Page 69 of 56 Days
Ciara pushes past him and hurries into the living room. The touch of her body against his wakes him from his stupor, switching him into action mode, and he follows her. She seems frantic,wild-eyed, searching—
For her phone, it turns out, which is sitting on the coffee table not far from his.
Just as she bends to pick it up, the unthinkable happens:hisphone lights up with Rich’s text message. He never actually opened it, so his phone is alerting him to it for a second time.
Oliver thinks his heart actually skips a beat.
But Ciara just picks up her phone and starts back toward him, toward the door. It seems like she didn’t even see it.
“Where are you going?” he shouts over the din of the alarm.
She points behind him. “Out!”
And then she pushes past him for a second time, out into the hallway.
This is his third fire alarm since he moved in, and his secondmiddle-of-the-night one. The first time he did what he was supposed to do: he went outside. So did everyone else; the courtyard was soon filled with residents. He’d hung back in the shadows, head down, pretending to be enthralled by his phone. He’d avoided invitations to politely chitchat and ignored the opportunity to engage with any of his neighbors. He didn’t want to get to know any of them and he certainly didn’t want any of them to get to knowhim.
Forty-fiveminutes passed. It turned out to be a false alarm.
The second time it had gone off during the day, so he’d hesitated to leave. The door next to his own was a fire exit that opened onto the street; unless the fire was in his own apartment, he wasn’t in any danger. He figured the chances were there wasn’t one, and he was right. Another false alarm. He’d watched the courtyard through the curtains until the residents who could stand the noise started drifting back inside and the others rolled their eyes and folded their arms and put their phones to their ears, presumably ringing the absentee management company. Then he’d gone into the bathroom, where the siren wasn’t as loud, put on his headphones, and waited it out.
There’d been no need to take another chance.
But Ciara doesn’t have the same motivation to protect her privacy, to hide her face. If they go out there now, together, she could end up chatting to anybody. Toeverybody. Saying something careless. Pointing at him, calling him over, introducing him.
He can’t let that happen.
After Ciara leaves, Oliver waits four minutes. Five. Six.
The siren continues to wail.
He pulls back the curtains in the living room but can’t see anything in the courtyard except the other residents gathered there. He slides open the door and ducks his head out, but there’s no smell of smoke and no sign of fire. He studies the faces close enough for him to see but detects nothing on them except annoyance.
Another false alarm, then. Just like he thought.
He goes back inside.
His phone is still lying on the table. He deletes the message from Rich,double-checkingthat he’s not only gotten rid of the message itself but the entire thread of their recent exchanges. He’d thought he was safe at this hour of the night, but he didn’t count on the fire alarm.
He doesn’t think she saw the message, but he can’t be sure. What if she comes back in and asks him about it?
Don’t see another way for now. Too dangerous. Get out ofthere.
How can he possibly explain awaythat?
That’s when he realizes that he didn’t see Ciara outside, in the courtyard. He goes back out onto the terrace, this time going as far as the railing, to scan for her, but there’s no sign.
Where is she?
He ducks back inside. The alarm continues to wail. He knows it’s purely psychological, but it does sound even louder now than it did when it first went off.
Where did she go, if not out there?
Maybe she’s just being careful and standing away from everyone else, in a corner somewhere.
Or maybe she’s struck up a conversation and is telling one of the neighbors all about him.
He paces in the hallway, willing the bloody alarm to go off. If it just went off now, she’d come back inside and he could set about repairing this absolute shitshow of a night...
