Exposé

28. Ava

28

Ava

T he heavy box weighed me down as I walked to my car, my phone ringing in my pocket.

Sorry, whoever you are.

Now's not a good time.

The nerve, the absolute nerve to demand I obey her so she can line her pockets.

What is she thinking?

I unlocked my car and put the box in the trunk before slamming it closed like it was my own personal punching bag, then dashed out of the parking lot, my tires squealing.

The town bled shadows across the windshield. Deeno's neon lights refracted in jagged shards on the glass. Rain pelted the roof in relentless bursts— rat-tat-tat —like distant gunfire. Wipers dragged across the glass with a tired screech, struggling to keep pace while I gripped the steering wheel in a vice, my fingers locked and pale.

The words from my ex-boss echoed, clipped and cold. “Reconsider.” The command sat in my mind like a rusted nail.

Who got to her?

Why did she change her mind?

Was it the Mayor?

I flexed my fingers, the steering wheel groaning beneath the pressure. The rain hammered down like fists on metal.

The phone buzzed in the seat beside me—a low, insistent hum that wormed into my head.

Liam.

I jabbed the screen, keeping a side-eye on the blurry road. “What?” The word cut through the air, harsher than I intended.

“Easy, Ava.” A short laugh slipped through. “Thought you'd want to know that I ran a background check on your boy.”

My boy...

If there was any truth to Liam's gut instincts, he wasn't 'my boy'.

The rain drummed harder— thup-thup-thup —against the roof, syncing with the dull roar of tires on wet asphalt.

I scoffed. “And?” My stomach flipped as though I'd taken a drop on the highest roller coaster.

“Everything about him screams average, his family background checks out—middle-class, low profile. Both parents live in Detroit. Father’s a retired auto plant supervisor, mother volunteers at a local shelter.”

The words slid in cold and sharp. My breath fogged the glass as doubt twisted slow and deep in my gut.

“You sure?” The question comes out brittle.

"Yep, it’s all there. Gotta go."

The call ended, and I stared ahead, vision tunneling. The steering wheel creaked under my tightening grip.

He lied.

His parents weren't dead.

How much of what he's said to me was the truth?

Tears burned my eyes and I swiped them away, the rest of the drive to my apartment a foggy haze.

I let him in.

The rain softened to a whisper as I parked into my spot and got out, the box fighting me as though I hadn't put it through the same hole moments ago.

Water dribbled down my face, wetting my hair as I struggled. The box tore and my items scattered across my trunk, causing a guttural scream to bubble up from my chest.

I cast my gaze to the sky and let the water hit me, resetting whatever bad luck, curse, or misfortune plagued me.

The rain rolled down my cheeks, and down my neck, soaking my collar.

Whatever this is, let it be done.

Piling the spilled junk in my trunk to the box, I maneuvered it out and carried it to my apartment, my arm covering the rip down the seam.

Inside my studio apartment, I dropped the box onto the coffee table with a dull thud and stared at the evidence board, the shadows surrounding me like a tomb.

Red strings webbed the wall, pinned to photos and notes, a chaotic map that once made sense.

Now, it's noise.

Static.

I watched it, waiting for it to speak.

My mind churned, every lead unraveling into nothing.

The pressure clawed at me, tightening around my ribs until I could barely breathe.

Think, Ava .

You can do this.

The suffocating air pulled my damp clothes tighter around my body, squeezing the focus from my mind like water from a rag.

Pulling my shirt away from my torso, I glanced down as it clung.

I need to shed it all...

The lies...

The doubt...

The betrayal...

I yanked my clothes off, peeling them away like a second skin, and let them fall to the floor in a trail behind me. The promise of scalding water was the only thing that made sense now.

Turning on the shower, I waited until thick and clinging steam coils around me, turning the bathroom into a sauna.

The shower hissed, masking the world outside but not the noise in my head. I leaned into the scalding water, letting it bite at my skin.

Nate lied.

He lied to me.

Knock-knock.

I shut off the water and froze, holding my breath as if the slightest hiss of my lungs would stop me from missing a pertinent clue.

No second knock.

Drip.

Drip.

Stepping out of the shower, I wrapped the robe around me and walked to the door, my feet leaving behind a trail of my water-soaked misery.

My stomach quivered, and a bite of bile burned the back of my throat.

What if it's Nate?

Or Liam?

Do I want to see either?

I pressed my ear to the door and listened for the most inconsequential sounds.

My ears screamed with high-pitched torture.

Inhaling a deep breath, I peeled myself away from the door and looked into the peephole.

