Chapter 12 #3
She knew she was grasping at straws. In fact, it felt like she was grasping at those paper straws that get soggy and lose their structure the longer they’re left in liquid. Before the straws could completely dissolve, Amie typed:
I’d like to ask you some questions about Savannah Harlow.
Resisting the urge to add “whenever you get the chance,” she typed out “Amie T.” in the name spot. She added her old email address from high school that didn’t include her full first and last name, and sent off the message just as David clapped his hands together.
“All right, that’s it,” he declared. “Want to do the honors?”
“Yes!” Ziya squealed.
Amie closed the laptop, putting it down next to her as she twisted around to watch David toss Ziya a Ping-Pong ball and point her toward the start of the machine.
“Should I do a countdown?” Ziya asked.
“I don’t usually—”
“Three … two … one!”
The moment Ziya dropped the ball down the first ramp, Amie felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She pulled it out to see a new email notification on the screen.
At first glance, it looked like spam. The sender’s address was a string of numbers and letters, and the subject line read: be aware
Swiping the notification, she opened the email. There was no text, only two photos. Amie tapped on the first one to enlarge the image.
It was a hallway in their building. There was an odd texture to the photo that Amie realized was a reflection on glass. Whoever took the photo had shot it through the little window in the door to the main stairwell at the end of the hall.
The image showed Benny standing at a door. His hands were on the knob, as if unlocking it. She opened the second photo, which was shot from the same location. The door to the apartment was open, and Benny was halfway inside.
Amie checked the subject line again, then the email address, trying to find a clue as to why someone had sent this to her. She looked at the photos once more and finally saw it.
Two apartments down from the one Benny was entering, a dark-green welcome mat sat in front of the door. The person who lived two doors down from Amie had that same welcome mat in front of their door.
Benny was entering Amie’s apartment.
She sprung up off the couch, vaguely acknowledging a clattering sound from behind her.
“Amieee!”
“Huh?” Amie turned to see that she’d knocked over the wooden track on the back of the couch just as the Ping-Pong ball was rolling past.
“Easily fixable,” David said, patting the shoulder of a pouting Ziya as he headed for the wreckage. “I’ve done worse. One time I knocked into a table and sent five hours of work crashing to the ground.”
He paused, raising his eyebrows at Amie before kneeling behind the couch. “Everything okay?”
“Look.” She climbed onto the couch and leaned over the back to show David the photos on her phone. Ziya hurried over to look as well.
“It’s my apartment,” she said. “Some anonymous email just sent me these photos of Benny going into my apartment.”
“Is he still there?” Ziya asked.
The room fell silent as they all looked at each other for an answer.
Ziya moved first, scrambling around the couch and bolting for the door. Amie launched off the couch and followed, hearing David’s footsteps close behind her. They all came to a stop outside of the closed door to Amie’s apartment. Ziya tried the knob.
“Locked,” she announced. Then, after a beat: “Open it!”
“Oh!” Amie patted herself down, searching for her keys.
“Purse,” Ziya said.
“Ahhh.” Bolting back to David’s apartment, Amie grabbed her keys from her purse and ran back, unlocking the door. She grabbed Ziya’s arm before the other woman could go charging in. “Hang on, Z.”
“Let me go first,” David said, his voice low as he pushed open the door and stepped through. “Hello?”
No response. Aside from a car alarm blaring in the distance, the apartment was silent.
Amie released Ziya’s arm as they followed David inside.
Ziya immediately split from the group, peering behind Amie’s couch as David went to check the kitchen. Amie lingered in the front hallway, looking around for any sign that Benny had been there (or still was).
Her left foot slipped a little, and she looked down to see a folded piece of paper under her shoe. Crouching down to pick it up, she unfolded the paper. Scribbled messily in black ink were six words:
Stop now before it’s too late
“I don’t think he’s here, guys,” Amie called, her heart rate increasing as she read the message again. “He left a note.”
She handed the paper to David as he and Ziya hurried back over to her.
“This is getting dangerous,” David said grimly, passing the note to Ziya.
“I think it was already dangerous when a woman got murdered,” Amie said.
“I meant dangerous for you.”
