Chapter 4
I go for a run because I need to be in my body instead of my head for a while.
I change into sweats and lace my sneakers, then pull out my phone and open my podcast app. Scan the newest episodes in my library.
Meditation and Mindfulness. The Daily News. Comedy Hour.
My thumb slows.
I settle for Chilling True Crime Stories.
I shake my head. So predictable.
I tap an episode about Ted Bundy. The moody opening music fills my earbuds, and something in me settles. It always does. My mother never understood that. Eventually, she stopped trying to grasp my strange fascination with human evil. The host’s voice fills my earbuds.
“What separated Bundy from the others wasn’t the body count, it was the method. The ability to move through the world without being seen for what he was.”
I tuck my phone into my waistband and head out.
Central Park is five blocks north, and I run the way I always run: too fast at first, then slower once my body reminds me I’m not a machine. The city feels different down here than it does from Eleanor’s windows. From thirty floors up, New York looks organized. Grids. Rooftops. Moving pieces.
At street level, it has teeth.
Traffic. Steam. Garbage bags piled at curbs. The hard shove of people who know exactly where they’re going and expect you to get out of the way.
By the time I reach the park, my breathing has evened out.
I run past benches, bare October trees, and other runners wearing the same expression of private suffering and determination. Somewhere around the second mile, I get the sudden feeling that I’m being watched.
I don’t stop.
I glance up because the feeling seems to come from above, not beside me.
There’s nothing there.
Gray sky. Branches. A few pigeons cutting across the tree canopy above.
Nothing is watching me.
I pull my earbuds tighter and run faster. By the time I leave the park and head back south, the feeling has faded enough for me to dismiss it.
The Overton swallows the street noise the moment I step through the lobby doors.
That’s one thing I’m already learning about this building. It doesn’t just block out the city. It feels like it rejects it. Outside is traffic and horns and voices. Inside is marble, dim light, and a silence that makes my footsteps sound too loud.
I don’t spot a doorman or any tenants passing through. There’s just the faint hum of old machinery somewhere behind the walls.
Did I move into a ghost building?
Normally I just smile at the silliness of the idea but the Overton has a way of sucking humor out of almost any situation. There is gravity to this place, a hushed sense of awe that grips you. The place has history, weight.
I cross to the elevator and press the button.
The doors creak open.
I step inside and reach for the top floor, then stop.
My thumb hovers over the panel.
Instead, I press the button for the floor below mine.
The elevator climbs slowly, groaning its way up. I stand very still and try not to think too much about what I’m doing.
The doors open onto Marian’s floor.
The hallway looks like mine. Same carpet. Same dim light. At the far end, Marian’s door sits in shadow.
I take one step out of the elevator. Then I stop myself.
What are you doing? The lady clearly has some issues.
A second later, I step back inside the elevator and hit the button for my floor.
Moving into the city, into a new building, opening the door to a whole new life, it all comes with an adjustment period. Did you expect to be greeted with open arms by every New Yorker you bump into? A little bit of alienation, of feeling out of step is to be expected at this point.
Give yourself some time to settle in.
The doors slide shut, cutting off the hallway. I ride the rest of the way up staring at my reflection in the brushed metal panel. I don’t entirely recognize the disturbed woman looking back at me.
An hour later, I’m showered and sitting in a coffee shop three blocks from the Overton with my laptop open and a cappuccino beside it. This already feels a lot better. More normal, like the world still has a heartbeat.
The coffee shop is everything Eleanor’s building isn’t.
Warm. Noisy. Crowded. Someone’s playlist competes with the espresso machine.
Two people at the next table argue quietly about work.
A toddler in a stroller makes a long, angry sound that no one else seems to notice.
Bottom line, it feels good to be among people, even strangers.
I have two tabs open on my laptop.
One is a job search site with its kindergarten openings and application forms and lists of required certifications. All the familiar steps that lead back to a life I understand.
The other tab is a news search I ran twenty minutes ago and haven’t been able to close.
Skyline Killer. Rooftop Murder. Death on the Twentieth Floor.
I’ve been reading variations of the same article for ten minutes. The photo shows the rooftop I saw through Eleanor’s binoculars this morning.
My phone buzzes. It’s my best friend Rachel.
I minimize the crime scene photos and answer the call.
“Hey,” I say.
“You alive? I thought the city swallowed you already.”
Behind Rachel’s voice, I hear the familiar chaos of a classroom. The shrieking, rising energy of a horde of five-year-olds trapped in one room. I know that sound all too well.
“Sorry,” I say. “Got a little distracted.”
“Miss Sara! I LOVE YOU!”
The small voice cuts through the noise, and something in my chest loosens.
“Hey, Timmy. I love you guys too. Are you behaving around Rachel?”
Timmy bursts into giggles. Something crashes in the background.
“Hang on,” Rachel says. “Okay, go sit down. I’ll be right there.” Then, lower, “Sorry. Your fan club hasn’t stopped asking about you. Well, in those moments when they aren’t tearing down the place.”
That makes me grin ear to ear.
“I miss them.”
“They miss you too. So, what’s the word? How’s the place?”
I look out the window at the midtown block. Yellow cabs. Foot traffic. A woman selling flowers from a cart on the corner.
“It’s all pretty amazing.”
“Fuck yeah!”
“Rachel! There are kids around!”
“What? You worried these little monsters are going to start dropping F-bombs?”
I shake my head but can’t help grinning.
“I’d like to make it through one day without a parent email.”
We both laugh now. Rachel shifts gears.
“Any luck with the job hunt?”
I glance at the laptop and various job listings.
“I’m easing my way into it.”
Rachel makes a loud buzzer sound.
“Wrong answer! That was a test.”
“A test?”
“You just inherited a million-dollar super-pad in the coolest city on Earth. A job should be the last thing on your mind.”
“Hey, I need to work.”
“You need to live a little. Have some fun. Get into trouble. Date a hot asshole.”
“Is this your elaborate way of saying I’m boring?”
“All I’m saying is that your mom kept you on a pretty short leash.”
A kid screeches on her end.
“Cut it out, Timmy! Sorry, I have to go before someone eats the glue again. Be ready to throw a housewarming party. I need a break from the little monsters.”
“Bye, Rachel.”
“Love you.”
The line goes quiet.
I lower the phone and sit for a moment in the warm noise of the coffee shop.
I think about Timmy’s voice. About the classroom. About twenty kids who need snacks and bathroom breaks and help opening juice boxes. A life I know how to live. A life with rules, where the decisions are small and manageable.
Then I look back at my laptop.
The job search tab is still open.
So is the other one with the various news stories about the rooftop murder. So many questions for which there are no good answers.
How did the victim get up there? Why are the police refusing to release the coroner’s preliminary findings?
My eyes keep turning to the photos of the crime scene, and I keep thinking of the bloody body under the tarp.
What happened on that rooftop? And why can’t I stop thinking about it?