The Shut-In Read online

  I very much need to get out of this apartment with the corpse of the stranger who kind of resembles my almost-boyfriend.

  But clearly, I can’t return to my apartment, either.

  And that’s when the panic attack that I’ve been able to keep at bay these past few minutes comes roaring back. An invisible hand of steel seizes my throat, determined to squeeze the life right out of me. My heart flutters, and it feels like there are bird wings flapping wildly against my rib cage.

  Logically, I know it’s the classic fight or flight response—a physiological response to a grave threat. And I also know that trying to “fight” or even reason with Sears and Yates would be futile.

  Which leaves only one option.

  The unthinkable one.

  Chapter 34

  I’m trembling violently as I peek outside the front hallway windows in the third floor stairwell.

  I’m half-expecting to see an entire SWAT team assembled, along with a battalion of Secret Service guys, each one of them ready to take me down.

  But the corner of 20th and Green is more or less deserted. There are sirens in the distance, most coming from the Parkway. The sun has already slipped behind the buildings of University City, casting the whole block in a sinister shade of darkness.

  Downstairs, Yates calls out, and this time his voice is almost pleading with me. “Come on, Tricia. You don’t want us busting down your door. Your landlord’s gonna make you pay for it.”

  “Enough of this,” Sears says. “Open up this door now!”

  But I’d be okay with them destroying my property. Because if Yates and Sears are busy trying to break down my door, I might be able to sneak down the stairs, through the hallway and out the front door before they realize I’m not home.

  Did you just hear yourself, Tricia? You? Go outside?

  Shut up.

  So you can what—die of sunlight and fear in the fresh air?

  Seriously, I don’t have time for this. My apartment is tiny. Once they’re in, Yates and Sears are going to realize I’m not there in about 2.3 seconds. If I’m going to make a break for it, I need to start running now.

  I steal another glance outside, just to make sure nobody’s watching, and then I—

  Wait.

  Somebody is watching.

  More precisely…a skinny man, leaning against a parked car, eating—with relish—what looks like a candy bar, is staring at my apartment window three floors below. He might as well be seated in a theater, waiting for the main attraction to begin.

  I squint in the near darkness to see if I recognize him. And honestly, I don’t. He’s kind of a plain-looking guy. Middle-aged. Thin, but otherwise perfectly unremarkable.

  But you do recognize him, Tricia. Because you called him just a few minutes ago.

  No I didn’t. I called Jackson!

  The real Jackson is lying dead in the apartment down the hall.

  Then who’s this creepy stranger?

  Come on, Tricia. You’re smarter than this. You’ve got all of the pieces of the puzzle. Now put it together.

  And that’s when I do.

  This is him. No matter what this guy looks like, he’s the one who’s been misdirecting me from the beginning.

  The whole dowdy, middle-aged lady thing? That was a disguise.

  He wasn’t killing out of boredom or because he just stepped off a train from Crazytown. He specifically created the Mrs. Archer persona so that he could blend in with a crowd of political rally-goers and take out the senator with the arrow. Then he must have shed his disguise like a snake, sloughing off a skin to blend right back into the crowd once again.

  And that night, when “Mrs. Archer” was pinging pebbles off your front window? That was just another test, wasn’t it?

  If you remember, I looked out my window and saw Mrs. Archer, giving me the tsk-tsk thing with her finger. Which freaked me out.

  And then a minute later, I heard the front door open. I thought it was Mrs. Archer, that she had come to kill me. Instead, it was the man I thought was my neighbor—a man I thought was Jackson Dolan.

  But that man wasn’t really my neighbor.

  He was the killer, who used some sort of disguise to look like my neighbor—a neighbor whom I’d barely seen, and wouldn’t recognize except by the broadest details.

  Even thinking back on the features of the dead guy in the bathtub, it becomes clear. That wasn’t the same man who helped me build Amelia III in my apartment last night.

  It was someone else.

  It was Mrs. Archer, in yet another disguise.

  So how did this killer know about my crush on my neighbor? Well, if he was smart enough to track me down through my fallen drone, he’s certainly smart enough to check my Facebook page.

  I can’t believe it.

  For the past couple days, I’ve been making goo-goo eyes at a professional assassin.

  Chapter 35

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

  I unwrap the second half of my Snickers bar and finish it while the two police officers force open Miss Patricia Celano’s apartment door.

  I fold up the wrapper neatly and tuck it back in my pocket. That was a very delicious treat. Definitely worth waiting for. I’m eager for my next assignment to get under way so that I’ll have another candy bar to look forward to. Vices, after all, must be kept in check.

  If the cops are any good, they’ll quickly find what they’re looking for: a handmade wrist apparatus, complete with spring-loaded arrow. I quickly slipped through Miss Celano’s window, and then tucked it away in a kitchen cabinet once I watched her work up the courage to enter apartment 3-D.

  They’ll also later realize that Patricia’s browser history is full of links to sites that provide detailed instructions on how to make such an apparatus. As well as the usual political paranoia/conspiracy theory blogs, message boards, and social media networks.

