Every bone in my body said to drive home. To save myself while there was still something left to save.
Instead, I pushed the blinker so hard it almost broke and pulled into the next alley.
Right there, I decided. I circled back. Back toward the old house I had no business being near.
And back toward the man who didn’t even know he’d already let me in.
8
BLAIR
I wokewith a jolt that felt less like waking and more like being pulled from sleep by invisible hands. The type of start that doesn’t have a cause, doesn’t offer a reason. No nightmare I could remember or analyze. No sound I could name.
Just obtrusive, merciless certainty that something wasn’t right. Inside or out.
I looked at the purple crescents along my wrists, a map of where Travis had grabbed me. The metal shopping carts still rang in my ears.
But noises downstairs distracted me from the pain.
This godforsaken house made noise the way all old homes do. Particularly at night when the rest of the city’s commotion settled. As much as anything settles in Chicago.
The home never let me forget it wasn’t mine by decision. Most people dream of inheriting a home, but this one had been a liability. I couldn’t afford to renovate, and the few interested buyers wouldn’t offer more than pennies on the dollar.
Wood shifted under its own weight, pipes knocked. The faint whistle of wind at the windows, Chicago’s signature sound. I was used to it.
Well, at least that’s what I told myself; the creaks and bangs were echoes of old bones as they settled.
But tonight, the sound was different.
Sleep had evaded me for hours, and I was furious to be awakened by a sound, whether real or imagined. The room pressed in around me and shadows stretched long across cracked plaster walls. The ancient house groaned as if it remembered something it couldn’t quite let go of; at least not yet.
Not tonight.
I lay there in bed, flat on my back, sheets tangled around my legs, waiting for my pulse to steady, if only for a moment.
It didn’t.
Sheets dragged across my legs as I slid to the edge of my queen bed. My bare feet touched the floorboards, cold as stone. They creaked beneath my feet, sharp and splintered, breaking through the hush that filled the room.
I pushed up and moved slowly as my legs steadied.
On the nightstand I found my phone and opened it to the screen I’d last viewed; a draft of the recusal letter I’d typed to acknowledge to my superior I’d need to refer Colt out to someone else.
Subject line:Recusal/Referral—C. Mitchell
In the window behind my email app was an open Google search for “dual relationship ethics Chicago.”
The potential consequences of my actions stared blankly—coldly—back at me.
The radiator hissed through its ribs near my bed. I glanced away from the phone as the house held its silence, lightless and still.
I stepped out into the hallway that splayed out before me. Long, narrow, the wallpaper peeling where water stains hadbruised it years ago. My shadow bent and slid against the wall as I put one foot after another. I paused and listened for something.
But there was nothing.
Athickkind of nothing. The kind that swallowed sound and left only heavy pounding in my ears.
Cold radiator dust wafted through air, and the scent filled my nostrils. My thoughts flashed to the back door latch, the one that never sat perfectly flush. Tonight, I regretted not trying harder to fix it.
