Killing Red (26 page)

He found Haas Street on the first try, though that was just the result of a lucky turn. It was located in a part of the far north side that developers and young professionals had not yet taken over. It still belonged to the artists and new couples who moved in after their first taste of success, and the elderly who could never afford to leave.

The area wasn’t unusual or particularly unique, just a lot of quiet. As he drove past, Chapa checked out the parked cars for anyone who might be watching the street, but it looked like just any other day.

Annie Sykes’ address was in the middle of the block. The tan, eight-story apartment building needed a paint job, and a few of the rusty air conditioners had barely enough metal left to keep them in the window.

Chapa took the first space that he found, and slipped the parking permit back under the windshield just in case.

In the distance he heard the sound of traffic, and children playing at a nearby schoolyard. But walking down the sidewalk, the loudest sound was the one made by Chapa’s labored steps. He tried to envision this place through the eyes of someone who was stalking Annie.

A mailman emerged from Annie’s building and walked past Chapa as though he wasn’t there. As he did, Chapa looked down at his bag, which was filled beyond capacity, and noticed the label on an oversized envelope that was sticking out.

“Excuse me,” he said, and the mailman stopped but continued sorting the envelopes in his hand. “That envelope, are you delivering it somewhere around here?”

Finally looking up at Chapa, the mailman searched his face but found nothing familiar.

“Just picked it up. You know these people?”

The mailman pulled the envelope out of the bag and Chapa got a better look at the symbol on the mailing label. Chapa had seen it before, recently. The apartment number was 7G, two floors above Annie’s. He withdrew a small notepad from the inside pocket of the sports coat and wrote down the number.

“Do you pick up mail like that from 7G often?”

“Sometimes, I guess. What are you, some detective?”

Chapa coolly turned and pointed to the sign under his windshield. The mailman looked over at it, then sized up Chapa, and determined he was the genuine article.

“Well, sir, yes, this is your standard yellow business envelope, a little larger than a regular envelope.”

He gave the envelope to Chapa, who studied it more closely. It was all he could do to not open it.

“We at the USPS handle these as we would any other.”

Chapa almost told the guy he was confiscating the envelope, which might’ve worked. But he drew a line, albeit a thin and sometimes barely visible one, at committing a federal crime.

“Thank you.”

Chapa started to walk away.

“Hey, sir, is there something in here I should be worried about?”

“Nothing at all.”

“I’m always happy to help out our government.”

He was still talking when Chapa walked into the building and started scanning the directory.

The label for box 5C read
ANGELA NOIR
, but no name was listed for 7G. The building had a door with an old, but durable security lock, so Chapa pressed the button for Annie’s apartment and waited, then pressed it again. Beyond the thick decorative glass door he saw a woman getting out of the elevator with a large dog in tow.

She wasn’t Annie, but she would do. Chapa pretended to be finishing a conversation with the dinged-up metal speaker as the door opened and a German shepherd walked through it, followed by the woman. Chapa offered a friendly nod, held the door for her, then slipped inside.

There was no security guard. Chapa hadn’t expected there to be one, but it was still a relief. The lobby would never be featured in any fine living magazines, but there were signs that suggested it once looked a lot better than it did now. The fixtures and some of the tiles dated back to the forties.

He passed on the elevator in favor of the stairs. The marble steps had been so worn down that they were concave in the middle. By the third floor he was thinking that maybe he should get his old treadmill out of the garage. Something else for the bottom of his expanding to-do list.

The building was quiet, and his heavy breathing filled the stairwell. He paused for a moment when he got to the fifth floor, wanting to make sure he walked down the hall in the right direction the first time. Like he knew what he was doing. Like he belonged there.

Annie’s apartment was two doors down from the stairs. Nothing about its dark brown wood door set it off from any number of other apartments in aging buildings throughout the city. But at that moment Chapa knew that the events of the past week had led him to this place, as though he were being directed by an unsteady but determined hand.

He was alone in the fifth floor hallway, and had not seen anyone on his way up the stairs. The muffled sounds of children playing in one of the other apartments filtered up from a couple of floors below. There was no sound coming from behind Annie’s door.

Wrapping his knuckles against the solid oak door did not produce an echo, and that surprised Chapa. But something else surprised him even more. The door had moved, just a little.

