Chapter 8 #3
“Gotta go piss. It’s fine, I can pause it.”
The apartment was plunged into an ominous silence as Benny paused the television.
Amie quickly gathered up the pieces of paper and her phone. She held her breath, watching the door to the bedroom slide open as Benny’s socked feet entered the room. He closed the door behind him, then crossed the room into the adjoining bathroom.
As light from the bathroom flooded into the bedroom, Amie became aware of a detrimental flaw in her plan: Benny wasn’t closing the door. Unless he had an extremely convenient habit of closing his eyes while urinating, he’d definitely see her if she tried to make an exit.
Heart sinking, she put down the papers and unlocked her phone. Underscored by the sound of Benny heeding nature’s call, she texted David: Not gonna work. He left the door open. He’d see me leave.
“Goddammit,” came David’s voice from the other room.
“What’d you say?” Benny called from the bathroom.
“Nothing!”
Amie swiped on her phone, opening her messages with Ziya.
Amie: What are you doing here??
Ziya: You weren’t answering your doorbell, so I tried David. He buzzed me up
Amie: My original question still stands
Ziya: I told you not to solve any murders without me!!
Amie looked up as the toilet flushed. She shot off a response before locking her phone again:
Amie: Hiding under Benny’s bed. David’s trying to distract him, but I have no way of leaving
The bathroom light switched off. Amie held her breath again as Benny emerged.
Her whole body tensed as his feet stopped right in front of where she was hiding. She had a grim, scientifically supported feeling that the rest of him had stopped as well.
“Where did …?” Benny mumbled.
A hand came into view, and Amie squeezed her eyes shut, as if the man wouldn’t be able to see her if she couldn’t see him. After several painfully long seconds, she chanced a peek through her eyelashes.
The hand had disappeared, as did the sock Amie had flung out from beneath the bed in disgust. She silently cursed herself for being so careless, then applauded herself for her seemingly successful “if I can’t see him, he can’t see me” strategy.
“Hey, Hallie.” Amie tensed again as Benny spoke in a low voice.
“Um, just wanted to see if we can talk? Feel like things happened really fast, and I think … I dunno, I think we can fix this. You left your socks here, so if you want them … let me know. This is Benny, by the way. Um, you probably knew that. Okay. Cool. Bye.”
Benny’s feet slowly pivoted, and there was a rustle in the direction of the wastebasket. He walked out.
Amie let out a slow breath. Her mind, in contrast, was racing.
Hallie? Like “Hallie From The Park” Hallie? That Hallie?
What were the odds? How many people were named Hallie? And if it was Hallie From The Park, who was the woman in the photo?
Moving to inspect the papers again, a new message on her phone caught her attention.
You’re not gonna like this, Ziya said, but I think you have to climb the balconies.
Amie gave a start as the television blared again. She pinched the bridge of her nose as she considered this new plan. Ziya was right; she didn’t like it.
Every apartment had a small … honestly, the word “balcony” was generous.
Every apartment had a small ledge surrounded by a railing accessed by a sliding door in the bedroom.
Each ledge was several feet wide and only about a foot deep.
It was an architectural anomaly, mainly used by the occupants of the building for hanging wet clothes, storing dirty shoes, and not much else.
Amie winced at the thought of climbing from balcony to balcony.
She didn’t exactly have a fear of heights.
A more accurate diagnosis would be that she had a fear of falling from a great height, even in situations where people assured her that it was very unlikely she would fall.
Not to mention situations where she was very likely to fall, like climbing across the balconies of the third floor of her apartment building.
And where would she even go? Both she and David lived on the floor below. Did she have to climb down too?
As the minutes ticked by, Amie became more and more resigned. Her phone remained dark. Ziya was waiting for an update, and David had either become incredibly engrossed in whatever Benny had on the TV, or he was also lacking ideas.
What’s happening? Ziya finally asked. Did he catch you?
No, Amie replied. She sighed, resigned. I’m going to climb the balconies.
She sent a similar text to David, then rolled out from under the bed. Climbing to her feet, she securely stuffed the papers and her phone into her pockets.
The television continued to blare in the other room as she picked her way across the bedroom to the sliding door. Amie touched the handle, pausing. The lock was already unlatched, but she knew these doors had a tendency for squeaking. She waited, listening for a swell in volume from the TV.