Nothing.

No one's there.

I raised a brow, my stomach twisting into knots, my heart racing as I backed away and dug into my purse buried in the box.

My fingers wrapped around the familiar cylinder and pulled out the mace as I readied myself at the door and yanked it open.

Claudia, three doors down, paused, her key halfway in the door as she stared at me. "You okay there, Ava?"

Heat brushed my cheeks. I swallowed and gave a curt nod. "Yeah. Thought I heard something."

She eyed me and turned the key, opening her door. "Okay, then."

"Did you..." I glanced down and froze. "Did you see who put this here?"

Reaching down, I scooped up the manila folder, its edges damp and half-tucked under the mat as though they'd left in a hurry.

"Nope. I just got up here." Claudia rushed into her apartment, casting a skeptical glance over her shoulder—her lips pressed into a thin line. "Have a nice night." The door closed behind her with a sharp click , leaving me alone in the hallway.

"Yeah, you too." My words faded into the emptiness as I pressed the folder to my chest and looked both ways down the hall. Backing into my apartment, I closed the door and slammed the deadbolt into place.

Mr. Anonymous?

I flipped the manila folder over, tore through the seal, and shoved my hand inside.

A single piece of paper.

The handwriting, jagged and leaning hard to the right.

One address.

Not here...

I froze.

My pulse roared in my ears, drowning out everything else.

Anywhere but here...

A pit opened in my stomach, and bile coated my throat.

What can I possibly learn here?

Why here?

I dressed in record time, throwing my hair into a high, messy bun, my shoelaces loose and hazardous. The bathroom mirror caught my reflection—haggard and wide-eyed, like a ghost caught in the act of remembering who it once was. I grabbed my key and bag, my heart hammering as I sprinted out the door.

What if it's a trap?

What if Mr. Anonymous didn't send this?

What if it's some cruel joke?

The cool night air hit me like a slap. I fumbled to unlock the car. My hands shook, the keys jingling in the silence before I slid into the driver’s seat.

I stared at myself in the rear view mirror, my hair a raging mess. "You've never let your fear hold you back."

This is different.

I shoved the key into the ignition and twisted it hard. The engine growled awake with a peculiar rumble that sent vibrations through my seat. My hands wrapped around the steering wheel, and I sat staring at it, my mind racing in tandem with the adrenaline coursing through my veins.

It's not a big deal.

Knock on the door.

Find out who lives there.

Solve the mystery and take a nice long nap.

Forget this ever happened...

I yanked the car into gear and peeled out of the parking lot, my focus glued to the road. The GPS spoke through the speakers, leading me toward a destination I'd avoided my entire adult life.

I skidded to a halt across from an apartment building that loomed like a block of forgotten time—sturdy but stripped of charm, its facade marred with graffiti that didn’t belong. The windows stared back at me, some dark, some glinting in the last light of the day.

No signs?

No logos?

What happened to this place?

I pulled the paper out of my pocket and stared down at the damning address with a different apartment number.

203.

An icy tide surged up my spine, dragging jagged hooks through my insides, each twist and pull a silent scream my body couldn’t release.

This is some kind of a cruel joke.

The playground sat off to the side, its metal slide abandoned, the swing broken and hanging.

"Higher, Mom."

"If you go any higher, you'll touch the stars."

I walked inside as the memory lambasted my sensibilities, my feet like lead holding to a magnet. Pushing open the doors, I climbed the stairs with hunched shoulders and glanced around the interior, which held so many memories.

Cigarette smoke clung to the air, mixed with mildew and mold climbing up the walls.

How is this legal?

Is this how it was when we lived here?

Television conversations droned through the swollen wooden doors along with a woman's distant, raised voice.

203

It's here.

I stopped at the door with the rusted brass numbers hanging crooked in the middle of the door, the number three tipped upside down.

I'm here.

No harm.

I can do this.

My fingers curled into a fist, and I knocked.

I waited a moment, then pressed my ear against the door.

Cold seeped into my ear lobe, and the sound of silence beat against my eardrum.

They aren't home?

Or were they ever?

My hand slid down the door and wrapped around the handle, giving it a slight twist.

A quick sigh of defeat brushed my lips as the knob jerked to a stop.

Of course it wouldn't be that easy.

I darted a look down the hall.

Empty.

If only I'd learned how to pick a lock.

Stepping away from the door, I hung my head and picked my brain rather than the lock, then walked down the stairs as an idea formed like expanding foam.

Down the two flights of stairs, I pulled open the door and stepped inside.

