We walk through the party room and exit onto the roof. The sky is dark and blue in the west, while Lake Michigan, in the east, is lit up orange from the rising sun. Below us the city is not quite awake. There’s a weird silence in the air, and I’m not sure if it’s because of Evan or if it’s something else completely.
At first, we try to sit down on the benches, but they’re wet with dew, so we just lean against the railing and look out at the sunrise. It’s early Monday morning, and most Bennett residents are on their way to work. Even my mom must be up already, getting Mila ready for camp. I probably should go down and let her know I’m with Sammie. But I figure if she were really worried, she would have texted Sammie already.
“Professor Cox called me last night. He’s in jail. Someone called after that tomato stunt. I was his one phone call. He needs my help.”
“What tomato stunt?” Sammie asks.
Evan fills her in on what happened yesterday.
“I can’t believe I missed it,” Sammie says. “What does he want from you?”
“Well, first, to make sure his dog is okay. And something about clearing out some things. Some incriminating things, maybe?”
“That’s why you came here?” Sammie asks, clearly disappointed that he hasn’t come for her. “To convince us to do what, exactly?”
“Honestly? Nothing. I just needed to get into the building. And now that I’m in, I don’t really need you to do anything, I guess. He said there’s a key under the mat, and technically, I could just go in myself.” And then he says, “But I’d like for you guys to come with me.”
“Okay,” Sammie says quickly. “I’m in.”
I know Sammie doesn’t want me here, so this should be the perfect excuse to say no, but I’m worried that if I leave Evan and Sammie alone together, he’ll tell her about our kiss.
“Ugh,” I say. “Really? We’re really doing this?”
“Don’t you want to prove to Professor Harold Joseph Cox that there’s love in the world? I mean, he reached out for help, and we need to show him that there are good people like us who could love him.”
“And destroy evidence for him?”
“Yes.” Evan laughs quietly. “And destroy evidence for him.”
“Fantastic,” I say. “This is exactly what I want to be doing on a beautiful summer’s morning. Sneaking into odd men’s apartments and committing possibly illegal but ultimately altruistic acts of deception.”
The building, with its skeleton of concrete and steel, breathes heavily against the push of the elevator’s descent. There’s a constant hum of air—it sweeps up through the elevator shaft as we descend toward the eleventh floor—it’s louder than usual, maybe because we’re not stopping at multiple floors to pick up more passengers. Or maybe it’s because we’re all quiet and nervous, and it’s even more awkward and weird between us now. Along with the loud hum of the building I hear the beating of my own heart inside my head.
The doors open to the silent and empty hallway.
“Professor Cox said it’s eleven eighteen,” Evan says.
“This way,” Sammie says. “He’s kitty-corner from you. Right, Vivi?”
“Let’s see, if I’m in sixteen twenty-two—” We walk to 1118. “Then yes, he’d be two over in this direction.”
A door opens down the hall and a mom with a kid in a stroller emerges, the kid in full tantrum mode, crying and screaming for his pacifier. She gives us a suspicious look, like she knows we don’t belong here.
Rather than stopping at Professor Cox’s door, Sammie and I follow Evan as he continues walking down the hall. “Did we get off at the wrong floor?” he says, and then we follow him into the emergency stairwell.
We wait there for a few minutes until we hear the ding and the shutting elevator doors, which drown out the wailing kid’s cries.
Evan sneaks a peak into the hallway. “All clear,” he says. We follow him to number 1118.
Evan bends down to look for the key, which Professor Cox said was under the mat. We hear sniffing from behind the door. “Must be his dog,” I say, and then he starts barking and scraping. “Is it there?”
“Got it,” Evan says. He stands up and holds out a gold key. “Here we go.”
He puts the key in the lock and turns. The door opens. The dog jumps at our feet, and his barking echoes through the hallway even louder now. “Quick, get in.” Evan bends down and picks him up. “Shhh, boy. It’s okay. Everything’s okay now.”
Sammie and I follow Evan inside, and I shut the door.
I expected the smell of dog, but instead I’m hit by the thick, sharp smell of incense—patchouli and orange. Even from Sammie’s apartment, we could only really see the front room, the dining room, where his cactuses are. I also expected a bizarre dungeon of a room, but when I step inside, I’m shocked by the emptiness of it. It’s a small studio apartment that’s decorated all in white, like a hospital room. There’s a small white futon that looks like it serves as his bed, with neatly folded sheets and blankets on the table next to it. Apart from the dining room table, there’s not much else—just a desk with some papers scattered on top and a small white bookshelf with a few dozen books stacked in piles.
“It’s like he just moved in,” Sammie says.