His panic hits me like a wave through the phone, so real, or maybe, like the phone call that trapped my mother, just some fast talking designed to lure me into a trap. Theo knows how to do that—talk and talk and make you feel safe.

“Who is he? Why should I believe you after your little conversation with Kim? I saw you texting her while you were in the kitchen! I read the messages.”

I watch him, expecting him to show some sign that the jig is up, but his exasperated expression doesn’t change. “I remembered where I’d first heard the name VerenTech and was looking up something. What messages?”

“The ones that popped up on the iPad in the living room, honeycheeks. Next to Drea’s air conditioner. The one missing from her room.”

“That’s Kim’s iPad. And her new air conditioner.” He shakes his head. “And ‘honeycheeks’ has never been in my vocabulary. The closest I’ve gotten is ‘Howdy Doody.’”

I want to believe him so badly it hurts. The possibility that everyone has betrayed me is too much to deal with.

Theo suddenly dives mostly out of view, then the top of his head from his eyes up returns. “He’s on the second floor now, in Drea’s apartment. The fake Con Ed guy. He was in the cab of the moving truck and I saw him get out and go into your house. Please.” His voice breaks. “I know we’re in this insane situation and nothing makes sense, but I wasn’t talking to Kim. I have no idea what Kim has to do with any of this. I like you and I wouldn’t try to hurt you. The only thing I did is—”

“What? What did you do?”

“I’ve been stealing from the rich people in the surrounding neighborhoods,” he says in a rush. “Not like Robin Hood, the money was for me. The uptick in car break-ins and house burglaries people have been talking about was me. And one of the guys I use to fence the stuff asked me if I had any leads on real estate. I told him there was an empty lot.”

“What?” My grip on the gun tightens.

“He asked me if I knew any places going for cheap in my neighborhood, to keep an eye out because he’d heard the VerenTech deal was going to go through. I told him there was an empty lot being used as a garden because I assumed he’d ask to buy like a regular person. I don’t know if he had anything to do with this stuff, I swear. I swear, Syd.”

His gaze connects with mine, then he stands and runs out of the room. I hear the pounding of his footsteps and his heavy breathing through the phone. “He’s heading for the third floor. Hide somewhere, now. Now, Sydney! I’m coming for you.”

He hangs up.

I still don’t know if I can trust him, but I decide that at the very least, I will hide. I’m feeling mad petty, but I’m not gonna die just to spite Theo by ignoring his warning.

I close and lock my mother’s bedroom door. The fake Con Ed dude was big. He likely has something letting him bust through the locks on the outer apartment doors—maybe he even has the key.

What he doesn’t have, what none of these motherfuckers trying to take over my neighborhood have, is the knowledge of someone who grew up here. Someone who doesn’t see these houses as just a place to show off to their rich friends or post pictures of on Boomtown.

Wood cracks with a loud split in the living room—the outer apartment door, which confirms that Theo was telling at least a bit of truth: someone is trying to get me. I slide into the closet, close the door behind me, and turn the key that sits in the lock inside of it. The lock isn’t heavy duty, and was installed to keep visiting kids and nosy houseguests out of Mommy’s things when locked from the outside. Locking it from the inside was another “in case of emergency” bonus—the poor woman’s panic room.

I tuck the gun into the waistband of my pants, and do the thing I received my only ever spanking for; not because I’d done anything bad but because I’d scared the shit out of my mother by disappearing for hours.

I push through Mommy’s dresses and trousers, still hung neatly and carrying the scent of her, and unlatch the door in the wall at the back of the closet. It leads to the servants’ staircase, a feature built into many of these brownstones. For once, the excess of the rich people who lived here in the past comes in handy.

Thanks, Frederick Langston.

I step into darkness and close the secret door behind me.

The air is surprisingly cool, and what feels oddly like a breeze blows up toward me even though our steps don’t lead down to a cellar like many people’s do. After the initial jolt of fear at what might be lurking, I turn on my phone’s flashlight and start making my way down.

