The Shut-In Read online

  “The kind of friend who wants to help you create an alibi,” Sears says.

  There’s a truly awful moment where I think the handcuffs are going to come out. I’ll be read my Miranda rights, but it won’t matter, because the moment they drag me outside this building will be the moment my heart explodes, and my skin disintegrates to nothing.

  Chapter 28

  Help me, Amelia III, you’re my only hope.

  Up she goes, clearing my rooftop and gliding over Spring Garden, making a beeline for the Parkway. Even though my girl has enough battery power to last for a long and leisurely flight, my own clock is ticking. I need proof of Mrs. Archer’s existence, and I need it now.

  Otherwise, I might be facing a long stretch of time in an even smaller room.

  The image on my cell phone—beamed straight from Amelia III’s camera—reveals a strangely busy Parkway. There are throngs of people lining the sidewalks, with police vehicles and ambulances and concessions and oh crap…that’s when I remember. The political rally!

  Being the completely self-absorbed millennial I am, I don’t follow politics like I should. But after that weird e-mail from Mr. Burke (blessings, indeed) I looked up an article about this senator and his visit to Philadelphia.

  Turns out he’s not just a senator from Utah—he’s the vice-presidential nominee after the guy they had announced over the summer suffered from a complete meltdown and had an embarrassing flame-out (as they sometimes do).

  So now Senator Dude from Utah is making the lightning rounds around the country, trying to introduce himself to everyone in enough time for the November election. This afternoon, he’s making a stop in the City of Brotherly Love.

  And Amelia III has the perfect point of view to watch the main event.

  There’s no hiding from me, Mrs. Archer.

  That is, until Amelia III reaches the fringes of the Parkway. The view on my phone goes all jittery, as if she’s had a pre-flight shot of vodka.

  “What are you doing?” I mutter.

  The controls under my thumbs are suddenly useless. I can’t adjust the pitch or altitude or anything. This doesn’t make any sense! Come on, girl—what are you doing up there?

  Suddenly Amelia III turns to show me the crowd below, and then we’re rushing toward it. Like, at supersonic speed. No, no, no—not toward the people! My thumbs pound on my cell phone so hard I’m shocked the screen doesn’t shatter.

  Thankfully, Amelia III rights herself at the last minute and swoops right over the rally-goers, heading for an expanse of green. And then, rather unceremoniously, she crashes into a line of trees near the Barnes Foundation.

  My screen is full of swirling leaves and branches as she tumbles down through the thick trees. I have no idea what the heck just happened. Did Mrs. Archer spot my girl before I spotted her, felling my poor drone with another arrow? But that would be crazy, right?

  Finally, the leaves clear a bit as Amelia III comes to a halt. Her camera is pointed down at the sidewalk, where a group of rally-goers are gawking up at us.

  Hi, hello, nothing to see here, folks.

  But then the crowd parts and men in dark suits with plastic earpieces come running up. One of them is holding a device that looks like one of those radar guns the police use to catch speeders on the highway. Another one is pointing up at us—that is to say, at my poor Amelia III.

  The radar gun looks familiar, but where have I seen it before?

  I scramble to my coffee table where there’s a messy pile of magazines (don’t judge—even a housebound, sun-allergic girl needs her hits of high fashion). Under a stack of Vogues, I find it—a UK magazine called Drone Life. That could actually be the title of my autobiography. But I digress…

  Flipping through the pages like a maniac, I finally find it. That wasn’t a radar gun, and it wasn’t meant to track speed. The thing is an anti-drone gun, designed to disable an aircraft like Amelia III.

  Holy cats—Amelia III must have been taken down by the US Secret Service!

  I guess they have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to visiting senators and private flying aircrafts.

  Meanwhile, onscreen, I’m treated to the sight of a G-man climbing the tree toward Amelia III, as if she’s a frightened kitten in need of rescue. This would ordinarily amuse me, except for a few sad truths:

  I’m no closer to finding Mrs. Archer or proving she exists.

