Murderous Obsession

The building seemed to have narrowed while she was inside the elevator. Its faded green walls leaned close, carrying the stale warmth of radiator pipes and old cooking oil. A strip of sunlight cut through the grimy window at the far end, illuminating dust that drifted like ash.

Apartment 4B stood twenty feet away.

Jonah’s door was closed.

Maren listened.

Nothing.

She moved toward it, keeping her phone in her hand. The carpet softened her steps, but not enough. Somewhere behind 4A, a television laughed. Water rushed through a pipe overhead.

She stopped outside Jonah’s apartment and knocked once.

“Jonah?”

No answer.

She knocked again, louder. “It’s Maren.”

The lock clicked.

Maren froze.

The door opened inward by an inch.

For a moment, she saw only darkness and the brass chain stretched taut across the gap.

“Jonah?” she whispered.

The chain slid free.

The door opened another inch, then stopped.

Maren looked over her shoulder. The hallway was empty. At the far end, the elevator doors closed with a soft sigh.

She should have gone downstairs. She should have called the police from her own apartment, where she could lock the door and wait for someone else to enter this place.

Instead, she pushed the door open.

The apartment was cold.

Not winter-cold. Abandoned-cold, the kind that lived in rooms after the heat had been shut off and no one had opened a curtain. Jonah’s living room sat exactly as she had glimpsed it through his doorway on other mornings: gray sofa, narrow bookcase, a lamp with a crooked shade.

His travel mug rested on the coffee table.

Maren stared at it.

The lid was cracked along the side. A dark crescent of coffee had dried beneath it.

“Jonah?”

Her voice sounded wrong in the stillness.

She stepped inside. The door swung behind her and clicked shut.

A faint line of dirt marked the floor near the entrance. Not dirt, she realized. Wet grit. Tiny stones and black mud pressed into the boards in a trail that led toward the kitchen.

Maren followed it.

The kitchen window was open three inches. Cold air slipped through the gap and touched her wrist. On the counter, Jonah’s keys lay beside an overturned glass. One key was missing from the ring.

His phone was not there.

She checked the small hallway leading to the bedroom. The door stood open. The bed was made. A blue shirt hung over the back of a chair, one sleeve turned inside out.

No Jonah.

She returned to the living room and called him again.

The sound came from somewhere behind the sofa.

Maren spun around.

A phone vibrated beneath the cushions, buzzing against the wooden frame. She crouched and reached into the narrow gap. Her fingers closed around a black case.

The screen lit up.

Three missed calls.

Her number appeared at the top.

Under it, a message notification waited.

Maren touched the screen.

The message was from an unknown number.

YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE HOME.

The vibration stopped.

She read it again, then backed away from the sofa.

A floorboard creaked in the hallway.

Maren’s breath caught.

“Jonah?”

No answer.

Another creak, closer this time.

She grabbed the nearest object, a glass paperweight from the coffee table, and held it in both hands. The hallway remained empty. A draft moved the bedroom door, opening it another inch.

Her phone chimed.

This time the sound came from her own apartment.

Maren lowered the paperweight.

She had left her door locked.

She was certain of it.

The message on Jonah’s phone remained on the screen as she hurried into the hallway. She pulled his door shut behind her and crossed to 4C, her key already in her hand.

Her apartment door stood open.

Only a few inches, but enough to show a dark slice of the entryway.

Maren stopped with her key between her fingers.

The hallway light buzzed overhead. Somewhere downstairs, a man coughed. The ordinary sounds made the open door worse. They placed her inside the building, inside the reach of whoever had touched the lock.

She looked back at Jonah’s door.

Then at her own.

The phone in her hand vibrated again.

Not Jonah’s phone. Hers.

The caller ID showed no number.

She answered without speaking.

For a second, there was only static.

Then a man breathed into the line.

Maren ended the call.

She unlocked her door and entered.

Nothing appeared disturbed at first. The narrow entryway held her shoes, her canvas coat, the chipped ceramic bowl where she dropped her keys. A grocery bag sat by the kitchen counter exactly where she had left it.

The apartment smelled of dust and the lavender detergent she used on her sheets.

She shut the door and locked it. Then she threw the deadbolt.

Her hands were shaking. She set Jonah’s phone on the counter and stared at it as if it might accuse her.

The message remained.

YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE HOME.

A sharp knock struck her door.

Maren flinched so hard her shoulder hit the wall.

“Ms. Caldwell?” called a woman from the hallway. “It’s Mrs. Alvarez from 4A. Are you all right?”

Maren forced herself toward the door but stopped before looking through the peephole.

“I’m fine.”

