Chapter 87 87

Chapter 87 87
Quinn's POV

Harmony found me shortly after, and we took the bus going west together. Neither of us spoke for the first ten minutes. I stared out the window on my side, watching the familiar campus buildings fade away, replaced by the darker, more industrial stretches of University Village. The streetlights here were spaced further apart, casting fractured shadows across the empty sidewalks.

"Are you sure about the address, Quinn?" Harmony asked. She looked like she was seconds away from an anxiety attack.

"I'm sure," I replied patiently, pulling out my phone to double-check the picture I had taken. "1422 West Peachtree Lane. Apartment 4B. It’s definitely what the magazine archive listed."

"And nobody saw you take the photo?"

"No. The editor went down to the print lab, and I was alone in the media suite." I locked my phone and shoved it into my jacket pocket. "Do you think she’s going to be there?"

Harmony called our stop as we turned onto Peachtree Lane, and we both climbed down. The street was lined with older, three-story brick apartment complexes, the paint peeling from the window frames. "I don’t know. If she’s hiding from Bennett, she might just be keeping the lights off. But if she’s not there... I don’t know what we do next."

We walked up to the curb a few houses down from number 1422, then quickly toward the entrance of the building. The front door to the lobby was wood with a cracked glass pane, but the latch was broken. It gave way with a simple push, letting us into a narrow stairwell.

We climbed the stairs to the fourth floor in silence, our sneakers making no sound on the worn runner rugs. When we reached the top landing, I looked down the hall. Apartment 4B was at the very end, right under a flickering yellow ceiling light.

Harmony walked up to the door first and knocked, three sharp raps. We waited, but nothing happened.

She knocked again, then whispered. "Sasha? It’s Harmony, from the clinic. Are you in there?"

Silence stretched down the hallway. I leaned my ear against the wood paneling, listening for the sound of footsteps, a television, or even the hum of a refrigerator. The interior of the apartment sounded completely dead.

"Let me try the handle," I offered, reaching past her. I twisted the brass knob, but it was locked solid. "It’s bolted."

"Great." Harmony muttered, pacing a small circle on the landing. "We can't just kick the door down. We don't even know if this is the right place."

"It is the right place, I triple-checked." I replied a little impatiently. Then I looked down at our feet. Right in front of the threshold lay a faded, bristly brown welcome mat with a generic greeting printed on it.

"Hold on. People always do this in old buildings." I knelt down on the floor, sliding my fingers under the rough edge of the mat. My knuckles scraped against the cold concrete, but then my fingertips hit something metallic and flat.

I pulled it out: it was a silver house key.

"You're kidding me," Harmony whispered, looking down at me.

"People are predictable," I gave her a smile, standing up and sliding the key into the lock. It turned with a satisfying click. I looked at her, my hand resting on the knob. "Are we actually doing this?"

"We came this far," Harmony muttered resolutely. "Open it."

I pushed the door open, stepping into a dark, narrow entryway. The air inside the apartment was cold and still, carrying a strange, musty odor that immediately made me uneasy. It smelled like a place that hadn't been lived in for weeks.

Harmony reached out and flipped the light switch on the wall. A single overhead bulb flickered to life, illuminating a small living room. A grey fabric sofa was pushed against the far wall, a wooden coffee table in front of it. There were no books on the table, no magazines, no dirty coffee mugs. Everything was perfectly clear.

"Sasha?" Harmony called out again, stepping deeper into the room. Her voice bounced off the bare walls.

"Look at the kitchen," I said, pointing toward the small alcove to our left.

We walked over to the linoleum counter. On top of the small dining table was a half-empty glass of water with a white rim of dried mineral residue lining the inside. Next to it was a small ceramic bowl holding a banana that had turned black and shriveled into a hard, moldy lump.

Harmony opened the refrigerator door. The little light inside clicked on, revealing a single carton of milk that had ballooned with sour gas, a jar of mayonnaise, some meal prep in a tupperware and a bag of lettuce.

"She didn't just go out for the evening," Harmony said, closing the fridge with a thud. "This stuff has been rotting for at least a week. Maybe even longer."

"Let's check the bedroom," I said, moving back toward the hallway.

The bedroom door was pushed halfway open. I nudged it with my foot, letting the overhead light from the living room spill across the floor. The bed was unmade, the sheets tossed to one side as if someone had pulled them back in a hurry. A plain wooden dresser stood against the wall, two of the drawers pulled open an inch.

I walked over and looked inside the open drawers. They were filled with workout shirts and tennis shorts, all folded neatly. On top of the dresser, there was a small plastic tray holding a couple of cheap hair clips and a bottle of pharmacy lotion.

"Her clothes are still here," Harmony said, standing in the doorway and looking around the room. "Look at the closet. Her winter coats are still hanging up."

"Why would she leave without her clothes if she was planning to run away?" I asked, looking under the bed. Nothing but a few dust bunnies and an empty tennis ball canister.

"Maybe she didn't have a choice. Maybe... maybe she left in a hurry because she knew someone was coming for her." Harmony walked over to the bedside table, picking up a small white charging block that was plugged into the wall. The cord was attached, but the end of it was just resting on the carpet, empty. "Or maybe she didn't leave on her own at all."

"You think Bennett found out she was talking to people? To us?" I asked, my voice dropping as the reality of the empty room sank in. "You think his people came here?"

"I don't know what to think," Harmony whispered, tossing the charging cord back onto the nightstand. "She told me she was scared, and that it had something to do with the clinic at Loyola."

"If she was running away, then she would have packed a bag," I argued, walking back into the living room to look around the sofa. "She would have taken her phone charger, her favorite clothes, her wallet. This looks like she just vanished into thin air."

Harmony followed me out, her shoulders slumping as she leaned against the kitchen counter. All the anxious energy she had when we were coming over here seemed to have vanished. "We don't have any proof, Quinn. I mean, people abandon their leases all the time. Students drop out and go home to their parents without telling anyone. But it it's Bennett, then she's in real danger."

"Well, we can't just leave it like this," I said, looking back toward the dark hallway. "There has to be something else."

"We looked everywhere, what else can we do? There's nothing here but rotten food and empty furniture." Harmony sighed and rubbed her temples. She walked over to the front door, looking out into the empty hallway before turning back to me. "What do we do now? Do we report Sasha's disappearance to the authorities, or wait?"

I stood up from the couch, walking over to stand beside her at the doorway. The flickering yellow light in the hall made it all feel even more ominous. "If we go to the police, Bennett might find out. He has people everywhere."

Harmony looked down at the silver key still in the inside lock. "I don't know if the police will even listen to us. After all, we aren't her family. They might even ask us why we are looking for someone who isn't affiliated with us in any way, why we broke into her apartment. But if we wait, and she's somewhere out there needing help..."

Her voice trailed off into the quiet of the empty room, and I had no answers for her.