Chapter 3
Three
Alex isn’t talking to me.
I can feel it. A burning sensation that spreads through my torso like I’ve swallowed battery acid.
There have been a few times in our lives—I can count them on one hand—where Alex has stopped talking to me. When she’s so mad, so hurt, so done that she just cannot bring herself to form words in my direction.
And Alex loves to talk. She loves to gossip. To analyze. To process everything out loud until she’s talked it into submission. Her mother once told me she was convinced Alex would have her own television talk show someday. That she’d get paid to just sit there and talk at people.
So a non-talkative Alex is a mad Alex.
Or worse—a contemplative Alex who’s decided I’m not worth the energy of her words.
It’s Monday morning. The day after the ghost. The day after I refused to listen. The day after she told me “maybe you should listen for once” and turned her back on me in the dark.
Alex was up and out of the loft before I’d even finished brushing my teeth.
No morning tarot card pull.
No “good morning, sleepyhead.”
No standing in the bathroom doorway asking what I want for dinner while I am still half-asleep and vulnerable to agreeing to her experimental cooking.
Just up and gone. Out the door like she doesn’t live with someone who needs her morning ritual to function like a human being.
I’d woken up alone in her bed—she must have moved to my room at some point, the haunted room, because she’s braver than me even when she’s pissed—and found the apartment empty except for the coffee maker still warm.
She’d made coffee. Just didn’t wait for me to drink it with her.
That’s how I know it’s bad.
And she’s left me to deal with Marcus. Alone.
I walk into the office at 8:57 a.m.—three minutes to spare, not that anyone’s counting except Sharon who definitely is—and there she is.
Standing at my cubicle. Arms crossed. Foot tapping. Those ridiculous chain glasses swinging against her ample chest.
I paste on my most professional face—the one that says I’m a competent paralegal who definitely didn’t spend last night seeing ghosts and fighting with her best friend—and approach my desk like I’m walking toward a firing squad.
“Morning, Sharon.”
“What did you do to my Alexandria?” Sharon doesn’t even wait for me to set my bag down. Just launches directly into the interrogation.
To add the cherry on top of my shit morning, clearly Sharon has appointed herself as the Guardian of Alex’s Emotional State and I am the primary suspect in whatever crime has been committed.
“I’m having a great day, Sharon.” I toss my coat onto my chair with more force than necessary. “Thank you so much for asking.”
“She won’t talk to me.” Sharon throws her hands in the air, knocking into her chain glasses in the process.
They swing wildly against her chest. “She walked right past my desk this morning. Didn’t even say hello.
Didn’t bring me a coffee. Didn’t tell me about her evening.
Just walked past like I was a stranger.”
The offense in her voice would be funny if I wasn’t currently dying inside.
That makes two of us, Sharon. That makes two of us.
My desk phone rings. Salvation in electronic form.
I snatch it up. “Dylan Wells.”
“Office.” Dom’s voice. Flat. Final. Then he hangs up.
No “good morning.” No “when you have a moment.” Just “office” and a dial tone.
“Of course, sir.” I say to the dead line anyway, performing for Sharon who’s still standing there watching me like a hawk. I hang up slowly. Deliberately. Then turn to face her with my best apologetic smile. “Alexandria’s birthday is coming up. I’m sure it’s just that.”
The lie comes easy. Smooth. I’m getting too good at lying.
“I know when her birthday is.” Sharon snaps, then narrows her eyes. “Something’s wrong. Fix it.” She turns on her heel and marches back to reception.
I jab the elevator button. Once. Twice. Three times.
My phone is already in my hand. Typing before I can stop myself.
Me: Sharon thinks I did something to you
Me: She’s appointed herself your emotional bodyguard
Me: I’m sorry about last night
Me: Please talk to me
I stare at the screen. Watch the messages go from delivered to read.
Nothing.
No typing bubbles. No response. Not even an angry emoji.
Just read. And silence.
That somehow hurts worse than if she hadn’t read them at all.
Me: I’m trying. I promise I’m trying.
Read.
Still nothing.
“Great.” I shove my phone back in my pocket. “Perfect day. Absolutely perfect.”
The elevator display shows it climbing. Third floor. Fourth floor.
Then it stops.
The lights flicker.
And I swear to god the whole thing shudders—I can hear it through the walls—before dying completely.
The display goes dark.
“No.” I press the button again. “No no no no.”
Nothing.
“It’s out.” Janet from two cubicles over walks past me, flipping through papers. “Just went down twenty minutes ago. Maintenance is on the way.”
“Great.” I stare at the stairwell door. “Perfect timing.”