“Annie? It’s Alex Chapa. You home?”

Chapa waited for a response, but when none came he pressed against the door with the tips of his fingers. It gave a fraction of an inch. He pressed again, applying just a bit more force this time. The door slowly opened, and gradually came to a stop at a forty-five degree angle.

That was enough of a gap for him to get a decent look inside. From where he was standing outside the door, Chapa could see a hallway that led off into darkness, and a small portion of what was probably the living room.

He wanted to call for her again, but worried that a neighbor might start getting concerned. So he stepped inside just enough to close the door behind him without shutting it.

“Annie.”

No longer expecting a response, Chapa started looking around, even though he was now way beyond his comfort zone. What he had assumed was a living room turned out to be more of an artist’s studio. A large drawing table at one end of the room was surrounded by supplies. Over on the other side sat a couch with uneven cushions that had been re-covered with a flowered cloth.

The light from a large window at the far end spilled into the room and onto drawings on the walls. Several of them were of solitary people doing nothing of particular interest besides being lonely. A dark stillness haunted the images, and Chapa found them quite unnerving. The drawings were being treated with little reverence. No frames, just tape and tacks to hold them up.

The kitchen was to the right, and Chapa allowed himself enough steps in that direction to confirm there was nothing out of the ordinary. He could almost hear Andrews yelling at him to get out of there.
What the hell was he doing?

But Chapa couldn’t leave until he’d made sure that nothing had happened to Annie, that she wasn’t lying somewhere, wounded, or worse. He started down the hall, toward the bedroom.

Before he got there, Chapa passed a large room along the right side. He stuck his head in and flipped the light on. The bare dim bulb still had enough juice to reveal a room that was being used primarily for storage. Boxes were stacked against the walls, and the only thing in the middle was a futon.

The wood floor creaked beneath Chapa’s feet as he walked across the room to a closet in the far corner. He turned the knob slowly until it clicked, then opened the door without hesitation, retreating a step as he did so. Empty. Looking inside, he was surprised by how large the closet was, and figured that most of the boxes crowding the room could easily fit in there.

Chapa was shutting the door when he noticed a small rectangular box sitting alone on the top shelf. It was white, about the size of a pad of paper, and just a few inches tall. Chapa carefully retrieved it.

The box was old, and all four of the lid’s corners were torn. But the photos he found inside were even older. The first one he saw was faded toward the yellow and red end of the spectrum. Chapa guessed Annie was probably in second or third grade when the picture was taken. Beneath it, he found a couple dozen others, a few of which were from roughly the same time as the ones he’d seen in her parents’ house.

Unlike those, however, none of these photos showed Annie as a teenager. Every one of these images exuded happiness and wonder. It was as though time had stopped for Annie at a very young age.

He put the pictures back in the box as he had found them, then returned it to the shelf. Chapa was becoming more uncomfortable with each passing minute. Voyeurism was never his thing.

Chapa shut the closet door and retraced his steps, turning the light off as he left the room. The bedroom was just a few feet away. The door was open.

“Annie?”

Again he waited for a response that was not coming, then stepped into her bedroom. The bed was unmade, and clothes were stacked in neat piles on the floor. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Just a messy bedroom, left that way by someone who wasn’t expecting a relative stranger to be walking through it.

The closet had one of those sliding doors with the full-size mirrors. Chapa opened it, and found that this closet was every bit as cluttered as the one in the other room was empty. Shoeboxes, a few hats, and several purses lined the floor and crowded the one shelf. Her clothes were hung on the rod in no particular order, except that they became gradually more Goth on the right side. Apparently, that half of the closet belonged to Angela Noir.

As he shut the door, Chapa noticed something in the mirror’s reflection. A notepad on the nightstand. He walked over and picked it up. It looked as though she had started to draw a figure in black pencil, then scratched it out with a series of thick, dark, angry strokes.

He had to get out of there, but first he stepped across the hall, and looked into the bathroom. When he saw that the shower curtain was closed, Chapa called out to her again and got the same result as before. He drew the curtain back just enough to poke his head through. It needed a good cleaning, but besides that there was nothing noteworthy going on. In some ways the place reminded him of something he might’ve seen while visiting a friend at college.