  That was just $1,500—i.e., more than a rent payment—down the drain.

  Soon Amelia III will be in the possession of the Secret Service, and soon they’ll know my name, and soon I should expect the attention (and comic stylings) of Officers Yates and Sears—or worse, the FBI or CIA.

  I am so screwed.

  Chapter 29

  Locate your chill.

  That’s what my online friends tell me when I freak out about something they feel is trivial. (Like, say, never being able to feel the warm sun on your skin.) It’s going to be okay, Tricia, they say. Locate your chill.

  Most of the time, I absolutely hate it when my friends tell me to locate my chill.

  It kind of makes me want to locate my inner rage and drop it on them like a nuclear bomb.

  Nonetheless, I try to follow that advice now and locate my chill. And I do that by trying once again to locate my nemesis—Mrs. Archer.

  I hit the homeless advocacy boards on Facebook, seeing if anyone has a fresh lead on my murder victim. (Well, not my victim…ah, you know what I mean.) I repost my original description, hoping to catch different pairs of eyes this time. I add a bit more pathos, telling everyone how worried I am about this guy, especially with all of the crowds down by the Parkway.

  About a microsecond after I hit the Post button, one of the homeless advocates sends me an instant message:

  Why are you asking about this NOW? Haven’t you heard what happened?

  I blink. What is that supposed to mean? Then, a second later:

  It’s all over the news!!!

  I open a new browser tab and check my favorite local news site (The Philly Post) and holy crackers and cheese—I can’t believe what I’m reading.

  That visiting senator from Utah? That guy who is trying to become our nation’s vice-president?

  He was just assassinated.

  Chapter 30

  I read the breaking news article in a kind of stunned haze, feeling like I was just involved in a car accident. Nonetheless, certain words jump out at me.

  woman in crowd.

  vanished without a trace.

  killed with what appears to be an arrow…

  No.

  No no no no…

  But that’s what’s being reported. In the middle of cheers and handshakes and a marching band performance of a Sousa march, a middle-aged woman fired an arrow straight into the heart of the good senator from Utah, killing him almost instantly.

  Eyewitnesses differ on the description of the assassin, who is said to have disappeared into the throngs gathered on the Parkway…

  It all makes sense.

  Perfectly horrible sense.

  Only now do I realize what Mrs. Archer has been up to this whole time. She’s not a serial killer hunting homeless people. They were just practice for her main goal. She’s been gearing up for something far, far worse…

  And I could have stopped her days ago.

  I pick up my cell and dial Jackson. All of those rules about waiting a certain number of days before calling a guy have gone right out the window. I’m pretty sure there’s a clause about being involved in a political assassination, right?

  “Hey! Tricia! How are you?”

  He’s huffing and puffing, as if he’s out of breath.

  “Not good, to be perfectly honest, but…I’m sorry, is this a bad time?”

  “No, it’s fine. Why?”

  “You sound like you’re climbing the Rocky steps at the Art Museum.”

  Jackson laughs. “Ah, you caught me. I was just squeezing in a little exercise, and I guess I got winded faster
than I thought. Kind of embarrassing. But what’s up?”

  “You haven’t heard the news?” I ask, but then realize that I was very recently accused of not watching the news, either. “Never mind. Mrs. Archer has done something really, seriously horrible, and I think she’s trying to pin it on me!”

  “Whoa, take it easy.”

  Girl, if he tells you to locate your chill, you hang up on him.

  I choke back my frustration and try to remain calm. “If you saw the news, you’d know that pretty much the last thing on my to-do list right now would be to take it easy.”

  “Then come on upstairs.”

  The suggestion, simple as it is, stuns me.

  “To…your apartment?”

  “Yes,” Jackson says with a chuckle. “You know the one, right? 3-D. Like the movies.”

  “I thought you were exercising.”

  “Yeah, in my apartment. But I just stopped. Look, I’m still panting because I’m not exactly in optimal shape. There, are you happy?”

