She walked past them quickly, into her building. She started up in the freight elevator, smelling the grease and paint and solvents. She was already sick--from exhaustion and fear--and the scents turned her stomach even more.
The elevator clanked to a stop at the top floor. She unhooked the chain guard and stepped out. No sounds from the loft upstairs. But there was a chance somebody was there. She called, "Rune? It's me. Are you home?" No response. "It's your friend Jennifer. Rune!"
Nothing.
Then up the stairs, slowly, peering out of the opening in the floor. The empty loft stretched out around her. She raced to her side of the loft, grabbed one of the old suitcases she used for a dresser, opened it. She walked around the room, trying to decide what to take.
No clothes. No jewelry--she didn't own much other than her bracelets. She picked some pictures of her family and the friends she'd met in New York. And her books--twenty or so of them, the ones she'd never be able to replace. She considered the videos--Disney, mostly. But she could get new copies of those.
Rune noticed the tape of Manhattan Is My Beat. She picked it up and flung it angrily across the room. It crashed into a table, shattering several glasses. The cassette itself broke apart too.
She found a pen and paper. She wrote:
Sandra, it's been radical rooming with you. I've got the chance to go to England for a couple years. So if anyone comes looking for me, you can tell them that's were I am. I'm not sure where but I think I'll be somewhere near London or Edinborow. Hope your jewelry makes it big, your designs are really super and if you ever sell it in London I'll buy some. Good lox, Rune.
She folded the paper, left it on Sandra's pillow, and picked up the heavy suitcase.
Which is when she heard the footsteps.
They were on the floor below.
Whoever it was hadn't come up via the elevator. They'd snuck up the stairs. So they wouldn't be heard.
The only exit was the stairway--the one the intruder was now coming up. She heard cautious feet, gritty.
She looked across the loft to her side of the room--at her suitcase and leopard-skin bag.
No time to get a weapon. No time for anything.
Nowhere to run.
She looked around her glass house.
Nowhere to hide.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
He took the stairs one at a time, slowly, slowly.
Pausing, listening.
And struggling to control his anger. Which throbbed like the pain in his face--from when that fucking redhead had nailed him in the subway. Listening above him and listening below. He was out of his uniform now-- he'd ditched the meter reader's jacket a while ago, before he trailed the little short-haired bitch to Brooklyn--and downstairs some of the construction guys had given him some shit about just walking into the building. He'd just kept walking, giving them a fuck-you look and not even bothering to make up a cover story.
So, listening for somebody laying in wait for him upstairs, listening for somebody following.
But he heard no footsteps, no breathing, no guns being racked.
Pausing at the top of the stairs, head down.
Okay ... go!
Walking fast into the loft, eyes taking in places he could go for cover.
Only he didn't have to worry. She wasn't there.
Shit. He'd been sure she'd come back. If only to get her stuff before she took off. Pointing the gun in front of him, he made a circuit of the loft. She'd been there-- there was a suitcase half filled. There was that God-ugly purse of hers. But no sign of the bitch.
Maybe--