The office was a utilitarian square, functional but uninspired. The walls, once white, now bore a yellowish tinge from years of nicotine sticks. A desk occupied the center, its surface an operational disaster zone of pens, papers, and a battered landline phone. Behind it, a filing cabinet leaned against the wall, its drawers marked with faded labels, the tape curling at the edges. Light filtered through a fogged window, casting a grayish hue over the room, while a torn blind hung askew.

Martha, a seventy-seven-year-old woman, sat at the cluttered desk, her head turned to watch a soap opera playing on the box TV balanced on what used to be a welcome table crowded with brochures.

She'd kept her hair in the same tight French twist, silver-white strands stretched taut against her scalp, as she had when we'd lived here.

"Hi, Miss Martha."

Martha's eyes swung toward me, the cigarette between her fingers toppling toward the ashtray in her lap.

"My God. Ava? Is that you?"

I nodded and swallowed. "Yep.

"I thought I'd never see you again." She let out a hacking cough as though her lungs were filled with fluid before she continued. "How are you?"

"I'm good, actually. I had a favor to ask you."

Martha stamped out the edge of her cigarette. "A favor? I don't have anything of your mother's if that is what you're wondering."

My stomach clenched, and I winced. " Um. " I kept my heels on the threshold, not venturing further inside. "That's not what I was hoping for."

"Alright, let's hear it."

"I was wondering if you could tell me who lives in apartment two-oh-three."

She raised a brow and turned to the cabinet behind her. "What's your interest in that apartment?" Her knobby fingers sifted through file folders until she found the one in question.

"I am working on a case, and I was led to that apartment."

"A case? You a police officer now or something?" She turned in her chair and placed the file folder on her desk, then opened it up.

"No. I'm a journalist."

She cleared her throat and searched over the paperwork, her manicured pointer finger sliding down each page with her glasses perched on the edge of her nose. "Says here it's been rented out to the same person for the last fifteen years."

Fifteen years?

They were here when I was?

"What's their name?"

Her brows furrowed, deepening the wrinkles at the surface. "It doesn't say." She flipped a page, then back to the original. "That's odd. I've never seen that before."

"Maybe a typo?"

She shook her head. "No. This apartment is paid in cash in one-year increments."

"Wait..." Alarm bells sounded in my head. "This is low-income housing. There isn't a single person I know in middle class that could pay that much in one lump sum."

Her gaze shot up to mine, her head affixed in the same position. "Me either. Sounds like your story just got a little more interesting."

I cocked my head and frowned. "Except, I have no idea who lives there—if someone even does." I raised my finger and wagged it. "Maybe it's a front for something?"

Martha sat back in her chair, pulled her glasses off her nose, and let them hang down her chest by delicate purple and blue chains attached to the ends. "That is a conundrum."

"You know." I sucked my cheek between my teeth and clicked. "No one is home right now."

"Where are you going with this?" Martha eyed me, her crow's feet deepening.

"Maybe I could have a key and check it out?"

She shook her head. "No. Just because I let you go into the empty ones when you were a teen doesn't mean I can let you into a rented one now."

"That was for a little peace and quiet, but it's for a good cause. I'm supposed to be there. I know it." I put my hands before me and begged. "Please, Martha."

Martha grabbed her stamped-out cigarette, placed it between her lips, and dug into her desk drawer. She pulled out a lighter, her head shaking, then lit the end.

"I'll be quick. In and out. You won’t even know I was there. I just need to see what's going on behind that door."

She drew in a long drag and exhaled, delaying the inevitable answer. The smoke filled the air like a fog machine on Halloween night, and my hope dwindled as she took a second drag, her head tipped back.

"Alright."

"Alright? Does that mean yes?" I jumped, my heart lodged in my throat.

"You have five minutes. You bring me the key. You talk to no one. Do you understand?"

I nodded. "Yes." Stepping further into the office as she turned toward the filing cabinet, I touched her desk with a single finger and grimaced.

My finger left a dust track two inches from the edge.

Martha turned with a key dangling in her fingers, her cigarette pressed between her lips. "If you are caught in there, I will deny ever giving you the key."

"You got it." I ran my finger over my chest, keeping it a healthy distance away from my clothes. "Our secret dies with me."

"Jesus. Don't be so dramatic." She tossed me the key, and I darted out of the office.

"I'll be right back," I hollered over my shoulder.

Taking two steps at a time, I rushed down the hall still barren and dilapidated, pausing at the door with the crooked numbers.

Knocking, I pressed my ear to the door and waited.