  And the apparatus, of course, will be analyzed in great detail. Eventually, a group of specialists will prove the weapon to be the one that killed the senator. As well as the young man in apartment 3-D.

  But right now, the two cops will call it in, of course, and this block will be swarmed by enough government agents to take down a dictator in a small Latin American country.

  Which means I don’t have much time.

  There are only two ways out of that apartment building. One is through the front door, which I am watching carefully. The other is through a back entrance with an alley that leads out to 20th Street, which I also can see. The rest of the block is dense with brownstones, so there is no way out. Even the cockroaches have to scuttle sideways to make their way from building to building.

  Where will you go scurrying, Patricia?

  Chapter 36

  Normally, I’d be proud of my Sherlock Holmes–like powers of deduction. I mean, gimme some credit here. This is a complicated conspiracy, something that has apparently eluded the US Secret Service, and I’ve solved it. Go, me!

  But there’s no time to celebrate, because Yates and Sears have just kicked in my front door, and I have to make my move. Like, right now.

  Well, you can forget the front entrance and the back door, because either one will put you in plain view of the assassin.

  It’s a good point.

  And that’s assuming you could even make it out either of those doors without losing your mind completely.

  It’s dark out. The sun has set. I’ll be fine. Theoretically…

  Just like you were fine last year when you got all dolled up and tried to join your friends for dinner?

  I can handle it. I just need an escape plan.

  Hmmm. How about you pretend you’re a drone?

  And what—fly away from here? Very funny.

  Do it. You need to survive.

  Chapter 37

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

  Sirens are approaching. The police officers have made their call, and I’m sure the cavalry is on its way.


  So where is Patricia Celano?

  It could be that she’s curled up in the fetal position next to her dead “boyfriend,” just waiting for a lawyer so that she can plead insanity. Or maybe she tucked herself away in a closet, hoping that the bogeymen will somehow leave her alone.

  Poor thing.

  I thought we’d have the opportunity for one last dance.

  The kind of dance where her feet would leave the ground, and the rope would tighten around her neck until the stars come out.

  Well, no use lingering. The authorities will no doubt be combing the entire neighborhood, questioning anyone they encounter. Mind you, I never worry about such encounters. I’ve beaten a dozen lie detectors. But I’d rather not be stopped and questioned directly in front of the main suspect’s apartment. Woe to those who crossed paths with Lee Harvey Oswald on that fateful November day!

  I move east on Green, planning to clear the six blocks until I reach the Broad Street subway, which will take me north to the edge of the city. From there, I will disappear completely, like I always do.

  But a few strides into my escape, a voice echoes off the brownstones.

  “Hey! Jerkface!”

  I’m elated. It’s Patricia, ready to engage.

  But where is she?

  I spin around, trying to locate the sound of her voice. But she’s not behind me on Green, nor is she in the street.

  “Ha! I think I’ve finally figured out your weakness—you never look up!”

  There she is. Up on the rooftops above Green Street. My trembling little shut-in patsy, pretending so hard that she’s brave.

  But she’s failing miserably.

  However, I now find myself at a disadvantage, because not only has she figured out the plot, but she’s also seen my face. My true face.

  And that is a loose end I cannot tolerate.

  “Want to know something?” she continues.

  “What’s that?”

  “You looked better in a dress.”

  My arm twitches instinctively, as if I still have my apparatus attached to my wrist. Wouldn’t she be surprised to hear a whooshing sound and then look down to see the back end of an arrow protruding from her chest?

  But of course the apparatus is now in the hands of the police. I have to rely on other weapons to take her down.

  “What’s the matter, tough guy? All out of arrows?”

  I stare up at Patricia and merely smile, lulling her into a false sense of victory. Her strategy is easy enough to intuit. Just like in all of the bad TV cop shows, she thinks she can “keep me talking.”

  But she has no idea what is about to happen to her.

  Chapter 38

  Here’s the weird thing about…well, me being so weird about venturing outside at night.

  I realize now that all of my anxieties were focused on the front door of my apartment building. Over time, I’d convinced myself that I could never pass through it. Not even when the sun was tucked away on the other side of the planet, making it perfectly safe for me to step outside. The door was my prison warden. There was no way I could slip past.

  But up here on the roof?

  With an aerial view of my beloved Spring Garden?

  Hell, this is the vantage point I’d grown to love over the past few months. The Amelia drones were simply my avatars; I was the one who was flying.

  I climbed out here, once I realized my only choice was to escape via the roof, and suddenly, being out in the world didn’t seem all that crazy.

  As I climbed the stairs that would take me to the top of the building, I came up with a plan that would give me a shot at proving my innocence.

  All I needed was a way to lure the killer to a particular spot.

  So, like I had with everything else in my life, I took the very little resources I had and I improvised. I moved along the tops of the neighboring roofs, mirroring the killer’s progress down Green Street. Finally, I saw what I needed and decided to catch his attention.

