The kids bundled up, and as they walked outside and Teri locked up the house, she reflected that it might not be the worst way to spend her night—eating ice cream and watching Pixar movies. It was going to be no sweat.
She’d taken only a few steps toward the car when she heard the noise.
It was coming from the trunk of the yellow rental car.
A banging, scratching sound.
The kids heard it too, and they all clustered around the car, looking to Teri for answers. “What is it?” Chris asked, her eyes wide.
Teri stared at the trunk. “Maybe an animal got trapped in there?”
The kids looked at her, and she knew she had to do something. She also knew that she couldn’t just take them for ice cream now without worrying that an animal was slowly suffocating. She squared her shoulders and reached for the trunk latch, bracing herself for the worst—an angry squirrel or bat flying out at her.
But what came out was not at all what she’d been expecting.
A man clambered out of the trunk. He whirled around. His eyes were wild. He wore a crumpled suit and looked like he was in his thirties. He had a bruise on his cheek and a gash on his forehead, and he was wielding a tire iron like a weapon.
His gaze fell on Teri and the kids, and his eyes narrowed. “Where the hell am I?”
CHAPTER 7
Do you see anything?” Stevie asked as I stood on my tiptoes, feeling around on top of the light fixtures and the moldings, trying to find a spare key. We’d spent a few minutes desperately trying the knob, like if we turned it hard enough, somehow it might just open. There was a blue-and-white-striped mat in front of the door, but the only things under it were a squashed spider and a desiccated leaf. Which really wasn’t that surprising—we didn’t even keep a spare key under our mat, and we lived in one of the safest towns in America. This was New York City; of course people weren’t going to leave their keys sitting out.
Stevie was holding Brad’s leash, but as far away from her body as possible, and every time the dog turned to her, rose on his back legs, and waved his paws—which really was ridiculously cute—Stevie just gave him half a pat on the head and then looked away. “Nothing?”
“Nothing,” I confirmed, brushing the dust off my hands.
“I’ll call Mallory,” Stevie said, pulling out her phone with a deep sigh. She shook her head. “I can’t believe this. She’s…” But Stevie didn’t finish her sentence, just turned the speaker on Ophelia on as it started to ring.
“Hello?” The connection was bad—scratchy and staticky—but it was there.
“Mallory!” Stevie gripped the phone tighter and raised her voice. “We got locked out of your apartment! We’re here with Brad. Do you have an extra key?”
“What—” Whatever she said next was swallowed by a patch of static.
“We have the dog!” Stevie practically yelled into the phone. “We can’t get into the apartment! What should we do?”
“Ugh, that’s so annoying.” This came through clearly, and more loudly than I had been expecting. I drew back from the phone slightly. “The super has extra keys, he can let you—” This was broken up by a wave of static, and when Mallory started speaking again, she clearly hadn’t realized she’d been cut off. “… close Brad in the bedroom, okay?”
“So we just… ask the super for keys?” Stevie asked, leaning closer to the phone.
“Yeah, he’s—static—basement—static—tell him you’re my static static static. Okay?”
“What?” Stevie and I said together, but a second later, the line went dead.
“I’ll try and get her back,” Stevie said. She pressed the button to call Mallory, but now it was going right to an automated voice mail. “I guess she lost reception?” Stevie asked, looking down at her screen. “Or her phone died.”
“So it sounds like we find the super,” I said. “I saw the apartment when we came in, back on the first floor.” Stevie sighed as she looked down the stairs. “I can go get him if you want.”
“No, it’s okay,” she said, holding out the leash to me. I took it, and she leaned against the railing for a second as she eased her heels off, leaving them in front of 5B. “Just tell me if you see any, like, broken glass.”
“I will absolutely be your John Cusack in this situation.”
“Just no stalker-y boom boxes.”
“Never.” We headed back down the stairs—Brad seemed thrilled that his walk was recommencing and started to spin in circles again. When he got tangled up in the leash, I picked him up and carried him. He didn’t seem to mind this, taking in the view from the raised height and looking around, then resting his head against my chest.
When we reached the lobby, Brad started squirming, and when I set him down, he lunged for the glass door with more force than I would have expected from such a tiny dog. “No,” I said, pulling him toward the basement unit. Clearly the dog, no fool, saw the front door and assumed that meant a walk was in the cards. “Sorry, bud.” I knocked twice on the superintendent’s door. A second later, it swung open.
I had been led to believe, by movies and TV, that building superintendents were guys in their fifties who often had mustaches, sometimes wore undershirts with overalls, and usually walked around carrying a wrench or a plunger. So I was very surprised to see, standing on the other side of the door, a guy who looked around my age, with nary a wrench in sight. He was almost my same height—I got to look straight at him, which was honestly a little jarring, because his eyes were a light brownish-green, a true hazel, with lashes that seemed almost criminally unfair for a boy to have. He had tan skin and thick dark hair, cut short and pushed back from his forehead so that it stood up slightly. He was, in short, very cute.
“Hi,” he said, looking from me to Stevie with a quick smile that flashed bright, slightly crooked teeth. “Can I help you?”
“Hi there,” I said, giving him a smile of my own. Stevie cleared her throat, and it brought me back to the moment, and the situation we were dealing with. “Right. Hello. Are you… the super?”
“That’s my uncle,” he said. He took a step closer and I could see that he was wearing an NYU sweatshirt with a checked collared shirt under it, skinny jeans, and Converse. “But he got called away suddenly and I’m holding down the fort. You’re not…” He looked from me to Stevie, his brow creasing slightly. “You’re not residents, right?”
“We’re not,” Stevie said, coming to stand next to me. Brad also seemed to take this as his cue to come forward as well, launching himself at the guy, dancing back and forth, his curved tail wagging furiously.
“Brad!” the guy said with a smile as he picked him up. Brad’s front paws flew up and down as he tried to get close enough to lick this guy’s face. “Hey, buddy. How’s tricks?”
“You know the dog?” Stevie asked.
“Sure,” he said, settling Brad in the crook of his arm and scratching underneath his neck. “I help my uncle out a lot, and sometimes will do walks if people are working late, that kind of thing. Are you guys friends with Mallory and Flora?”