  “I didn’t mean to…look, I’m sorry. I should probably go.”

  “Come on, don’t be silly, and just come upstairs. We’ll figure this out together.”

  Together. He says it so casually it makes me fall for him all over again. And before I can protest any further, he hangs up.

  But upstairs?

  Me?

  He’s got to be kidding. I haven’t even been all the way down my hallway in a couple of years.

  Then I remember my predicament. The last place I want to be is in my own apartment, alone, with the Philadelphia Police Department already suspicious of me. Plus the Secret Service about one internet search away from discovering Patricia Celano, the woman behind the drone they’ve shot down.

  I’ve toughed it out alone all of these years.

  Maybe it’s time I actually ask for a little help.

  Chapter 31

  I slip on a light jacket and pull the hood up over my head. My hand grabs the knob and turns it. The door creaks open. The hallway looks about a thousand feet long. And beyond them, the ornate wooden staircase looks so foreign to me that it might as well be a detail in an alien spaceship in a sci-fi movie.

  Years ago, this was one big brownstone mansion before they divided it up into a bunch of apartments. My prison cell of an apartment was probably only a study or something. I live in a big house and have never seen 95 percent of it.

  “Come on Tricia,” I say aloud, trying to psych myself up. “There’s no reason you can’t do this.”

  Oh yeah? How about the crippling panic attack that will shut down your heart in about ten seconds?

  “That’s not real. The only thing preventing you from walking upstairs is a delusion.”

  I’ll be sure to mention that to the coroner when he shows up.

  This is the debate I have with myself—half out loud, half in my head. At this point, I’m freaking out so much that I’m not even sure which parts are which.

  But it’s good, because the banter distracts me while my body steps out into the hallway and moves slowly toward the staircase. My feet follow a perfect line, as if someone had laid a tightrope across the floor.

  The whole experience—moving down the hallway and ascending the two flights of stairs—is sort of dreamlike. I keep my head down, with my hands in my pockets, my right hand clutching my cell phone like it’s something that can protect me during this dangerous journey.

  I hear the stairs creak beneath my feet and avoid the rays of sunlight that blast in through side windows. It’s a good thing that I’m wearing the hoodie.

  The feeling is so bizarre that I wonder if I am dreaming all of this, the whole thing. Maybe I’ll wake up any minute now in my sad little apartment with my toy drones and realize I’ve been so starved for human contact that I conjured it all up. Mrs. Archer. The dead homeless guy. The cops. The senator.

  Even cute Jackson Dolan. Because in real life, why would a guy like him even bother with a freak like me?

  I snap out of my reverie when I reach his door—3-D. The fact I’m actually standing here is unreal.

  “Jackson?”

  I knock timidly at first, then a little harder. The door opens—just a crack—with the same creaking noise as mine. He left it open for me.

  “It’s me…Tricia.”

  I push open the door a little farther and a strange odor fills my nostrils. Ugh. What is that? Post-workout sweat gone horribly wrong? And to think, I was self-conscious about the eau de rotten meat in my own apartment.

  “Jackson, um, are you still here?”

  Brazenly, I push open the door a bit more so I can see the layout of his apartment.

  It’s just as small and dark as mine, but laid out in a different way. The shades are drawn, so it’s hard to make out much detail.

  From my vantage point in the hallway, however, I can see all the way through his living room and into his shadowy bathroom, where there is an arm dangling over the edge of a bathtub.

  The arm is not moving, and it doesn’t appear to be alive.

  Chapter 32

  Target Diary—Day 13 (The Big Day, continued)

  The hard part is over. I lean back against a parked car, pull a candy bar from my jacket pocket, carefully rip open one end of its wrapper. Then I peel the plastic back halfway down the bar like it’s a banana skin.