  After I called out to him, the killer spun around, like he had no idea where I was. Just like he failed to spot Amelia the first time. I get it now. He’s so focused on things at the street level that he forgets to look up at the world above his head.

  Then he finally spied me. I taunted him a little more, and he moved his arm out, like he wanted to shoot me with an arrow, just like he had shot my drone. Except, he’s probably stashed his fancy little wrist crossbow in my apartment for the cops to find.

  Oh, you should’ve seen the look on his bland little face when I goaded him for not having any arrows. He looked like he wanted to throttle me, stomp on my corpse, and then revive me just to throttle me all over again. But he made a good show of it, smiling like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  And then BOOM—he takes off like an Olympic sprinter at the crack of a pistol, headed straight for the building beneath me.

  That’s right, Archer. Come and get me.

  The killer probably thinks he has me trapped. That we’re about to start this long cat-and-mouse chase across the rooftops of Spring Garden, as if it were something from the movie Vertigo. I’m leaping across chasms and scrambling over gables and I’ll probably end up in some dark alley with my neck snapped.

  Well, guess again, Archer.

  I might be afraid of the world.

  But I’m not afraid of heights.

  Chapter 39

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

  The moment I step onto the roof is the moment I realize she’s gone.

  Vanished completely.

  Did she jump?

  I run to the edge of the building and skid to a halt, checking Green Street below for signs of her twisted, dying body. No such luck. Instead, I spy her using a metal drain pipe to climb down the front of this three-story brownstone. Hand over hand, feet pressed against the wall, guiding her way down.

  This will not do.

  There is no time to come back to the ground the way I came up onto the roof, so I follow her path over to the edge of the building. I use the drainpipe in the same way. The fittings are older than I thought, and they’re caked in rust. This is not a path I’d ordinarily choose, but she’s forced me into this position.

  Patricia reaches the ground safely and sprints across Green. I redouble my efforts to make it down to street level. I cannot allow her to escape.

  There’s one major difference between myself and Patricia, however: body weight.

  And by the time I’m halfway down, the drainage pipe breaks loose from its moorings. I attempt to leap free, but I’m already falling by the time I’m twisting my body around, aiming for a relatively soft place to land.

  My body slams awkwardly onto a small patch of front lawn, missing the spikes of a wrought-iron fence by a matter of inches. Lucky. But upon landing, the air is hammered from my lungs and my vision blurs. The wave of pain washes over me a microsecond later.

  A quick and rudimentary self-exam reveals no broken bones, however. Which is good, because I’m going to need them intact when I choke the life out of this meddling woman.

  I scan the block. My prey is jogging south on 19th Street in the direction of Logan Circle. Presumably toward those approaching sirens so she can give my full description to the police.

  “They won’t believe you!” I yell to her, limping slightly as I move down the street. “All the evidence points to you!”

  Patricia looks back over her shoulder at me, sticks out her tongue, then faces forward and accelerates.

  Did she honestly stick her tongue out?

  I push aside the pain and break out into a full run. The city of Philadelphia fades away like the blurring roadside when you’re moving eighty miles per hour down an interstate highway. Right now there are only two things in my world: predator and prey.

  And the predator is gaining on its prey.

  Without warning, she darts right onto Brandywine, which is a narrow and relatively secluded street, heading back in the direction of 20th St
reet. This is a poor choice on her part. She was doing better before when she was making her way down toward Logan Circle.

  “There is no use running,” I call out. “I run all night long. You wouldn’t believe the stamina I’ve developed.”

  “Yeah, well, good for you,” she says before quickly turning the corner.

  The nerve of her.

  I’m really going to enjoy ending her life.

  Chapter 40

  I’m running so fast it’s barely registered that I’m actually outside, in the fresh air, for the first time in three years.

  So this is what freedom feels like.

  Though I suppose it’s easy to ignore your hypothetical fears when there’s a professional assassin hot and heavy on your trail.

  My heart is pounding and my temples are throbbing as I pump my arms and legs. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. The sound of Archer’s footfalls are like a boxer’s gloves smacking a heavy bag, and I tense up every time I think they’re getting closer. While I’m a fairly slender human being, I’m also woefully out of shape. It’s kind of hard to do laps when your apartment is the size of a hotel room.

  Fortunately, I don’t need much in the way of stamina, because I don’t have to run all that far.

  When I reach the corner of 20th and Hamilton, I come to a full stop. Then I turn around to face my nemesis. Archer is so startled that he comes to an awkward, almost fumbling halt, pinwheeling his arms a bit. I’ll admit it; it’s nice to see this jerk out of control.

  Still, he tries to recover his cool. “I’m surprised you gave up so soon. I thought there would be a little more fight left in you.”

  I shove my hands into my pockets and struggle to regain my breath.

  “I know I can’t beat you in a race.”

  “Very smart of you to realize that.”

  “But before you do whatever it is you’re planning on doing to me,” I tell him, “I just need to know one thing.”