Dead Dreams (9 page)

If Sarah vacated the apartment, and the supposed burglar came back, he might mistake me for her. We were almost the same build and height. She could easily pass as my sister, or even me, with her large eyes that mirrored mine, except hers were brown and mine blue. Of course, nobody could tell that when we were asleep. What if the uncle, bent on getting rid of her, mistakenly did me in? Security posts and alarms would not deter Uncle Stu, from what I’d gathered. I considered reporting the break-in and getting the cops involved. I resolved to convince her of this.

“Brianna? You there? ” The drawl jolted me.

“Yes, yes. Can you give me a few days to think?”

“Two days. I can’t take chances on Sarah’s life. She’s more than just a client to me. Call me at this number when you’re ready.” Click. I was left with a hollow echo in the phone.

I texted Peter: “How’s Jim?” Was he safe? Was the criminal behind our break-in responsible for Jim keeping low, too? Had he stepped onto something forbidden when he’d gone prying for my sake? Guilt weighed like a sack of potatoes on my back.

My cell beeped ten minutes later with Pete’s reply. “Jim got another job. I have to babysit Trevor, though. Bummer. Might take days off.”

“Jim coming by my place later?” I texted him a reply.

“Am I my brother’s keeper? LOL! I asked him, too. He’ll send someone if Sarah requests.”

Peter really cared for me. “His partner? Alias?” I persisted.

“Text him yourself.”

Maybe Pete didn’t care for me that much. “Kk. Tx.”

Still, I was afraid Jim had been hurt, or something as sinister.

I texted Jim again. “Brie here. Coming over?”

Two hours later, there was still no reply. Worse, a headache was pinching the top of my forehead, right between my eyes. Peter must have shared his flu with me. Generous of him.

By noon I was a basket case, and I told my manager, Thao Sun, I had to leave. I called Starbucks to get the afternoon off. I grabbed my purse and barely made it home; driving twenty miles per hour and keeping the wheels between the lines was tough. I worried about running over someone and several motorists honked me. Could the cops give me a ticket for driving too slowly? It was only when I got home that I realized I’d forgotten to take the brown envelope Pete had crammed into my small cubbyhole at Stay Fit. Jim had probably already told me all the important details, but it would have been smart to have kept it in my Mini Cooper. It wouldn’t do if one of my co-workers decided to do me a favor and bring it to my place. Or worse, took a peek into it.

However when I got to my place, any semblance of worry I had about the envelope dissipated. I felt so nauseated that any fear I’d harbored about someone waiting for me in the apartment never even crossed my mind. Besides, Sarah was supposed to be home. She didn’t have work to sustain her lifestyle. I often wondered how she passed her time, and I confess, perhaps with a twinge of envy. There were just so many hours one could waste at the salon. Or the gym. She also belonged to some sports resort that came with massages and complimentary beverages. Maybe she was there sipping a margarita, even though she’s under aged.

“For heaven’s sake, I’m turning twenty-one this month,” she’d said when I’d approached her on this minor infraction before. “It’s not like we’re living in the prohibition!”

“Maybe we should be,” my mother would have replied. But, I hadn’t voiced my opinion to Sarah. Mom would have flipped if she’d known of Sarah’s tendency to push things to the boundary. “The law is there to protect you,” Mom always said.

“What do you do with all your free time?” I’d once asked Sarah.

“You obviously have not traveled in the realms of books.”

“Huh?”

“I could get lost for hours exploring the pyramids in the cool comfort of the library. Better than going to the Sahara and battling mosquitoes and humidity, just to see piles of stones.”

“So, you’ve been to Egypt? Floated down the Nile?” Probably sipping a margarita?

“Girlfriend, maybe your question should be, ‘where have I
not
been?’.”

She professed she usually spent entire mornings and afternoons at the library, her nose lost in a book. Maybe that was where she’d deposited herself this morning: reading her eyes out at the main branch on Holbart Avenue. Or, maybe she was out shopping, her second-favorite time-waster.

I disarmed the alarm and plopped onto the sofa, wishing I had time to waste. To read and travel to distant places sounded enticing. Traveling was something Keith, unlike me, always had the privilege. Or, maybe I’d waste myself on sleep, which at that point seemed better than globe-trotting. As I lay on the sofa, I couldn’t shake away the uneasiness that seemed to stick to me like second skin these days. Questions attacked my brain.

Should I ask Sarah to leave, as Jackson had requested? What would my mother say when she found out? About me living alone? And Jackson? How come he came over to the Bay Area four years ago without Sarah? He couldn’t have cared that much for her to have left her in West Virginia with a dying father and a sick mom.