“I think we should confront the motherfucker,” Ziya said. Her eyes were bright with fury. “He wants to break into your home and threaten you? I can do that too. But I’ll threaten him to his face, fucking coward.”
“In fairness, I already broke into his home,” Amie pointed out, gently removing the paper from Ziya’s grip before she could tear it in half.
“Why are you so calm right now?” Ziya demanded.
Amie frowned. She didn’t feel calm. Her heart was still racing. The piece of paper in her hand could have been a bloody knife for how anxious it made Amie just from looking at it.
But if Benny was telling her to stop looking into Savannah’s death, that meant he was genuinely concerned that Amie was capable of doing that. It was almost as if the note said, “Keep going, you’re on the right track.” And Amie loved being told that she was on the right track.
“There’s nothing we can do tonight,” she said. “He left a warning, which probably means he’s going to wait and see if I keep looking into Savannah’s murder. As long as I stay under the radar, everything will be fine.”
“You’re not seriously going to continue?” David looked appalled. “This has gone far enough. It’s gone farther than it ever should have gone. The police haven’t contacted me since Tuesday. We’ve seen no indication that they’re still considering me as a suspect. Kid, this needs to end.”
Amie was confused for a split second, having nearly forgotten that David still believed she was trying to clear his name.
After her conversation with Winston at the grocery store, she’d been almost completely assured that David was no longer under serious investigation.
No, now she was running solely on guilt. Guilt and pizza.
“I’ll sleep on it,” she said. “I’ll think it over. I promise.”
She would think it over. She just already knew the conclusion she would come to.
Ziya insisted on staying the night.
Despite Amie’s repeated assurances, neither Ziya nor David could be convinced that Benny wouldn’t return and make clear to Amie when “too late” would be.
She finally agreed to let Ziya stay over, promising David they’d set up a makeshift alarm system using materials he brought over from his apartment.
“He really does have everything, doesn’t he?” Ziya commented. The wrist bells in her hand jingled cheerfully in response as she waited for Amie to lock and chain the door behind David.
“Yup. You can just hang those on the doorknob. I don’t think we need to set up the whole pulley system.”
Ziya ripped the Velcro of the wristband open, wrapping it around the doorknob and securing the ends back together.
“Voilà.” Ziya stepped back, examining her work. “Now we just need to heat up the doorknob and set up a paint can to swing down if it opens, and we can sleep safely tonight.”
Amie snorted. “I think the chain lock and bells will do, but thanks, Kevin McCallister.”
She suddenly felt shy as they walked into the living room. “Um, you can take the bed again, if you want.”
Ziya waved a hand. “No, no. I’m here to protect you; I’ll take the couch.”
Amie was quietly relieved. As difficult as falling asleep in her bed had been the night prior, the experience was much more comfortable than when she’d slept on the couch the night before that.
“Feel free to grab whatever you want to sleep in from my dresser,” she said, going into her bedroom to get sheets for the couch. “And I still have the toothbrush you used the other night.”
“Knew I’d be coming back, huh?”
Amie felt her face flush with embarrassment. She’d tried to throw the toothbrush away, but in the end she’d just left it in the cup by the sink. It wasn’t that she thought Ziya would be back. She just couldn’t stand to throw out another one of her toothbrushes, even one that had barely been used.
“I’m teasing,” Ziya called from the other room. “That was a joke.”
“Ha, yeah. I know.” Hoping her cheeks weren’t as pink as they felt, Amie returned to the living room to make up the couch.
Half an hour later, she was lying in bed, imagining that she could hear Ziya’s slow, measured breaths as she slept in the other room.
“Amie?”
Or, as she also lay awake in the other room.
“Yeah?”
“Who do you think sent the photos?”
“I don’t know.” Amie sat up in bed, grabbing her phone and pulling up the email. “I got so caught up in the Benny thing, I didn’t even think about who sent them. Maybe I can check the metadata … that would at least tell us what kind of phone it was taken on …”
She saved the first photo to her camera roll, then opened her photos app and swiped up on the image.
“Did you find anything?”
Amie jumped. Ziya was standing in the doorway, one shoulder hidden by the door frame as if she wasn’t fully committing to entering yet.
“No.” Amie referenced her phone again. “I think any data about the photo got wiped when it was emailed. Either that, or the sender really knows how to cover their tracks.”
