10. Nathan Sr #2
I step back from the table. “Thank you,” I say, and my voice sounds like something I don’t recognize.
I walk out of HR without looking at the receptionist, then move fast down the corridor, badge bouncing lightly against my chest. My phone is in my hand before I reach the elevator. All I can do is repeat everything I’ve already done—call her, call her again, then text her.
Talk to me. I’m coming to you.
No response.
I take the elevator to the trauma floor and walk into my office, shutting the door. My hands move to the drawer where I keep personal paperwork and I pull out the contact list I’ve built over years. Security. Admin. A friend in IT. A nurse manager who knows everything.
I stop myself before I start making calls. If Athena resigned under safety policy, she may have told them not to share information. I try her number again, but this time, it doesn’t even ring. Fuck. She’s blocked me. My hand tightens around the phone.
Standing abruptly, I grab my coat. It’s my lunch anyway, and I don’t care about food as much as I care about answers. The drive to her apartment takes twelve minutes.
I park too fast then get out and cross the sidewalk toward the building. The front door is locked. I buzz her unit. No response.
I check the directory and press the button a third time. Silence. I move to the side of the building where the mailboxes are visible through the lobby window. Her name still sits on the slot. That makes my skin crawl.
All attempts on the door are futile, so I step back and look up at the second-floor windows. The curtains are drawn. No movement. No light.
A door opens behind me. I turn.
An older woman stands in the lobby doorway holding a set of keys and a folded stack of mail. She looks at me with suspicion first then recognition second. “Are you looking for Athena?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’m Dr. Clarke.”
She steps out onto the sidewalk and shuts the door behind her, shifting the mail to one arm. Her mouth tightens like she’s deciding whether to speak. “She left.”
“When?”
“Early,” she replies, giving me a beady once-over from the rim of her glasses. “Before lunch. Maybe late morning. She was moving like someone had a clock on her.”
I take a moment. “Where did she go?”
The woman shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she says. “She didn’t say. She didn’t even look at me properly, and that girl always looks people in the eye.”
I glance toward Athena’s unit door down the corridor, visible through the lobby glass. “Can I see the apartment?” I ask.
Maybe I’ll find something that’ll lead me to her and then I can explain. Surely I didn’t say anything bad enough to have caused an event of this magnitude?
The woman hesitates. “She’s not here,” she says. “And there’s a new lock.”
My eyes snap back to hers. “A new lock?”
She nods. “I had my handyman install it,” she says, watching my face carefully. “She asked this morning. She said she didn’t want anyone coming in behind her.”
The woman purses her lips and frowns at me. “It was all so rushed. She looked like she was escaping something, especially since she packed very light. I could tell since she had only one suitcase.”
I stare at her. “That’s not normal.”
The woman lifts a shoulder. “It was strange,” she admits. “She looked pale. Not sick, just…tight. Like she was holding herself together.”
I force myself to speak slowly. “Did anyone come here for her?”
The woman’s eyes narrow. “No.”
“Did she mention an ex?”
The woman snorts. “Not to me. But I’ve heard her on the phone sometimes, and I always thought whoever that man was sounded like trouble.”
Trouble.
I step closer to the lobby window and look up the stairwell again. “Athena,” I say, like she might hear me through the walls.
The woman shifts. “Sir,” she says, and her tone softens slightly. “If you’re here to bother her, you’re hours late.”
I turn back to her and my voice comes out low. “I’m here to help her.”
The woman studies me. “You look like you mean that,” she says finally. “But I honestly don’t know anything more than what I told you.”
I pull my phone out again and scroll through the last messages between Athena and me then stop at the last thing she said the night before.
Long day. I thought she was tired.
I should’ve listened.
I should’ve stayed.
I should’ve told her if she needed something from me, she could’ve named it and I would’ve done it. Instead I sat across from her and told her things that cut her to her core.
I look up at her window again. Nothing in the building shifts to suggest she’s hiding inside.
She’s gone.
My chest tightens in a way I don’t enjoy naming. This is the sudden understanding that I’ve been walking around my entire life pretending I’m immune to loss, and now I’ve lost her in one day.
I turn back toward the landlady. “Did she leave a forwarding address?”
She shakes her head sadly, perhaps sensing the plea in my question. “No,” she says. “I’m really sorry.”
I nod once then step back from the building. My hands feel empty without purpose.
My mind runs through options fast. Security. Police. HR. Every tool I’ve ever used to solve a problem. Every way to track a person down.
Then I recall three important things. Athena blocked me, resigned, and paid for a new lock and left the rest of her life behind.
She doesn’t want to be found. I stand on the sidewalk and stare at the building like it’s going to open its mouth and tell me where she went.
The landlady shifts again, watching me with open sympathy now. “Sir,” she says quietly. “If she ran, she had a reason.”
I nod without looking at her. “I know.”
I know, and I should’ve been the reason she stayed.