  The candy bar is a Snickers. I love the combination of nougat and caramel and peanuts, enrobed in a thin shell of chocolate. I take a long leisurely bite, chewing slowly, savoring the sugar rush and marveling at how something that looks so unappetizing on the outside can pack so much delicious flavor inside.

  There’s only one thing that gives me more pleasure than this Snickers bar. And that’s the fact that right about now, Miss Tricia Celano will most likely be doing one of two things.

  The first option is that she’s cowering in her apartment, waiting for law enforcement to arrive. This would, of course, be a satisfactory way to bring my mission to a successful—albeit humdrum—conclusion. My expectation is that the government investigators haven’t considered Miss Celano seriously as a suspect. But her strange condition will inject plenty of doubt into the case, completely obfuscating my involvement in the matter of the slaughtered senator. Even if the government were to believe her story, they’d be scouring the country for a middle-aged woman. Which I, certainly, am not.

  On the other hand, Miss Tricia Celano could be making her way up to apartment 3-D, where I left the door unlocked. Will she be bold enough to venture inside?

  And if so, will she find the present I left her in the bathroom?

  Will it make her scream?

  Especially when she sees the arrow in the eye, which killed the poor fellow almost instantly?

  There’s a good chance she’ll scream.

  But there is a small chance she’ll summon some inner strength previously unknown to her and take a good look at the face of the corpse in said bathroom.

  And oh, I very much hope she will.

  Because upon closer inspection, she may notice that while the details of his face generally resemble the man she’s come to know as “Jackson Dolan,” they won’t exactly match his. I was working off hastily made reconnaissance photographs, and even though I am quite skilled at the art of impersonation, there are some limits to my abilities.

  And Miss Celano, if you do notice the small discrepancies, what will you do then?

  Will you run to the police with your discovery?

  Perhaps.

  But I’m hoping not.

  Because you’re special. Because you amuse me.

  I realized that the moment you stepped into my life and I learned everything I could about you. Your skin allergy. Your habits. Even your girlish crushes. You really shouldn’t openly fawn over the “handsome guy from 3-D” if you don’t want someone like me taking advantage of that particular emotion.

  So no, I do not believe you will run to law enforcement.

  And besides, I’ve already called th
em.

  You’ll soon realize how inescapable the trap is that I’ve assembled around you. That you’re much like a lab rat who realizes that—if it is to survive—it must abandon the one habitat it has known all of its short, miserable life.

  You’re a rat, Miss Celano. And you’re about to gnaw your way out of your own cage. Which is a good thing.

  Because I’ll be outside waiting for you.

  Chapter 33

  There is an arrow sticking out of my dead boyfriend’s eye socket.

  Yes, I know he’s not technically my boyfriend, but he’s not exactly alive, either. Right now, I just need a minute to come to my senses.

  I’m still in shock.

  Somehow I find the strength to touch his neck, just to make sure, but his flesh is cold. Very horribly cold. He’s been dead a long time. I look at his skin and at the congealed, partially dried blood at the bottom of the tub.

  That’s when I realize I can’t look at him anymore. I take a deep breath and it’s a huge mistake. The stench is horrible. Clearly, this happened more than a few hours ago. Most likely, it’s been days.

  So how did he answer his cell phone just five minutes ago?

  Duh, Tricia—this is not the man who talked to you five minutes ago.

  So then who the hell is he?

  Downstairs, on the first floor, there’s a loud banging sound that reverberates like gunfire up the stairwell. It startles the hell out of me. This is followed by the baritone voice of Officer Sears, which startles me even more.

  “Ms. Celano! Open up. It’s Officer Sears. We need to talk to you.”

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

  The pounding sounds again.

  “We have a warrant, Tricia.” This is Yates now. “You don’t open up, we’re going to come in anyway.”

  “Come on,” Sears bellows. “We know you’re in there. Where else could you be—right?”

  Ha-ha, the joke’s on you, Sears! I’m not in my apartment. I’m crouching down next to a corpse and feeling the peculiar sensation of my entire world caving in on me.