“Can I see?”
Amie held out her phone as an invitation. Padding across the room, Ziya took the phone from her, sitting on the end of the bed. Amie pulled her knees to her chest, watching Ziya analyze the photo.
“Hm. Yeah. Nothing there,” Ziya confirmed, handing the phone back to Amie. She folded her hands in her lap, looking around the darkened room.
Amie locked her phone and returned it to her bedside table, looking at Ziya with amusement. “So … what’s up?”
Ziya looked at her. For a moment it seemed like she debated feigning ignorance. Then her expression shifted into a grimace. “Your couch is incredibly uncomfortable.”
Amie laughed. “I know.”
“I don’t remember it being so uncomfortable. Was it always that bad?”
“I think it turns evil at night. I really do.” Amie scooched over, silently patting the other side of the bed.
“Thank you,” Ziya said, sounding relieved. As she returned to the living room to retrieve her pillow, Amie grabbed one of her pillows and stuffed it under the sheet in the middle of the bed.
Ziya reentered, clutching the pillow to her chest. “Actually, I need that side.”
“Why?”
She huffed. “I’m supposed to be protecting you. It’s gonna be harder to stand between you and a murderous landlord if I’m the furthest from the door.”
“Fine,” Amie grumbled, relocating.
“What’s this?” Ziya patted the extra pillow as she climbed into bed.
“You know what that is.”
“I mean, a pillow, duh. But what’s it doing here?”
“It’s a … y’know. A boundary.”
“A boundary.”
“Yes.” Amie moved her arm to indicate the tall, invisible wall signified by the existence of the pillow. “Boundary wall. You stay on your side, I’ll stay on mine.”
Ziya snorted. “Did you think I was gonna jump your bones unless you put a single pillow between us?”
“I didn’t say it was for you.”
The weighted silence that followed made Amie rush to stammer out, “I-I mean, it’s a mutual boundary. For all parties. It’s for the best.”
“For the best,” Ziya echoed, lying on her back. Amie did the same, even though she could never fall asleep in that position. She didn’t want to turn her back to Ziya, but she also couldn’t face her.
She was trying to determine whether it was too late to say goodnight when Ziya spoke again.
“Do you think it was for the best?”
“Hm?”
“Do you think it was for the best?” Ziya repeated. She clearly didn’t think Amie needed more context, and she was right.
“That we broke up?” Amie asked.
“Yeah. Now that some time has passed. Do you think it was the right move?”
Amie folded her hands on her stomach, twisting her fingers anxiously.
“I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “You can’t …
really know, right? We don’t know how things would have continued if we’d stayed together.
We can judge how things are now, but if this is the best result? ” She shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t know.”
“Hm.”
“Do you think it was for the best?”
“Um. Well … no.”
Amie sat up, her pulse quickening as she looked down at her. “No?”
Ziya continued staring at the ceiling. Her brows were drawn together, her mouth twisted into a frown.
“No,” she repeated. “I mean, you’re right, we don’t know.
And up until a few days ago I was able to convince myself that I was living my best life, even though I knew deep down that I was exhausted and lonely and miserable.
I thought it was just one of those ‘time heals all wounds’ kind of situations. ”
She finally met Amie’s eyes. “And time probably would’ve healed my wounds, eventually. I mean, it was only three months.” A small laugh. “But I’ve gotta admit, being with you has felt a lot better than sitting around waiting for time to start doing its fucking job on these wounds.”
Amie felt like she was teetering on the edge of a ravine, one that she so badly wanted to fall into.
“So what are you saying?” she asked quietly.
“I’m answering your question. I don’t think it was for the best. Maybe it was good at the time, because we learned from it, I don’t know. But I can barely remember why it happened in the first place. It doesn’t feel … important anymore.”
Ziya sat up as she began to speak faster.
“But those three months were hell for me and I don’t …
I can’t go back to that. I want you in my life, in whatever way I can have you.
If this is just how things are now, I’ll take it.
If we need to have a pillow between us at all times, that’s fine with me.
Two pillows, three pillows, I’ll even go back and sleep on your evil couch if it means that we can still—”
Amie leaned over the pillow and kissed her.