“You left your door open.”

“I know.”

“Did you see Jonah today?”

Maren glanced at the phone.

“No.”

The silence outside stretched.

Mrs. Alvarez lowered her voice. “His door was open earlier.”

“I know.”

“You went inside?”

Maren’s fingers tightened around the edge of the counter. “I heard something. I thought he might be hurt.”

“And was he?”

“I don’t know.”

A floorboard complained outside.

Mrs. Alvarez said, “You should call someone.”

“I will.”

“Police?”

Maren looked at Jonah’s phone. The unknown message. The missing key. The muddy trail.

“Yes,” she said. “Police.”

Mrs. Alvarez did not move away immediately. Maren could feel her standing there, listening through the door.

Finally, the older woman’s slippers scuffed across the carpet.

Maren waited until the sound faded. Then she carried Jonah’s phone to the kitchen table.

She needed to call.

Before she did, she needed to know what she was holding.

The phone was locked, but the message notification showed the sender’s number. Maren copied it into her notes. Her thumb hovered over the screen.

A small smear darkened the case near the bottom edge.

She rubbed it with her sleeve.

The mark came away gray-brown.

Mud.

Her attention shifted to the floor.

Near the baseboard beside the kitchen table, a narrow streak of the same grit ran beneath the radiator. She crouched and touched it. The particles were cold and damp.

The trail did not begin at the door.

It began beneath the window.

Maren rose slowly.

The window was locked. The curtains were drawn. She pulled them aside and found a small rectangle of paper caught between the glass and the frame.

Her name was written on it.

MAREN CALDWELL 4C

The handwriting was narrow and deliberate. She knew it immediately.

Jonah’s.

She unfolded the paper.

Inside was a brass key taped to a torn piece of cardboard. Beneath it, Jonah had written four words.

ASK RYLAN ABOUT THE DOOR.

Maren stared until the letters blurred.

Rylan.

She had not spoken to him in months. Not since he had stood in her kitchen, angry and pale, asking why she kept watching Jonah from her window. She had denied it then. Denied the photographs on her desk. Denied knowing Jonah’s schedule by heart.

The key pressed into her palm.

A soft knock sounded again.

This one came from inside the apartment.

Maren turned.

The sound had come from the bedroom.

She moved without thinking, slipping the key into her pocket and taking Jonah’s phone with her. The apartment seemed to rearrange itself around every step. The refrigerator hummed. Pipes ticked inside the wall. Her bedroom door was half-open.

She pushed it wider.

The room was empty.

Her curtains stirred, though the window was shut.

On the floor beneath the bed, something glinted.

Maren knelt and reached underneath. Her fingers found a small plastic evidence bag, folded flat and shoved against the wall.

Inside lay a photograph.

She pulled it free.

The picture showed Jonah standing outside the building, his face turned toward the camera. He wore the black coat he had worn yesterday. Behind him, reflected in the glass entrance, stood Maren.

She was watching him.

The photograph had been taken from inside the lobby.

On the back, someone had written a date.

Tomorrow’s date.

Maren dropped it.

For one stunned second, she could not move. Then she snatched up her phone and dialed emergency services.

The operator answered on the second ring.

“Emergency services. What is your location?”

Maren gave the address. Her voice came out thin but steady.

“My neighbor is missing. I found his phone in his apartment. There’s a message threatening - ” She looked at the photograph on the floor. “And I found something in my apartment. A note and a key.”

“Is anyone with you?”

“No.”

“Are you in immediate danger?”

Maren looked at the locked door.

“I don’t know.”

The operator asked her to stay on the line. Maren heard typing, then a faint crackle.

“Officers are being dispatched. Do not touch anything else.”

Maren almost laughed.

The evidence bag lay open beside her knee. Jonah’s phone was in her hand. The key rested against her thigh through the fabric of her pocket.

“I already touched it,” she said.

“Step outside if you can do so safely.”

Maren moved toward the door.

A siren began somewhere beyond the building, rising through the streets. She reached for the deadbolt, then stopped.

A dark line had appeared beneath the door.

Mud.

It seeped slowly across the threshold from the hallway, gathering in a thin crescent against the wood.

Maren backed away.

The operator’s voice sharpened through the phone. “Ms. Caldwell, what is happening?”

Maren could not answer.

The mud continued to spread.

Then something slid beneath the door and came to rest against her bare foot.

A brass key.

Her key.

The one she had left in the lock that morning.

On the phone, the operator kept saying her name.

Maren stared at the key on the floor while the sirens climbed closer, and understood that when the police entered her apartment, the first trail they would see would lead straight to her door.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters in the full book.