Final Breath

Sydney called 9-1-1 from the phone in her bedroom. She counted four ring tones, and no answer. All the while, Eli stared at her. He still had the umbrella ready.

She had a spectacular view of the lake from here. She could hear people still laughing and screaming on the beach. A few firecrackers went off. It suddenly occurred to Sydney why it was taking so long to get an answer from the police. It was July Fourth, probably one of their busiest nights of the year. She remembered how much Joe hated having to work on the Fourth of July.

'Seattle Police, 9-1-1,' the operator finally answered.

'Yes, hello,' Sydney said to the woman on the phone. 'Um, I think someone tried to break into my house tonight. My son and I came home and found the front door open. A couple of items in the kitchen were disturbed, but nothing else. I don't think anything was stolen.'

'Is the intruder in the house right now?' the 9-1-1 operator asked.

'No. We've checked every room and every closet. I'm fairly certain my son and I are alone.' Sydney glanced at Eli again.

Standing by her bed, he still had that stupid umbrella clutched in his hands as if it were a saber. Sydney covered the phone's mouthpiece for a second. 'Honey, you can put that down now, okay? You don't need it.'

'Are you reporting a robbery?' the operator asked briskly.

'It's more like an attempted break-in,' Sydney said. 'I'm not sure if--'

'Was there any property damage?'

'Um, just a teapot that got broken in the kitchen,' Sydney explained, feeling silly. 'And a box of food was tipped over--'

'Was there any damage to the property?' the woman cut in, sounding impatient.

'You mean like the lock on the front door? No. No, they didn't do any damage to the house, at least nothing we've noticed so far. We've only--'

'Name please?' the operator interrupted.

'Sydney Jordan.' She kept thinking--on this busy 9-1-1 night, she was probably wasting their time with her call about this botched burglary attempt--if that was even what it had been. Despite Eli's insistence that he'd shut and locked the front door earlier, she couldn't totally trust him tonight--not after what he'd pulled at Kyle's place. In all likelihood, he'd accidentally left the door open, and something had gotten in the house.

'Could you verify your address for me?' she heard the operator ask.

'One minute, please,' Sydney said. Then she covered the mouthpiece again. 'Eli, could you switch off the lights in your bedroom and in your closet? Our electric bill's going to be enormous.' She didn't want him hearing what she'd decided to tell the operator. As soon as he left the room, Sydney got back on the phone. 'Sorry. Listen, I--I don't want to report anything. But if you could send a patrol car to check for any suspicious activity around the Tudor Court Apartments on Forty-first Street, I'd appreciate it.'

She figured if someone had actually broken into their house and he was still around, a police presence might discourage him from trying again tonight.

'We'll check it out,' said the woman on the phone.

'Thanks very--' Sydney fell silent at the sound of a click on the other end of the line. She realized she was talking to no one. Sighing, she hung up the phone.

She worked up a smile for Eli, who now stood in her doorway. At least he'd stopped brandishing the umbrella as if it were a weapon. Now he held it as if it were a walking stick. 'They're sending a patrol car to check out the general area,' Sydney said, moving to her dresser. 'If someone did try to break in, I doubt he'll be back. I think we're okay, honey.'

'It's weird nothing got stolen,' Eli said, squinting at her. 'Do you think it was our ghost?'

From the dresser drawer, Sydney pulled out a pair of long pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. She rolled her eyes. 'You blame that ghost for everything.'

'Well, something was screwing around in the kitchen,' Eli said. 'Think we got rats? I mean, after all, we're right on the water. They say rats like the water.'

'I'd rather it be the ghost. Let's go back to that one.' Her nightclothes slung over her shoulder, Sydney paused in front of him. 'Move it, buddy.'

Eli stopped playing with the umbrella and stepped aside. Sydney patted his shoulder as she brushed past him, then she ducked into the bathroom. She heard the floorboards squeak outside the door. He was retreating toward his bedroom. Sydney shed her sleeveless top and started washing her face.

Their ghost. For Eli, she always tried to shrug it off as an amusing little curiosity.

In truth, there was some kind of other presence in this place. It was why she'd been able to get a six-month lease so cheap. Even with her respectable salary from the network, Sydney couldn't have afforded any of the other apartments in Tudor Court. But this unit was different. Under Washington state law, the property management company was required to tell potential renters about the suicide here in Apartment 9. Sydney didn't get any details, just that a woman had killed herself in the unit about thirty years ago. Sydney used to wonder exactly how the woman had ended her life--and in which room.

Kyle had had misgivings about her moving in there. But Sydney had considered this beautiful, charming place--ready for immediate occupancy--a godsend. She and Eli had been living with Kyle for two very rough, emotional weeks after leaving Chicago. Sydney was eager to get on with their lives and settle in somewhere. And as much as her brother had insisted they were no imposition, Sydney knew they were. Kyle was used to living alone. She slept in his guest room, and Eli had the sofa in the TV room. Half their stuff cluttered up Kyle's immaculate apartment, and the other half was in storage. Sydney figured her brother would urge them to take the first place she didn't hate--just to get his life back to normal. Instead, Kyle was cautious.

He used his real estate connections and did a little digging around about Tudor Court's Apartment 9. He didn't uncover anything about the suicide, but he learned that in the last twenty-plus years, that apartment had had the highest turnover rate of all ten units in Tudor Court--and the longest vacancy stretches.

'Some rich doctor from Denver had it as his second home for several years,' Kyle told her while barbecuing on his patio one warm night in mid-May. Eli was in the TV room, out of earshot. Sydney didn't want him to know someone had died in their prospective new home. 'The Denver doctor wasn't actually there much,' Kyle explained, flipping the hamburgers on his gas grill. 'But the place is bad news. The guy I talked to on the QT at Tudor Court's property management company said the last renter endured it for only four months. And--get this--the renters before her, some incense-burning Birkenstock couple, they even hired a certified shaman to do a house blessing and exorcise whatever's in there. But I guess it didn't take, because Mr. and Mrs. Birkenstock got the hell out a few weeks before their six-month lease was up.'

'So you're saying this place is haunted?' Sydney asked, setting place mats, napkins, and utensils around the umbrella-covered glass-top table near the grill.

'I'm just telling you what the property management guy told me, Syd.'

She shrugged. 'Well, maybe we can hire that short, little lady with the funny voice from Poltergeist. We'll have her throw some tennis balls in a closet, or whatever they did to fix their ghost problem. Listen, Kyle, I really like this place. Plus we can move in right away. If the place is truly haunted, I could always--'

'Pack up again and go back to Joe?' he said, finishing for her.

She frowned, and set down the utensils. They clattered against the glass tabletop. 'I wasn't going to say that.'

'Yeah, but you were thinking it,' Kyle replied soberly. 'Let's face it, you're miserable, Syd. All this time, you've been hoping for some excuse to make up with Joe. And hell, maybe you'd have one--if the son of a bitch ever bothered to call you. I really don't think he gives a damn. He probably wouldn't even be talking to his own son if Eli didn't call him every day. That's another thing. I used to think Joe was such a great dad. I can't believe he didn't put up more of a fight to keep Eli with him.'

'You don't know the whole story,' Sydney muttered.

'I know he hit you. That's enough for me. That makes him an asshole in my