Carrie's house permanently. Three apartments empty, then; I hoped Becca would be too busy to clean them for the next tenants. I could use some extra money.
I rapped on Becca's door. She answered almost instantly, as if she'd been standing right inside. She looked surprised.
"You said you needed to talk to me," I prompted her.
"Oh, yes, I did! I just didn't think... Never mind. It's good to see you." Becca stood aside to let me come in.
I tried to remember if I'd ever been in her apartment before. Becca had left it much the same as it had been in her Uncle Pardon's day. She'd just rearranged the furniture, added a small table or two, and bought a new television (Pardon had had a small, old model).
"Let me get you something to drink?"
"No, thank you."
Becca urged me to sit down, so I perched on the edge of the couch. I didn't want to stay long.
"Anthony's gone to the car wash," Becca told me. "I was sure it was him when you knocked."
I waited for her to get to the point.
"If Anthony and I do go on this trip he's planning," she began, "would you be interested in being responsible for the apartments while I'm gone?"
"Tell me exactly what that means."
She talked at me for some time, giving me details, showing me the list of workmen who kept a tab for the apartment-building repairs, and explaining how to deposit the rent checks. Becca was a sensible woman under all that makeup, and she explained things well.
The extra money would be welcome, and I needed the job just for the visibility. Used to be, I cleaned maybe four out of the eight apartments in the building, but that was a couple of years ago. And Pardon had hired me to clean the public parts of the building from time to time. I told Becca I'd do it, and she seemed pleased and relieved.
I stood up to go, and in that moment of silence before Becca began the courtesies of saying good-bye, I heard something upstairs.
From Deedra's apartment.
Becca said, "Well, Lily ...," and I raised my hand. She stopped speaking immediately, which I liked, and she mouthed, "What?" I pointed at the ceiling.
We stood looking up as if we had X-ray vision and could see what was going on overhead. Again, I heard movement in the apartment of the dead woman. Just for moment, my skin crawled.
"Is Lacey here?" I breathed, trying to catch any sound I could. Becca and I stood together like statues, but statues whose heads were rotating slightly to hear as well as possible.
Becca shook her head, and the ribbon she'd tied around the elastic band holding back her long blond hair rustled on her shoulders.
I jerked my head toward Becca's door. I looked questioningly.
She nodded and we went quietly across to her apartment door.
"Police?" I asked in the lowest voice that would carry.
She shook her head. "Might be family," she whispered, with a shrug.
Nothing could creep like Becca and I up those stairs. We were familiar enough with the apartment building to know what creaked and what didn't, and we were at Deedra's door before I was ready for it.
We had no gun, no weapon of any kind besides our hands, while the person inside might have an armory. But this was Becca's property, and she seemed determined to confront the intruder here and now. We both became comfortable with our stance, and I rotated my shoulders to loosen them.
Becca knocked on the door.
All movement inside the apartment stopped. There was a frozen silence as we two, hardly breathing, waited to find out what the intruder's next move would be.
That silence went on too long for Becca's taste, and she rapped on the door again, more impatiently.
"We know you're in there, and there's no way out but this door." That was true, and it made the apartments something of a fire hazard. I remember Pardon handing out rope ladders to the tenants of the second floor for a while, but he got discouraged when they all left taking the rope ladders with them, so the second floor people would just have to fend for themselves if there was a fire. I had time to remember the rope ladders while the silence continued.
More silence.
"We're not going away," Becca said quite calmly. I had to admire her assurance. "Okay, Lily," she said more loudly, "call the police."
The door popped open as if it were on springs.
"Don't call my sister," Marlon