I don’t go home.
I get into my car, plug in the address that Tom gave me, and drive.
The clock reads eleven fifty-two p.m.Almost tomorrow.
What do I expect to do?
It’s too late to knock, too late to make excuses, too late to pretend this is anything other than what it is—a mistake waiting to happen.
But I drive on until I reach the apartment complex.
Number thirty-four.
I park, walk to the door, stare at it.
What comes next?
Maybe I’ll wait, just long enough to convince myself I never should have come.Maybe I’ll leave a message, something cryptic, something only he would understand.Or maybe—maybe I’ll do nothing at all, just linger in the shadows, haunted by the weight of the person who lives here.
A man who may have stolen Lindsay’s life.
I stare at the numbers etched into the door—three and four.They seem to blur together, a meaningless jumble that only intensifies the knot in my stomach.
I reach for the door…but then stop.
I turn away, ready to retreat into the safety of my car, but something stops me—a flicker of light from inside.I squint, but I don’t see it again.
My imagination.My mind playing tricks on me.
I lift my hand toward the door.This time, I don’t stop.Instead, I press the doorbell.Rude at this hour, but I don’t care.
Silence follows.
Seconds tick by.
Then minutes.
And…nothing.
No one’s home.
Or he’s sleeping so soundly he doesn’t hear me.Could be either.Clearly he doesn’t have a dog, or he’d be barking, alerting Ronny Burgundy to my presence.
I scoff.What the hell was I thinking?It’s after midnight in the middle of the week.
Besides, this address could be a fake anyway.What are the chances that Ronny Burgundy, who disappeared years ago, is now living in my own city of Boulder?
I turn away from the door, walk back to my car?—
Then I see it.
A car that wasn’t there before, parked a few yards behind me.Black, nondescript.No lights.In the darkness, I can’t see through the windows of the car.They’re probably tinted anyway.
I stare at it, holding my breath.Was it there all along and I just didn’t notice?Or did it just appear out of the blue while I was lost in my thoughts?
My heart pounds.This whole scenario has the makings of a cheap thriller.
No.