She had left her medicine cabinet open, and when Chapa noticed the feminine products inside, he walked out of the bathroom and straight toward the front door. Annie wasn’t there, and this was feeling like a very unsettling waste of time. He had to get back to the office and ready for his meeting. If he was going to get fired, he might as well take the initiative.

Chapa decided to leave a note for her on the door, and stepped into the kitchen to use the counter top as a writing surface. He pulled out his notebook and a pen, and began to write.

But he stopped before he’d finished his first sentence.

Sitting on the counter, next to an open newspaper and a half-eaten Pop Tart, were Annie’s cell phone and keys.
Who would leave without those
? He closed the notebook and put his pen away. Then Chapa returned to the living room and scanned the area slowly, until he spotted what he was looking for.

Annie’s purse. It was the same one she had been carrying the day before.

Chapa flipped the notepad open to the other apartment address he had written down,
7G
. He thought about what that nutjob from Andrews’ neighborhood had said.

The pieces didn’t fit.

Apartment 7G was the last one at the end of the hall, toward what Chapa at first assumed was the back of the building, but then realized he had gotten turned around. When he looked out through a large window, a few feet beyond the apartment door, he saw a shorter building’s rooftop across the way, and an alley below.

That window and another at the opposite end of the hallway were responsible for what little light there was. It was just as well, the faded blue walls and chipped tile floor looked bad enough in the limited visibility.

Chapa leaned against the door, then pressed an ear to it. He heard nothing. Retreating a couple of quiet steps, he looked for any signs of light escaping through the bottom of the door, but couldn’t see anything.

He took a deep breath, and knocked. Nothing. Another knock, same results.

Then again, harder this time, followed by, “Annie?”

After several seconds had passed, he heard a sharp noise from deep inside the apartment. It sounded like a door slamming or something heavy falling to the floor. Maybe he had frightened the tenant’s pet.

Chapa twisted the doorknob, which did not budge, so he knocked again, but the silence had returned. He dialed Annie’s cell number, figuring that if she had simply gone over to a neighbor’s apartment she might have returned to her own by now. He knew that was unlikely, but still worth a try. His call went straight to voice mail. Chapa thought of Annie’s phone still sitting there on the kitchen countertop, and remembered the layout of her apartment.

He walked over to the large hall window, and noticed that it was not sealed shut. Still, it refused to open without a fight. Jagged paint chips dug into Chapa’s palms as he gripped the bottom and lifted with all the force his wounded shoulder would allow. He’d coaxed it up about two feet when he heard a noise coming from the other end of the hall.

“Hello, is someone there?” Chapa asked.

There was no answer, or any movement as far as he could tell. He waited another minute before going back to work on the window. When he did, Chapa found that it gave in to his efforts much more so than before. Maybe the short break had given him an energy boost, or more likely, it was a jolt of adrenaline delivered by the sensation that someone might’ve been hiding in the shadows.

The alley below was larger than he had expected. A cement ledge, a foot and a half wide, maybe less, jutted out from the building a couple of feet beneath him. To his right, Chapa could see what he guessed was the living room window for apartment 7G, suggesting that it was probably set up just like Annie’s.

He had to get a look inside that window. Then he could call Andrews and give him some idea of the situation.

Most people know whether or not they have a fear of heights, but Chapa had never given it much thought. He had never done any crazy daredevil crap like jump out of airplanes or off bridges. But it was more something he simply hadn’t gotten around to, rather than avoided.

At this moment, he wished he’d tried a few of those stunts. Not that leaping from a bridge with a safety cord tied around your torso would prepare anyone for standing on a narrow ledge, seven stories up.

Chapa swung his left leg through the opening, then carefully found the ledge with his foot. He sat on the windowsill, half in half out, and pressed against the concrete to make sure it was solid. A small part of him wished the whole thing had crumbled to the ground below, but the strength of the ledge would not be a concern.

If he could shimmy the thirty feet or so, Chapa might be able to get a peek inside the apartment. He saw no obstructions between the two windows, and no errant bricks that could trip him up or nudge him off.

Chapa swung his other leg through the opening, then ducked under and out. A moment later he was standing outside the building, and leaning forward against it without a harness or a chute to provide him any sense of comfort or security.

