Cross the Line E-BOOK

CHAPTER ONE

     Flush against the wall, I peered around the corner and up the staircase at the hallway. The second floor was quiet except for muffled voices coming from one of the apartments.
     I tugged my fluffy hat further down over my red braids, as if it could do anything to mask my identity if I was spotted, and crept up the steps.
     My black flats were silent as I tiptoed my way to the top, but the leftover change from my hot chocolate at the café jingled like an alarm bell in my knapsack.
     Way to be stealthy, I thought.
     I pulled my lips between my teeth and looked around, paying close attention to the apartment on my right. If anyone was going to catch me . . .
     A man on his phone stepped out of a room at the far end of the hallway. “She said to meet her at the restaurant. I’m on my way now.” He didn’t even glance my way before climbing into the elevator.
     I relaxed, turning to the door on my left. I had a shrinking window of time to carry out my plan, so I had to make this quick.
I grabbed what I needed from the pocket of my bag and went to work on the lock, wincing when the clunk of the releasing dead bolt resounded in the silence.
     Someone would’ve heard that.
     Heartbeat quickening, I turned the knob and squeezed through the gap into the unlit apartment, barely managing to re-latch the door before the one across the hall groaned inward. The strap of my camera bag slipped down my shoulder, and I snagged it before it could knock into the table against the wall next to me. I hiked it back up, grimacing at the weight.
     Floorboards creaked beneath shifting feet, and a crackling female voice let out a suspicious “hmm.”
     Did she see me? Was she going to call the police?
     I stretched onto my toes to see through the door’s peephole and caught a flicker of pink before the door across the hall clicked shut. Releasing a breath, I lowered my bag to the floor and rubbed at my tense shoulder muscles.
     I’d made it undetected.
     A quick check of the alarm panel revealed that it wasn’t armed. Someone needed a lecture about the purpose of home security systems. If he didn’t arm it, anyone could sneak in.
     Navigating around the bulky silhouettes in the living room, I fumbled with the lamp on a side table. A warm glow lit the room, and I found myself surrounded by enough open cardboard boxes to make a litter of cats giddy.
     I turned up a cardboard flap and smiled at the label scrawled across it in barely legible handwriting. Contents and room destination. Not the least bit surprising.
     Most of the boxes were partially filled, and I picked up one of the movies from the media stack. WALL-E. Marx told me once that the little robot reminded him of me—lovable, socially awkward, fiercely loyal, and prone to eating junk.
     I definitely enjoyed my junk food.
     I returned the movie to the box and padded into the tidy kitchen. A fancy coffeemaker with individual pods sat on the countertop. Everything about it declared, “I entrust my coffee to no one but myself.”
     I grinned. “Such trust issues.”
     Mounting my hands on my hips, I turned in a slow circle, considering the possibilities. There was no clutter in the apartment, which limited my options. My gaze landed on the cupboard above the stove.
     Mischievous plans are best carried out with snacks, I silently reasoned.
     “Now all I need is . . .”
     Aha. The step stool was tucked beneath the peninsula. I placed it in front of the stove and climbed up, grateful for the extra eight inches of height.
     I opened the cupboard doors and perused the snackables that lined the shelves. Granola bars, vegetable chips, beef jerky. I shuffled things around until a package of cherry licorice appeared.
“Hello, tasty.” I snatched the package and hopped down.
     Tearing open the plastic, I fished out one of the sweets and popped it in my mouth as I wandered down the hall to the spare bedroom.
     This had been my room before I moved out three weeks ago, and memories, some beautiful and some painful, gathered around me as I stood in the doorway.
     I had shed a lot of tears into the purple pillows on this bed, but the beautiful lining to that dismal cloud was that I felt safe enough to let down my guard and release them. I sobbed, I prayed, and I fought to pull the fractured pieces of myself back together in this very room.
     Home, my heart whispered.
     In a few weeks, I would lose this place completely, but I took comfort in the fact that I wouldn’t lose the man who made it safe and comfortable. At least I hoped I wouldn’t.
     Marx had become the father I craved since I lost my family at the age of nine, and seeing him twice a week since moving back into my apartment didn’t feel like enough.
     I suspected I would see him even less once he remarried his ex-wife and moved back into the house they used to share. Shannon and I were on good terms—I was even going to be her maid of honor in the upcoming wedding—but I didn’t imagine she would appreciate me spending the night or keeping her husband up until dawn with goofy movie marathons. And she certainly wouldn’t let me come over and bake in her magazine-cover kitchen.
