Page 2 of The Voicemail

“Still, maybe the police would want the card.”

The police have several cards. They have screenshots. They have a list of dates and times. They have descriptions of a dark car that may or may not be the same car. They have my word, and my word has not been enough once.

“I’ll keep the card,” I say, and put it in the bottom drawer with the others.

I pick up the vase. Water sloshes over my wrist as I carry it down the narrow hall toward the staff kitchen. A server steps out of my way with a tray of empty glasses. He looks at the roses, then at my face, and decides not to ask.

In the kitchen, I dump the flowers into the trash. The vase cracks against the side of the bin. One of the caterers looks over.

“Sorry,” I mutter.

He glances at the broken glass. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

The lie comes out automatically, the way it has for months now. He doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t know me well enough to push. That’s one of the few benefits of being a person people recognize without really seeing. Around here, I’m the woman who handles schedules, shipments, guest lists, and problems. I’m not the woman who shares my troubles with the caterers.

I wash my hands at the sink. The water is too hot, but I don’t turn the cold tap. The heat grounds me.

There’s still work to do. I have to check in with the catering staff, settle the transport schedule, and make sure the private collector from Milan gets the right revised contract. The world doesn’t stop turning just because I’m afraid.

So I go back out and keep working. I find a missing clutch in the coat room. I stop a guest from walking too close to a textile piece with a full glass of red wine. I smile while a trustee’s wife calls me Emily for the third time tonight. I track down Mr. Bellamy for a signature he should have given me two hours ago, and I pretend not to notice his annoyance when I remind him the transport team can’t move the painting without it.

By eleven forty-five, the last guests are gone. By midnight, the caterers are loading out. By twelve-thirty, the cleaners are moving through the main gallery with quiet efficiency, erasing every sign that anyone was here. I should leave with them.

Maya, my best friend in the world, told me not to be the last person out anymore. She’s the only one who’s taken the flower thing seriously. She reminds me constantly that I don’t get extra points for being responsible if responsible gets me followed home. She was trying to be funny when she said it, but I could hear how worried she was under the joke.

I stay anyway. The event binder needs to be updated before morning, and the registrar will want the shipment notes ready by eight. Mr. Bellamy won’t remember telling me he needed them, but he’ll remember to be irritated if they aren’t done.

I sit at my desk and type while the gallery goes quiet around me.

Outside the front windows, headlights smear across the wet street. It’s been raining on and off all day, and the city looks dirty and glossy under the streetlights. Taxis pass. Delivery bikes cut between cars. A man in a long coat stands under the awning across the street long enough for me to notice him, then keeps walking.

My phone buzzes beside my keyboard. It’s an unknown number. I stop typing and watch it until it stops. It buzzes again, and this time I send the call to voicemail. Then a text appears:

Did you like the flowers?

My breath catches. I stare at the message until the screen dims. Then I screenshot it, even though I know it won’t change anything. I have a whole folder on my phone full of pictures the police don’t care about.

Flowers on my doormat. A blurry picture of a dark car across the street. A text that read: I saw you laughing today. A voicemail with nothing but breathing. A photo of the lobby floor after I came home and found a single white rose outside my apartment door.

I open the folder on my phone where I keep everything. There are dates, times, notes, police report numbers, and screenshots stacked together like a case I’m building for a trial no one has agreed to hold.

My phone buzzes again.

Unknown: Are you going home soon? You shouldn’t be out so late.

The gallery shrinks around me. I stand so fast my chair rolls back and hits the wall.

Peter, the night guard, appears in the doorway a few seconds later. He’s in his late sixties and moves slowly because of a bad knee, but he still manages to look like he could pick someone up and throw them if he needed to.

“You all right, Ms. Hart?” he asks.

I turn my phone face-down on the desk. “Yes.”

He looks at me for a long second, like he doesn’t believe me. “You heading out soon?”

“Yes.”