The plane lands and my stomach dips. Coming back here feels like I’ve just walked along the street on a sunny day and it’s all of a sudden started to rain—an impending storm brewing.
I follow the flow of people as they walk off the plane and through the tunnel, toward the main part of the bustling airport. Keeping my head down, I pull my carry-on bag along with me and take a cab back to my apartment.
The whole drive there I feel like I’m being watched, a feeling I haven’t missed in the slightest since I’ve been away at my parents’. I don’t bother to look around when I get out of the cab as it pulls up to my apartment block because I know she’s there.
I can feel her eyes trailing over me, the little hairs on the back of my neck standing on end as I head inside the building. Wrinkling my nose up at the smell of urine and dirt that hits me in the face like a three-hundred-pound gorilla as I open the main door, I try to walk as fast as I can up to my apartment, my eyes burning from the stench.
Pushing inside, I slam the door behind me before I close my eyes and take a breath of clean air. But when I open them and look around, I know instinctively that someone has been here.
To any normal person they wouldn’t notice it, but I see how a few of my vinyl records aren’t in the right place or in the right order. I see th
e bedroom door that’s open a crack when I made sure to close it. But the biggest tell of all is the large window that isn’t fully closed.
Someone broke in.
It has to be her because no one else would have come in here and not taken anything. What is it she’s searching for? I don’t have anything that she could want.
Pushing off the door, I walk farther inside, leaving my bag and searching the whole place. I know she’s not in here now, but what if she’s planted something? What if this is the end of her grand scheme that she’s been toying with for these last few months?
My cell pings, and when I pull it out, I read the text from my mom.
Mom: Did you get back okay?
Amelia: Yeah. I’ve just come home but… she’s been here, Mom.
Mom: Call Dad and let him know right now.
I swallow, my trembling fingers swiping on the screen as I bring up my dad’s cell number.
My feet work on automatic, and I’m pulling the window up and stepping out onto the makeshift balcony before I know what I’m doing. My gaze wanders over to the parking lot and as soon as my gaze meet hers, she drives away.
Each and every time I’ve seen her she’s been driving a different car—this one a small black SUV.
I watch as she turns the corner and then click the green call button, listening to the ringing tone as I sit down on one of the metal steps.
“Sheriff—”
“Dad,” I breathe out.
“Sweetheart.” There’s a beat of silence. “Everything okay?”
“Mom told me to call you; she’s been here.”
“Fuck,” he murmurs. “I’ve put the feelers out and a couple of detectives are gonna meet us at your apartment tonight.”
“Okay,” I whisper, feeling like the child I was a decade ago.
“I land at seven thirty so I should be at your apartment by eight.”
Nodding, I clear my throat. “I’ll see you then.”
I’m about to disconnect the call when he says, “You need to tell Tristan. Go to his house earlier, you’re safer there than in your apartment.”
“I will,” I tell him, looking down at the watch on my wrist and seeing it’s only ten in the morning. “I’m going to wash up and get changed and then I’ll head over there.”
“I’ll see you tonight, sweetheart.”
“See you tonight.”