t know why Ang didn’t tell me his guy was moving.” Then his shrug. “Either way, you don’t have to worry about him. He’s good people.”
“Do you know him?” I rasp out. “Like, personally?”
“I do. I’ve met him a million times. Six-four, a hundred and ninety, dark hair worn kinda short. Dark green eyes, thinks he’s funnier than he actually is. He rides a motorcycle, doesn’t own a car that I know of. He’s been Ang’s apprentice since he was like, fifteen or something. He’s always at work, has no criminal record, one sibling, and his folks are deceased.”
“So he’s a drifter?” My pulse quickens. “No family, no attachments, no reason to stick around once he kills his female neighbor in 4A?”
Kane Bishop once held a starring role in my nightmares. He was there when Lisa was killed, and at the time, he called her murderers his friends. They weren’t, of course. But I was sixteen, terrified, and I was being given away as a virgin to gun toting, cocaine snorting, tattoo covered thugs with rough hands and no care for my safety.
Kane was that thug. He would become my captor and the reason I’d cry myself to sleep for years after that night.
Now, he chuckles into my ear and sets me at ease. “He’s not a drifter, and he’s not going to kill anyone. He’s most of the way in love with Ang’s girl, so he’s sticking around in hopes she dumps Ang’s ass and comes searching for him – her one true love, according to word floating around the office.”
“So maybe he already killed Ang,” I murmur. “Maybe that’s his plan, and he made a mess of his old apartment. Maybe that’s why he moved?”
“Maybe,” Kane laughs. “You should ask him.”
“Ask who? Ang, or the neighbor?”
“Either! If Ang is already dead, then your