Follow Me(55)

I opened the front door and gate as quietly as I could, but nearly blew my cover when I tripped over a random cardboard box in my walkway. I covered my mouth to mask my surprised inhalation, shoved the empty box out of the way with my foot, and began creeping along the building to the alley. Once I’d reached the alley gate, I took a deep breath and readied the camera on my phone. With my heart in my throat, I peered through the gap between the gate and the building.

There was no one there.

Confused, I threw open the gate and stepped into the alley, turning around to see every corner of it.

It was only when I pivoted back around that I realized the gate at the other end of the alley was ajar, swinging slightly on its hinges as though someone had just gone through it.





CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN





AUDREY


I woke groggily, consciousness sticky with the remnants of a sleeping pill. Unnerved by the incident with the near miss with someone in the alley, I’d been unable to sleep. At two in the morning, desperate for sleep but still wired, I swallowed an Ambien and fell into a dark, dreamless slumber.

I reached for my alarm-bleating phone and found that it wasn’t charging in its usual spot on my cardboard box–slash–nightstand. Only after rifling through my tangled sheets did I find it in bed beside me, along with my laptop. Rubbing my eyes, I plugged in my phone and set about my first task of the day: checking the Hirshhorn social media accounts. I gave a cursory glance to the hundreds of comments that had appeared on the posts about the Rosalind opening, promising myself I would read them more fully once I was at the office and had consumed some caffeine—preferably enough caffeine to give half the city the jitters.

Next, I checked my personal account and found a bunch of messages about Gossip Girl (Chair 4ever!, You’re prettier than Serena!, I <3 GG!), including one from Nick: That’s what you’re doing instead of me? Lame, Aud. Lame.

I lay back on my pillow and turned the camera on myself, fanning my hair out around my head like the rays of the sun. I experimented with a few different angles before taking a selfie using a filter that gave me puppy ears. I uploaded it to my Story with an animated GIF of a dancing cup of coffee.

Okay, Audrey. You’ve procrastinated long enough. Time to get out of bed.

I was just setting down my phone when it buzzed with a text message from Cat: Lunch?

I hesitated. Cat had been really weird lately. She seemed incredibly invested in my accepting Max’s invitation for a second date, so much so that it had made me a bit hesitant to respond. Was there some history between the two of them that I didn’t know about?

I sighed and pressed a hand to my tired eyes, promising myself I would text her later.

? ? ?

I REALLY SHOULD have followed Nick’s advice to buy a coffee maker, I thought as I finally left my apartment, still feeling bleary and disoriented. As I swung open the gate, I noticed the empty cardboard box I’d stumbled on last night was still on the lawn. I leaned over to grab it for the recycling and paused, noticing for the first time that my name was scrawled across the top in thick, black letters.

I crouched to investigate and gently lifted one of the unsealed flaps. Flower stems. The box wasn’t empty after all. I smiled, thinking back to the beautiful orange blooms I’d found on my gate last month. My secret admirer had returned. I eagerly tossed open the other flap and froze. Stupefied, I stared at the contents.

Someone had decapitated the entire bouquet.

? ? ?

ACROSS THE TABLE from me at Sweetgreen, Cat’s jaw hung open as she stared at a picture of the flowerless bouquet on my phone. That morning, I had snapped a photo and then promptly disposed of the stems—box and all—in the dumpster behind my building. As the heavy lid slammed shut, I’d felt eyes on me and looked up to see the dark curtains in Unit 1 swaying. Anger flooded my body as I imagined Ryan standing behind them, laughing to himself about scaring me with his childish prank. I’d thrown an infuriated double middle finger salute at his window and stormed away, already reaching for my phone to text Cat that we were on for lunch.

I’d barely waited for her to sit down with her salad before I thrust my phone in her face.

“Wow,” she finally said. “That’s intense.”

“Right? Headless flowers? I’m totally creeped out.”

“Is there any chance this was just trash that somehow got kicked toward your door?”

“Nope,” I said, shaking my head firmly. “They were in a box labeled ‘Audrey.’ They were for me.”

“That’s so disturbing,” Cat said, her thin shoulders shuddering. “What kind of person would do something like that?”

“Well, my landlord’s dirtbag grandson Ryan is the obvious suspect. He was lurking around when I got home from work last night, and he watched me throw the box away this morning.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“It’s just that . . . Ryan is more of a ring-the-buzzer-until-it-breaks kind of creep. This feels more calculated.” I toyed with my fork. “You know, I can’t help but wonder about my colleague Lawrence.”

“I still think you should report that guy to HR. I know you’re worried—”

“Let’s put a pin in that,” I interrupted. “Anyway, I’ve been avoiding being alone with him at work, but yesterday he came up to me, chatting like nothing had happened. I snapped at him a bit—not as much as I wanted to, of course, since we were standing in the gallery in full view of patrons, but enough that he seemed upset.”