girls turned down Central Park West, Amber’s pace began to slow until finally she came to a complete stop at the corner where The Rockwell stood. “What’s wrong?” Laurie asked. “You’re not scared are you?”
Though she shook her head, all the stories she and Laurie and everyone else had heard when they were younger rose up in her mind as she gazed at the building’s darkly looming facade. But they were just stories — just stories they’d made up themselves! Why should she be feeling nervous? Then, from a window on the seventh floor, she saw someone waving. “Who’s that?” she asked.
“Rebecca Mayhew,” Laurie replied. “Want to meet her?”
Amber frowned. “How come she’s already home? Doesn’t she go to school?”
Laurie shook her head. “She’s sick. It’s not catching or anything. I think it’s like anemia, or something like that. She’s really nice. Come on — let’s go up and see her.” She started across the intersection, but then looked back when she realized Amber was no longer beside her. “Are you coming?”
Amber’s eyes were still fixed on the building.
“Amber?” Laurie called out. “What’s wrong?”
Amber glanced back at Laurie but her eyes went involuntarily back to the building that rose behind her friend. Rebecca had vanished, but now there was another face, peering down at her out of another window, this one on the fifth floor.
It was a man, and even though Rebecca could hardly see him, there was something in the way he was looking at her that made the slight chill she’d felt a moment ago turn into a terrible cold dread.
Without speaking another word to Laurie, she turned and fled back up Central Park West.
Detective Frank Oberholzer was leaning on the same buzzer at Andrea Costanza’s building that Nate Rosenberg had rung only a few hours earlier. But when Oberholzer identified himself, the super’s surly tone instantly changed. “Hey, I don’t want no trouble. I take good care of the building, and management’s got no problems with me,” he insisted in a voice that Oberholzer’s years of experience told him was that of someone who would start squealing the instant he was squeezed.
“So you got no problem with me talking to the management about your background check, right?”
The super’s pasty face lost a little of what color it had. “Jeez, what’d I ever do to you?”
“Not a thing,” Oberholzer assured him. “And all I’m asking is one tiny little favor. I just want a quick look inside Andrea Costanza’s apartment. What is it — one bedroom?”
“Studio,” the super said, and just the fact that he answered Oberholzer’s question told the detective he was ready to cave.
“So I can see it all from the door, right?”
“I guess.”
“So you open the door, I take a quick look, we don’t see nothing, you close the door, and that’s that, right?”
“What about the dog?” the super said. “If the dog gets out—”
“The dog won’t get out,” Oberholzer cut in. “So why don’t we get this over with, hunh? Sooner it’s done, sooner you get to forget I was ever here.”
Shrugging, the super led him to the elevator and punched the button for the fifth floor. “You ain’t gonna find nothin’,” he insisted. “I run a quiet building, and we ain’t got no problem. No rapes, no robberies, nothin’. Good people just tryin’ to mind their own business.”
The door slid open at the fifth floor, and the two men got out. A moment later the super was pressing the doorbell next to Andrea Costanza’s door, then knocking loudly. “See? What’d I tell you? Nobody home.”
Oberholzer ignored the super, listening carefully to a faint sound coming from the other side of the door.
A sound like a dog whimpering.
“So how come the dog’s crying instead of barking?”
Sighing heavily, the super put his master key in the lock, twisted it, and pushed open the door. Both men peered into the apartment.
“Oh, Jeez,” the super whispered. “Oh, Holy Jesus.”
CHAPTER 21
Ryan had put off going home as long as he could. He’d stayed around for a while after school, but the guys he’d always hung out with had gone to the park to play soccer. They’d asked him if he wanted to go with them, and even though he really wanted to, he’d remembered his mother’s orders: “I don’t want you going in the park without me. Ever.” He’d almost gone along anyway, but then he’d changed his mind as he remembered how his mother had looked after his father had died. So he’d made up an excuse, and watched them go off without him. Then he hung out in the library for a while, working on his homework, but finally the librarian sent him home. “Time to lock up, and besides, it’s such a beautiful day you should be out in the park with your friends.” So now he was standing across the street from The Rockwell, wishing he weren’t feeling so scared.
Over and over he’d tried to convince himself that none of the scary stories he’d heard about the building were true, but he still couldn’t get them out of his mind. But he wasn’t going to just stand here on the sidewalk all afternoon, either. Besides, Laurie should be home by now, so at least he’d be okay once he got to the apartment. Checking in his pocket to make sure he had his key, he took a deep breath, crossed the street, and pulled open the front door before he lost his nerve.
Through the glass of the inner door he could see that except for Rodney, the lobby was empty. Was that a good thing, or a bad thing? But before he could make up his mind, Rodney had come out from behind his desk and was moving toward the door.
Toward him!
Ryan felt his heart start to race, and was just turning to run back outside when Rodney pulled the inner door open and winked at him. “Late getting home from school aren’t you, young man? Didn’t get in any trouble, I hope.”
Struggling to control his fear, Ryan shook his head, edged around Rodney, and started for the foot of the stairs, resisting the urge to break into a run. But then, just before he got to the stairs, he felt Rodney’s hand close on his shoulder.
He froze.
What did the doorman want? What was going to happen?
Finally, his stomach knotted with fear, he turned around.
Rodney looked down at him, and suddenly Ryan felt as if he were looking right inside of him. “Something wrong?” the doorman asked.
Ryan hesitated, then shook his head.
“You sure?” Rodney pressed. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
Ryan’s eyes widened slightly but again he shook his head.
Rodney leaned down, his fingers tightening on Ryan’s shoulder. His voice dropped to little more than a hissing whisper. “Yes, you are,” he said. “I can smell it.”
Ryan suddenly felt like he was suffocating. What should he do? Should he try to break free of the doorman’s grip? But even if he could, what would he do? Try to run? Where? He’d never make it to the front door, and if he tried to go up the stairs, Rodney would catch him before he made it to the second floor.
Yell! That’s what he should do! But who would help him? Who would even hear him? But he had to do something — he couldn’t just stand here and let—
And then, just as he was about to scream, Rodney’s hand suddenly fell away from his shoulder, and he started laughing. Stunned, Ryan stared up at him.