     I caught sight of the perpetually crooked picture frame hanging on the wall to my right, my gift to Marx last Christmas. It needled his desire to have everything in perfect order.
     Perfect order went out the window when he let me into his life, but rather than getting upset about it, he embraced it. I smiled and tipped the frame a bit more.
     Would Shannon let him hang it up at their house, or would she stuff it in the attic because it didn’t fit her style?
     A tendril of worry and sadness curled around my heart. Mending his relationship with Shannon was a good thing for Marx, but I wasn’t sure where a not-quite daughter would fit into his reclaimed life.
     I pushed away the insecurities that had been growing in the back of my mind with the wedding approaching, and tugged off a bite of licorice. I had two and a half weeks before those changes swept through all our lives, and I wasn’t going to waste them worrying.
     I returned to the kitchen to work a little mischief and then made my way into the bathroom. When I was finished, I left my calling card on Marx’s nightstand.
     Considering he was a hyper vigilant police detective with an addiction to order, he would notice the changes two seconds after walking through the door. I expected a visit first thing in the morning.
     I turned off all the lights, leaving the place mostly the way I’d found it, and slung the strap of my bag over my head.
     I reached for the knob on the front door, but paused at the sound of voices. The peephole revealed the self-appointed hall monitor in a pink flower-patterned housecoat and slippers.
     Mrs. Neberkins.
     She was a strange old woman, and she was always popping out of her apartment like those creatures in that whack-a-mole game.
     Pop: “Quit making so much noise.”
     Pop: “Pull your pants up.”
     Pop: “Quit being such a mary-jew-anna-selling hooligan.”
     I smiled as I reflected on all my awkward and unexpected interactions with the woman. She liked me well enough, but she was convinced Marx was evil incarnate. No evidence to the contrary could change her mind.
     She wasn’t wagging a disapproving finger or flinging insults at anyone tonight, though. She was smoothing the top buttons of her housecoat and . . . smiling. I never realized her facial muscles could do that.
     “Good afternoon, Henry,” she said, in a tone I had never heard her use before. “Are those new slippers?”
     The old man, whose back was to me, pushed a foot forward to model his blue slippers. “You betcha. Memory foam and all. It’s like walking on clouds.”
     “They make you even more handsome.”
     The edges of his ears turned pink, and he ducked his head. “You’re beautiful as always, Margie. Like a glass of ice water on a hot day.”
     I tucked my lips between my teeth, smiling at this unexpected yet adorable exchange. Mrs. Neberkins was flirting.
     She smoothed her housecoat. “Henry, are you making eyes at me?”
     “I might be.” His ears turned even pinker, and my heart melted at his bashfulness. Could he be any cuter? “I was hoping you might wanna have a date with me. Maybe a movie and . . . well, I can’t have popcorn anymore because of my dentures, but I have Jell-O.”
     Mrs. Neberkins leaned forward and whispered, “I have chocolate pudding.”
     “Even better.”
     “How does a Western sound?”
     Henry fidgeted with a hearing aid. “We’ll have to turn it up pretty loud so I can hear the talking bits between the showdowns. That won’t bother your neighbors?”
     Mrs. Neberkins waved an age-spotted hand. “The Zimmermans are on vacation till Sunday. I overheard them talking about it. And that one’s off selling drugs to school kids out of his car.”
     Henry turned and looked directly into the peephole, and I resisted the urge to drop my head against the door. There was the Mrs. Neberkins I knew, always equipped with an outlandish accusation. But selling drugs to school children? Really, what would she dream up next?
     “Isn’t he an officer?” Henry asked.
     “He’s the worst sort. A closet criminal. You remember that girl he was forcing to stay with him like some slave. I confronted him, and then she disappeared in the night.”
     Or during the day with a packed bag.
     “Probably dead,” she added, and I almost choked at the offhand way she threw that possibility out there.
     Now might be a bad time to pop out and say hello. Poor Henry’s heart might give out from shock.
     Mrs. Neberkins invited the old man inside, and as she closed the door, I heard her ask, “Did you know that drug-dealing scoundrel stole my dog?”
     I waited for the snap of her dead bolt and then released a breath. Time to go.
     Marx would be home from work soon, and I couldn’t be late for my weekly therapy appointment. I snuck out of the apartment and relocked the door, tiptoeing down the steps to catch the bus.