“You okay?” She pauses. Actually looks at me. “You look—”
“Fine.” Too sharp. I force a smile. “Just running late for a meeting with Dom.”
“Ouch.” She makes a face. “Good luck with that. Stairs are your only option.”
“Yeah.” My hand hovers over the door handle. “Lucky me.”
She walks away and I’m alone with the stairwell door and the memory of what happened there exactly one month ago.
I turn slowly. Look at the stairwell door.
The emergency exit. The stairs I used to take all the time. The ones I’d climb at two in the morning without a second thought.
The ones I haven’t taken in exactly one month.
Not since that night. Not since I heard Marcus confess to murder while I stood frozen in the dark. Not since I became the witness to something I can’t report and can’t forget.
Alex once told me I had balls of steel for walking those stairs alone at night.
Doesn’t feel very balls-of-steel right now.
Right now I’m having second thoughts.
Swallowing my nerves—swallowing the memory of his voice, of the confession, of the fear that rooted me to that spot—I reach for the door handle.
I pull the door open.
The stairwell opens in front of me. Concrete and metal and shadows. The same stairs I’ve climbed a hundred times. The same air that always smells faintly of industrial cleaner and old building.
Except now it feels like a crime scene.
Breathing through the butterflies—no, not butterflies, butterflies with razor blade wings shredding my stomach from the inside—I step inside.
The door closes behind me with a heavy thunk.
Shutting me in.
An odd feeling settles between my shoulder blades. That prickling awareness of feeling watched. Of not being alone.
I lean back against the door, my eyes slowly traveling upward toward the top of the stairwell.
One flight. That’s all. Just one flight of stairs.
I’ve done this hundreds of times.
I can do it again.
“Fuck it.” I say it out loud. To the empty stairwell. To myself. “Just do it, Dylan. Go. Go. Go.”
Except nausea builds in my stomach. Bubbling like acid reflux. Like my body is physically rejecting the idea of climbing these stairs.
It takes all of my willpower to step toward that first step.
My heel clicks once. Echoes.
Clicks twice.
Blood pounds in my ears. My heart races like I’m running a marathon, not climbing stairs in a building where I work.
I blow out a breath. Force Dylan Wells—scared, anxious, ghost-seeing Dylan—deep down inside.
And slowly allow the badass version of myself to emerge.
The one who owns her fear no matter how terrifying life gets. The one who walked into Dom’s office and shook a killer’s hand without flinching. The one who performs under pressure and never lets them see her sweat.
That Dylan walks with her head held high. Chin parallel to the floor. Shoulders back. She oozes confidence she doesn’t actually feel.
I can be that bitch.
Just keep climbing.
One step. Two steps. Landing. Turn. Keep going.
The stairwell is exactly the same as it was that night. The same fluorescent lights. The same scuffed concrete. The same metal railing cold under my palm.
“You’re doing great, Dylan,” I mutter to myself. “Very brave. Very normal. Just a regular Monday morning climbing the murder confession stairs. Living your best life.”
My voice echoes back at me. Mocking.
Even my own pep talks sound sarcastic now.
Alex would appreciate that, at least. If she were talking to me.
Which she’s not.
Because I’m apparently terrible at listening to anyone—living or dead.
But every step feels like walking through a memory. Through that night. Through the fear.
I’m about halfway up to the fourth floor, when I see it.
Something small against the wall. White against grey.
I freeze. Mid-step. Mid-breath.
An earbud.
A white Apple earbud.
Wedged against the wall where the step meets the concrete, almost invisible unless you’re looking down at exactly the right angle.
I’m already bending down, snatching it up before I can think better of it.
Please don’t have nail polish. Please don’t have nail polish. Please don’t—
There’s a tiny red heart painted on the side. Nail polish. The same shade I’ve been wearing for three years because I’m too lazy to try new colors.
“Oh fuck.”
It’s mine.
It’s my fucking earbud.
Alex would be losing her mind right now. Would be grabbing my shoulders, shaking me, saying “Dylan, this is EVIDENCE. Evidence that you were HERE. Do you understand what this means?”
And I’d be making jokes about how at least I found the matching earbud, finally, after like three weeks of looking for it. Only I didn’t know it was missing.
And she’d tell me this isn’t funny.
And I’d say “everything’s funny if you’re scared enough.”
And she’d—
She’d probably still not be talking to me.
Because I can’t even listen to a ghost, let alone listen to her.
I’ve been so busy, so distracted, so consumed with investigation and ghosts and performing normalcy that I haven’t even noticed one was missing. Haven’t thought about it. Haven’t looked for it.