Chapter 3
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have, because suddenly gray morning light is pressing in around the curtains. I’m on my back, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, waking with that strange jolt that comes from being somewhere new.
I stare up at the ornate ceiling and listen to the building, to the city below it coming back to life.
And I think about the sound from last night. That single soft creak from above.
In the morning light, it seems easier to explain. It was nothing. Buildings breathe, especially old ones.
I get up and make coffee.
The kitchen faces west, and the morning light comes in gray and weak, the city still blinking itself awake below. I fill a mug, wrap both hands around it, and move to the nearest window.
From thirty floors up, morning feels different. Down at street level, New York is already noise and motion. Up here, it’s almost peaceful. Delivery trucks move through the grid while commuters spill from subway entrances and scatter.
The whole city seems to be waking up at once.
I watch it longer than I mean to.
Then I put down my coffee and pick up the binoculars.
Once again the city snaps closer.
I tell myself I’m just exploring my new neighborhood, that I’m not spying on anyone.
Which is true. Technically. But deep down I know I’m trying to catch little pieces of lives I’m not supposed to see.
Getting in touch with my “inner voyeur.” My mom would have simply shaken her head with disapproval and called me a “Peeping Tom.”
A man on the sixth floor of a building directly north pulls on a shirt and checks himself in a mirror on the back of a door. He fixes his hair. Frowns. Fixes it again. Then leaves. Kinda cute but perhaps a bit too full of himself.
A woman three buildings east sits at a kitchen table with both hands flat on the surface.
There’s coffee in front of her, but she isn’t drinking it.
She’s just sitting there. Something about her stillness makes me keep watching.
She appears to be completely at ease with the world, which makes me a bit envious.
Wish I could achieve that level of Zen. Eventually, she picks up the mug.
I move on.
On a balcony, a woman in slippers waters two sad-looking plants and checks her phone at the same time. One of the plants looks beyond saving. She waters it anyway.
I could do this for hours.
The city rolls past in small private fragments while my coffee goes cold. Then I swing the binoculars east and pause.
Six blocks away, a rooftop jumps into view that has become a hive of bustling activity.
I adjust the focus.
Uniformed cops move across the roof with grim purpose. Plainclothes detectives stand near the center. Crime scene tape snaps in the wind, bright yellow against the gray stone. A forensics tech crouches beside something under a bloodstained tarp, then rises and makes a note.
There’s blood, so much blood.
It stains the rooftop in a wide dark radius that tells its own story.
I lean closer.
I know what I should feel. Horror. Fear. The normal human response to violence.
And I do feel that. It tightens in my chest.
But underneath it, something else stirs. Something I recognize from being seventeen and hiding forensic psychology books under my bed so my mother wouldn’t find them.
I am fascinated. Darkly, helplessly fascinated. I’m a kindergarten teacher who dreamt of becoming an FBI profiler hunting serial killers. My mom would’ve had a fit if she had ever known of these ambitions.
The binoculars drift to the building beside the crime scene. I’m not even doing it on purpose. My eyes are just following shapes now. Stone ledges. Rain gutters. The roofline of an older building, all carved edges and blackened stone.
Then I see something crouched up there.
I adjust the focus and…
A stone gargoyle snaps into view.
It is almost the same dark gray as the building, which is why I nearly missed it. Weather-blackened stone, reptilian wings folded tight against its back. A long head bowed toward the murder scene on the rooftop below.
Its pose is so focused, so intent, that for one dizzy second it doesn’t look like stone.
It looks alive.
I slowly turn the binoculars back to the crime scene.
One detective stands apart from the others near the edge of the roof. He’s compact and weathered. Even from this distance, I can read something in the way he holds himself. Not just tired. Troubled. Like whatever happened up there doesn’t make sense. Then his gaze shifts.
It moves across the rooftops, searching for something. Or nothing.
And for one impossible second, he is looking right in my direction, like he senses that someone is watching him. His penetrating gaze seems to be boring into me through the binoculars.
My heart kicks hard.
I stand frozen beside the window, the binoculars hanging at my side, feeling ridiculous and exposed.
I shake my head at my own reaction. There is no way he can see me. He’s six blocks away. I’m thirty floors up, behind glass reflecting the gray morning sky.
I count to five. Then I raise the binoculars again.
The detective has turned away and is back with the other police officers now. Focused on the black tarp covering the victim, the forensics tech, and whatever is on that rooftop.
The EMTs move in. They lift the body onto a stretcher with practiced care. As they do, the tarp shifts.
An arm slips into view.
Just for a second.
Mangled. Bent wrong. Bone visible, caked red.
I lower the binoculars again. My hands are shaking now.
For a moment, I just stand there with the city spread out in front of me, my cold coffee behind me, and that arm still sharp in my mind.
Welcome to the big city, kid.