I try to walk quietly—these stairs are a hundred years old at least, and the last time they were maintained was when Mr. Perkins made a bunch of repairs after I got stuck in here that one time. Twenty-five years ago?

After the first few steps don’t break beneath my weight and an army of rats doesn’t swarm up the passageway toward me, I gain a bit of confidence.

I start to move faster, the darkness crowding down the stairs and up behind me, where the weak phone light doesn’t reach.

A spiderweb clings to my arm and I shudder, but when I hear crashing upstairs, in the bedroom, I could give a good goddamn about a spider or a creaking stair. I’m jogging now. One more short flight of steps and I’m into the coat closet on the first floor and out of this—

The sole of my boot comes down on something not soft, but not hard like a wooden step and not flat like one, either. I look down at the glow coming from the phone that’s suddenly illuminated under my shoe. At the familiar brown hand holding it tightly.

All I can see is this hand, the LED screen shining against the matte purple acrylics at its fingertips. The screen, now cracked, shows dozens of calls and messages, mostly from me. The battery power is a sliver too thin to be seen, but reads 1%.

“Drea,” I whisper, and even though I resolved not to cry and not to panic, that was before this horror lurking around the bend in the staircase. My sinuses burn and tears well up. “Fuck, Drea. Why?”

I can’t bring myself to look at her face yet, and though some part of me knows I need to move past her or die, my ass drops down to the steps and I tug the phone from her hands, wincing when she seems to hold on to it. We played like that sometimes, me tugging to see what wild text she’d just received, but this isn’t a game.

It’s rigor mortis.

I put in her unlock code and our text chat opens on the screen. I finally see the last thing she’d been typing. The unsent message that has been haunting me for days.

Luv u. Im sorrrrrrtttyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

The phone shuts off, and I sit unmoving and unbreathing as the darkness blankets on us both.

Chapter 20

Theo

I HAVE A CERAMIC KNIFE FROM CRATE AND BARREL IN ONE hand and a ridiculously tiny crowbar shoved in my back pocket as I jog across the street—Kim’s vast array of power tools are suddenly put away somewhere instead of lying all over the place and tripping me up. Maybe she thought I would sell them, or more nefariously, maybe she didn’t want me to have anything to defend myself with.

Kim, the woman I thought I could pin my future to.

Kim, who had texted something that made Sydney flee in terror.

Kim, whose father’s name had come up as a VerenTech Pharma shareholder as well as a lawyer for BVT Realty as I’d waited for the water to boil, as Sydney had freaked out and run away.

The iPad is in my other hand, but I haven’t read the messages because I have to go fight a man who’s likely a trained killer with the assistance of a kitchen knife.

Not being able to call the police when you need help really sucks, I’m learning.

I stalk to the house, aware that eyes are on me, tracking me from windows I used to peep into from my own and from the cameras that have popped up on several of the houses. A shadow is silhouetted by the warm lamplight in Melissa’s apartment. The curtains flutter in Josie and Terry’s living room, and Toby barks.

When I get to Sydney’s top step, I push the door open—the wood is splintered around the lock as if someone has forced their way in with a much bigger crowbar than the one I’m packing. I peer into the dark hallway, but can’t see much since dusk has mostly fallen and the place is filled with shadows. My eyes start to adjust, and that’s how I see the wall swing open. That’s how I see a darker shadow slip out.

Sydney.

The iPad pings suddenly, the screen going bright and illuminating me as I instinctively turn it to read the message that’s come in. Sydney’s head whips my way as my eyes skim over the messages, the latest of which is Did you get rid of the skank?

An earlier response from whoever Sydney assumed was me has a knife emoji aimed at a Black woman.

I am holding a knife. Sydney is a Black woman.

Correction: Sydney is an armed Black woman.

“This looks really bad,” I say, holding up the knife and the iPad as she points a gun at me. “I really wish I’d read this beforehand. I would have carried the shovel over instead.”

Her gaze is empty, her expression blank, but her whole body is shaking. “Drop it.”

I put the knife down.