With extraordinary good timing, David’s voice rang out from the other room.
“Well, I’d better head back to my place to check the traps,” he said. “Thank you for the beer.”
Amie eased the door open as Benny responded, wincing at the squeaking of rubber on plastic.
She paused, listening, hoping that Benny’s own voice in his ears would help to muffle the squeaks.
After a few seconds of no one angrily storming into the bedroom, she slipped outside.
There was a loud applause break from the television, and with that cue, Amie pulled the door shut behind her.
It was a muggy evening. The sky was full of pink clouds with dark-purple shadows, the glow of the setting sun illuminating the way as Amie sidled along the width of the balcony.
Amie never before had an issue being out on her own balcony (so long as she had a firm grip on the doorway), but the knowledge of what was to come made every moment she was out there feel ten times more perilous.
Stopping at the railing, Amie assessed her next obstacle.
There was a gap about a foot and a half wide between Benny’s balcony and the next.
Against her better judgment, she looked down into the gap, her breath temporarily stalling as she saw the distance to the ground.
Her vision swam as she took a hurried step back.
She had to focus on her breathing for a full minute before she felt assured that her heart wasn’t going to pound its way out of her chest, grow little legs, and go running back into Benny’s apartment.
This was impossible. Who thought this was a good idea?
“Amie?” The hissed whisper cut through the ambient noise of distant traffic. “Amie!”
The whisperer’s target audience looked out toward the source of the noise. From a balcony two doors down and one floor below, a hand shot out to wave at her.
“Ziya?” Amie whispered, squinting through the long shadows cast by the surrounding buildings. Her ex-girlfriend was standing on David’s balcony, pulling up her dark red crop top as she leaned dangerously far over the railing to see Amie.
“It’s okay, don’t talk,” Ziya replied, gold hoops swinging from her ears as she waved her hands. “Don’t want him to hear you!”
“He has the TV on at max volume,” came David’s voice from out of Amie’s line of sight. “So at the very least, he won’t hear anything when Amie falls to her death.”
“Unhelpful,” Ziya said as Amie’s stomach did a flip. “Hey. Don’t listen to him. You just need to go two balconies over and climb down.”
“Oh, just that?” Amie said, her voice jumping half an octave.
An even higher noise flew out of her mouth as Ziya threw a leg over the railing, straddling it so she could get a better view of Amie.
“Ziya!” Amie said as loud as she dared. “Get back on the balcony!”
“It’s fine! This is a skort.”
“That’s not what I was concerned about.”
“I’m gonna stay here until you make it down.”
“David!” Amie said pleadingly.
“What am I supposed to do?” came David’s frustrated reply.
“Hold her arm or something, at least!”
Amie watched Ziya extend an arm to the out-of-view David.
“There,” Ziya said. “He’s got me.” To Amie’s horror, she released the railing with her other hand and leaned out even further, waving Amie over. “Now come on!”
“Okay, okay!” Bolstered by her fear of Ziya taking a dive over the railing, Amie turned back to the balcony next door. Holding on tight to the railing, she lifted one leg and stepped over it, mirroring Ziya’s straddle. Her second leg followed, and she found herself on the outside of the railing.
“How’s it going?” Ziya called.
“Haven’t heard any sickening thumps yet, so that’s promising,” David said.
“I’m revoking your speaking privileges.”
Worried that replying might break her concentration, Amie squeezed her lips shut and focused on not falling.
She transferred her right hand to the next balcony’s railing, gripping it so tight her knuckles hurt.
As she looked over to make sure she had a clear spot to relocate her right foot, she caught another glimpse of the ground below.
Amie’s stomach once again did a flip. At this rate, she was considering entering it in the next Olympic gymnastics qualifiers.
Carefully, she took one step over to the next balcony. Without giving herself time to overthink, she unlatched her left hand, grabbed the other railing, and pulled the rest of her body over the gap. She clambered over the rail to the safety of the balcony.
Sucking in a deep breath, she sagged against the perpendicular railing.
“I see her!” Ziya was waving from below, as if Amie might have forgotten where she was since they last spoke a minute before.
“Can you get down from there?” Amie begged.
“I’ll get down when you get down.”
Amie groaned, stepping over a pair of mud-caked boots as she moved across the balcony. “What are you even doing here?”
“I told you!”