Silence reigned supreme.

I smiled, drove the key into the lock, pushed the door open, and slipped inside. Scanning the studio apartment similar to mine but void of anything personal, I closed the door behind me.

Meow.

A large, orange cat jogged toward me, its belly fat swaying to the side. The cat paused before me, then bumped its head against my shin with another pathetic meow as I tucked the key into my pocket.

"Well, hello, little one." I bent down and scratched it between the ears as it turned, giving me its butt and tail. "Sorry, but I'm in a hurry."

Standing, I rubbed my hands together, then ventured into the small space.

A bed sat off to the left with a desk beside it, the screens black. The curtained window blocked any light, and a familiar scent rushed beneath my nose.

I've smelled that before.

What is that?

I slipped into the bathroom on my right and opened the medicine cabinet.

Toothbrush.

Paste.

Floss

Listerine.

Sounds like I'm making a shopping list.

"Nothing identifiable. Great."

I stepped out of the bathroom and moved to the computer.

My gut churned.

The place was sterile, void of anything personal, like a motel room on its last leg.

I sat at the desk and wiggled the mouse, the black screen blooming into an image.

The curved, rectangular screen split into four different sections, each with a CCTV-like camera feed to each one.

Except these were crystal clear...

My heart slammed against my ribs as my breath caught in my throat.

No.

The cat rubbed against my leg, and I shooed it away, my world spinning.

My apartment sat on the screen in vivid detail. One pointed to the bathroom, my case board, the front door, and the last toward my bed.

I’m being watched.

My blood turned to ice, the thick sludge causing my brain to pulse at the temples, my breath coming out in short bursts.

This was what Mr. Anonymous wanted me to see?

I moved the mouse around and pulled up the downloads and file folders.

Empty.

"Who the fuck are you?"

I stood and paced the desk.

A door clicking shut shattered the silent room, and my gaze flew back to the computer screen. A man in a black hoodie stepped into my apartment, his hands gloved, his face obscured as he walked into the kitchen.

He grabbed the bottle of vodka from the top shelf above the refrigerator, then a cup, and walked into the bathroom.

How did he know where that stuff was?

Is this his apartment?

The man placed the cup on the corner of the bathtub, filled the cup with vodka, then placed the bottle beside the tub and ran the water.

Okay, some random homeless man is taking a bath in my house?

Sweat broke out across my skin, my heart palpitating in a chaotic rhythm that threatened to shut everything down.

Spots speckled my vision as my head swam.

The man sat on the edge of the bath, broke the plastic off of my razor, discarded it onto the floor, and placed the razor next to the vodka.

Oh my God.

My stomach twisted, and bile rose to the back of my throat.

I rushed to the bathroom, my knees hitting the floor, and released the contents of my stomach into the toilet.

"Mom?" I let the door slam behind me, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the empty apartment. My backpack hits the floor with a dull thud.

The low hum of the fridge and the faint tick-tick of the kitchen clock echo back in reply.

"Martha says the bill is due." I run my fingers through my tangled hair, the wind blowing extra hard on my walk home. My bubble gum clings to my teeth, the flavor long petered out.

The silence presses on me, heavy and wrong.

I make my way down the hall and into her bedroom. "Mom?"

My sneaker squelches, and I stop dead, looking down with a frown, my stomach tightening.

Water—spreading out in uneven tendrils across the threadbare carpet. The kind of water that doesn’t come from a spilled glass.

I follow the ominous path.

"Mom? There's water everywhere." My voice wavers, my breaths shallow.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

"Mom?"

I push the bathroom door open.

Red.

Red, smeared, and streaked, pooling on the white tiles like someone spilled a bucket of paint.

Her arm dangles over the edge, pale as bone, the hand slack. Fingers pale, nails chipped, the veins beneath the skin like faint blue rivers. Blood drips from her fingers in thick, syrupy beads, splashing into the growing puddle on the floor.

The tub is overflowing, water and blood mixing into a swirling, pink froth.

Metallic and sharp, like pennies soaked in something rancid hits my sinuses. I gag, my throat closing up.

Her hair fans out in the water, dark and tangled, her face beneath the surface, eyes closed as though she's Sleeping Beauty.

A scream claws its way out of me, raw and jagged, tearing through the stillness. My knees buckle, my knees soaking into the aftermath.

My pulse drummed in my ears as I used the bathroom counter to haul me up from the floor, then washed my mouth with the Listerine.

Spitting, I let loose a groan and wiped the tears from my eyes.

“Ava? Are you in here?”