He found it easier to take short steps, left, right, chest and cheek pressed against the brick building. Focusing on the narrowing distance between his suddenly heavy feet and the target ahead, Chapa struggled to keep his mind off the long drop that was one miscalculated step or shift in balance away. But he ran into a problem ten feet into his trek. That’s where he discovered an area of the ledge where time and water decay from a spout directly above had taken a triangular bite out of the concrete. The gap was roughly twice as wide as his carefully measured steps.

Turning back was an inviting option. But the more Chapa looked at the gap, the more certain he became that he could get across. Inching as close as he could, Chapa stopped when a handful of small pieces of concrete chipped away and tumbled out of sight.

Chapa knew that if he stood there any longer the section under his feet might give. In one calculated, continuous motion he extended his left leg as far as it would go and reached footing on the other side of the gash. But just as he did that, another portion of the ledge gave way and he was now straddling the gap, each foot just inches from the void.

There was no room for his right foot next to his left, just air where concrete had been a moment earlier, and the prospect of hopping a few desperate inches on one foot held no appeal for him. So without giving it any more thought, Chapa shifted all of his weight to his left foot and pirouetted on it, swinging his right foot across in an arc as it dangled above the precipice until it slammed into the brick wall.

In that instant, as Chapa turned his body to face away from the building, he half expected to see his life flash before his eyes, but instead he had to settle for the rooftop across the way and the sudden flash of muted sunlight.

His back slammed into the brick, and Chapa had to react quickly to balance himself. A few stones slipped free, then an inch or two of concrete fell from sight. The gap was widening. No time to worry about balance and footing, Chapa quickly shuffled away from the unstable edge of the opening, and kept going until bits of the ledge finally stopped getting swallowed up by gravity. He got his new bearings, and realized after one glance that looking down beyond his black shoes was not a good idea. Moving across the ledge with his back to the wall was more difficult, slower, and far more dangerous.

Chapa was a little beyond the midway mark when he heard a sound coming from the direction where he had started. It was the hall window. Chapa watched as it slowly slid closed.

Leaning forward as much as he could without tipping, Chapa tried to look into the window, searching for a face. Maybe it was the person he thought he’d heard in the hallway shadows, or someone who just happened by and saw it had been left open. More likely, it had returned to its natural position on its own.

“Hey! I’m out here!”

He was also completely alone.

Chapa thought about retreating, but that would mean crossing the gap a second time, and even then he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get the window open again. For the first time since he’d climbed out, Chapa felt a rush of panic. If it overtook him, he would be in desperate trouble.

As Chapa fought to get his breathing under control, life went on beyond the end of the alley that led to the street where his car was parked. A pair of commuters on their way home from work walked past, too locked into their conversation to hear Chapa’s call. He closed his eyes, and waited for a comforting image, then thought of Nikki, and wondered if all of this was for her. Nothing else meant as much.

His right hand found a space between two bricks. Chapa grabbed hold, steadied himself, and started moving again. The window was no more than five feet away when Chapa saw the dark blue curtains. They looked heavy, and were drawn tight. Once the window frame was within reach, he slipped his fingers around it and inched closer.

Standing next to the window, Chapa looked for an opening in the curtains. He found it, but not where he was hoping it would be. The window was closed shut, but just a few inches from the bottom, and no more than a foot above the ledge, a small potted plant had forced the curtains apart enough to allow him a look. But first he would have to get down there.

As he slid into a squatting position, each movement carefully measured, Chapa could feel the bricks scraping against the back of the suit, and across his wound. Getting his folded legs out from under him was more difficult than Chapa had expected. His shoes didn’t budge without an effort, and he had to tilt to each side, fighting to keep his balance as he rested on one elbow, then the other.

Once Chapa’s legs were dangling from the knees down above the alley, he leaned back against the window and tried to get a look inside. The glass was in need of a good cleaning, inside and out, and there was just enough sunlight to create a glare. He leaned in, but all he saw was darkness. There was not enough light coming through to reveal anything else.

He tried it again, this time cupping his hands by his eyes in order to block out as much of the glare as possible. It took a few seconds for his vision to adjust, but it worked. Scanning as much of the room as he could see, Chapa paused on a couple items of interest. He was squinting, trying to get a better look, when he felt a tingling in his right pants pocket.

Digging his phone out proved to be relatively easy. He flipped it open to find that Andrews had left a text message.

That brought Chapa no comfort. What little he had been able to see through the window was enough for him to suspect that the greater threat was still loose.