Then Chase grabbed her hand. “I would be honored. Just tell me when and where, and I’ll be there with a tux on.”
“Really?” Spencer’s mouth wobbled into a smile.
Chase was about to say something else, but then the door behind them swung open. An old lady with a kerchief over her head and a bunch of bags in her arms struggled out the door. Chase stepped up and held it open for her. The old lady smiled at him. “That’s so sweet of you, dear!”
“No problem at all,” Chase said, giving her a small bow. He and Spencer scrambled through the door before it slammed closed.
The hall was dark and smelled like spicy curry. There were two apartment doors on the ground floor, then a set of stairs. Spencer could see another apartment door up the first flight. There had to be at least four or five more apartments in the building.
She looked at Chase. “So what do we do now?”
“Go to Four-B, I guess,” Chase said, peering up the stairs. Then he turned to the front door again. “You go up. I’ll be right behind you, keeping watch.”
Spencer nodded, then bolted up the stairs, passing three doors painted red, orange, and blue. Another blue door still had a Christmas wreath, despite the fact it was May. Another orange one had a pile of mail on the mat. The railing wobbled when she grabbed it for support. She could hear Chase’s footsteps on the stairs behind her.
On the top floor, light flickered behind 4B. Swallowing hard, Spencer exchanged a look with Chase, who was a few steps down, then crept up to it and pressed her ear to the door. Could Ali’s nurse really be inside? What if Ali was inside, too?
“What should I do?” she whispered to Chase.
He shrugged. Knock? he mouthed.
Trembling, Spencer rapped once, then twice. Then she listened. The television’s volume didn’t change, but she thought she heard a sigh and couch springs squeak. There was a click in the hall, and she whipped around, on alert. “What was that?” she whispered to Chase.
“I don’t know,” he whispered back, eyes wide. Then he walked farther down the hall. He stopped at the second-to-last door on the right and stepped closer to it, inspecting the knob. He pressed his ear to the door, as if listening, but then he lost his balance, falling forward and softly slapping the door with his palm. Spencer covered her eyes. “Shhh!”
“Sorry!” Chase jumped away from the door as if anticipating a ghost was going to spring out.
For a moment, it was eerily silent. Then, a creak sounded above her, and she looked up. And all at once . . . boom. There was a crunch of metal, and a whoosh of air, and then more banging and clanging sounds. Spencer jumped back as an attic door in the ceiling opened and items tumbled down. First an unwieldy coatrack, then a mounted deer head, its antlers sharpened to knifepoints, and then a bowling ball. The ball crashed onto the floor next to her and careened down the steps.
“Spencer?” Chase called through the dust. “Jesus. Are you okay?”
“I-I don’t know,” Spencer said, realizing she’d fallen to the ground. When she touched her face, it was slick. She brought her hand away—it was sweat or tears, not blood. More dust cascaded from the ceiling. The trapdoor hung precariously on one hinge, the screws dangerously loose.
“Come on,” Chase said, catapulting over the rubble, grabbing her hand, and dragging her down the steps. Heads poked out of apartment doors, mouths agape.
“That was weird,” Spencer said shakily as they barreled down more stairs.
“Weird doesn’t even begin to describe that,” Chase said. He glanced up the stairwell. Another loud thunk sounded. “It’s almost like it was planned.”
Spencer shivered. She’d been thinking the same thing. It was possible, perhaps, that Ali or her helper had planted this address online for Chase to find. And then snuck in here and filled the attic with dangerous things. Rigging the door to fall at just the right moment . . . on just the right person’s head . . .
A’s evil message swirled in her mind: I did it. And guess what? You’re next. Maybe this had all been a trap. And maybe A’s warning was coming true.
21
An Unexpected Guest
Hanna pulled into the Bill Beach parking lot, her burner phone wedged between her shoulder and her ear. Screw the no-technology rule. This was an emergency.
Mike’s voicemail beeped. “It’s me again,” Hanna pleaded. “I can explain. I want you back. I want to go to prom with you. I have a new cell phone—this is my number. Please, please, please call me!”
She hung up and eyed her prom queen crown and scepter—she carried them with her everywhere. Tears pricked her eyes. She was not going to ruin her makeup, though. A future prom queen needed to look good even when she was cleaning up pee.
When something in her bag bleated, she plunged her hand inside again, praying it was Mike. But it was her old phone. It had auto-logged onto the Bill Beach WiFi and downloaded a new e-mail from Agent Fuji. On instinct, Hanna deleted the message without even reading it.
She stomped through the double doors, threw on her scrubs, and kicked the mop bucket down the hall toward Graham’s partitioned-off area. She whipped back his curtains, not caring who saw her. Graham’s eyes were closed, but his mouth was working hard. Hanna pressed her ear close to his lips, but no sound came out.
“Just tell me who you saw,” Hanna growled, wanting to shake him. Couldn’t they, for once, get a freaking break? They could nail A and get Fuji off their backs. They could clear up this nonsense with the painting in Aria’s closet. She could make things right with Mike, too.