I must have dozed off on the sofa; when I awoke it was dark—eight-thirty—and there was no sign of Sarah, or of Jim’s parked car, when I peered out the window. Then I realized I’d never turned the alarm back on when I’d entered. At least the sleep refreshed me, and all my senses felt rejuvenated. I placed my hand on the window sill and breathed in the crisp air. That was probably when I heard it: the
tap-tap
sound coming from Sarah’s room. It droned on and on, like an annoying woodpecker drumming on a tree trunk. Atherton had several of those in the more woodsy sections. If there was one thing I loved about living in the neighborhood it was the nature that surrounded our apartment building. Doves cooing in the early mornings, crickets chirping when the sun was setting.

But that evening the thought of nature brought the oak tree outside our kitchen window to mind. Jim was right. Someone could climb the branches and reach our balcony easily. And what if someone
had
while I lay sleeping? I ran to Sarah’s bedroom, placed my ear on her door and called softly, “Sarah.”

Had someone sneaked past me and gone to Sarah’s room? Was Sarah in there? Maybe she hadn’t noticed I was zonked out on the sofa and had walked straight past me, mind lost in the latest conspiracy theory.

“Sarah, you in there?” I whispered. What if it wasn’t Sarah in there?

Only the tapping answered me, as if cajoling me. What if Sarah had been in there the whole time and was lying on the floor, injured? My imagination took over. I had to find a way to get into her bedroom. First I called her cell, hoping she might answer it. No response.

“Sarah, I’m coming in!” I practically yelled.

But, the solid oak bedroom door was locked. This was like her. She’d never left her bedroom lock unfastened without being asked. Did she think I was going to murder her in her sleep? I jiggled the doorknob. Bashing the door down with my shoulder wasn’t something I’d consider.

At five-feet-six, and a hundred and twenty pounds, I was no Rambo.

I wasn’t on friendly terms with any of my neighbors—how could I since I was hardly around. And Mrs. Mott was gone. I
could
call Mr. Yamamoto and beg the spare key out of him without scaring him with details, but that could take hours, since he lived in Marin, and if Sarah was hurt, we’d have to explain all sorts of things to Mr. Yamamoto. He might even break my lease—a sobering thought since I’d gotten this apartment at such a bargain.

I texted Jim again. An ex-cop would surely have the tools to break in an interior door. Ten minutes later, I’d chewed off my fingernails to stubs and still had no luck reaching Jim. If Sarah was hurt, she could have bled to death by now.

I thought of Sergeant Twist’s business card, but it was a shred of warped paper after its run through the washing machine. If I called 911 and the cops came, it would be embarrassing if they found Sarah just sleeping with her iPod buds stuck in her ears—not to mention Sarah would be furious with me with her no-cop policy. And I didn’t even want to think what Mom would say.

I thought of Keith. We’d never been brother-sister close, but he might figure out a way in. After all, civil engineering was his specialty. Something sensible, my dad had commented about Keith’s career too many times—meaning my acting ambition was useless. Keith was at San Francisco, (close, but not so close he could just hop down the street and bother me), but he frequented my area when visiting construction clients. I punched in his number on my cell phone.

“Hey, Keith?”

“What’s up, Brie?”

“I need some advice.”

“I’m in the middle of something. If it only takes a minute….”

“Quick question. You know my housemate?”

“Sarah McIntyre?”

“Oh, so you spoke with Mom?” It was the first time he’d taken interest in my affairs. Maybe there was hope for our relationship…so I’d mistakenly wished.

“Mom called me. Several times, actually.” He sounded annoyed.

“What she say about Sarah? Oh, never mind.” I’d never confided in Keith. What was I thinking calling him? First off, he’d think I was nuts; then I ran the risk of what I’d said looping back to Mom. It appeared notes were already passed around behind my back. If I told him, I might even have to explain the break-in to make sense of things.

He cleared his throat. “What about Sarah?”

“It’s just a silly roommate thingy. Sorry I bothered you.” I quickly hung up before Keith asked unwelcome questions.

It would be stupid to call the cops, I told myself.
This could just be a false alarm.
I strained my ears, and still the thudding, fainter it seemed now, persisted.

I contemplated what to do as I keyed in the security codes near the front door, something I
should
have done when I’d first gotten home. Sarah hadn’t showed me how to work the camera capture feature yet and I didn’t know how to turn that on, so, we can forget about getting a photo ID of any intruder should he pass by this way. But at least, if I got murdered by whoever was in Sarah’s bedroom, the killer would trigger the system when making a quick exit. Sarah’s paranoia was contagious. The alarm had a feature that showed any window or entry left ajar and it had been warmer those April nights, so most evenings we’d left our bedroom windows open a crack. Sarah’s window registered as unsecured on the alarm pad and so, I bypassed hers as well as my bedroom’s, which I was going to scoot out of.

I scurried to my room and peered out at Emerson Street below. Three stories down. I could survive if I fell. I hoped I wouldn’t break my legs. That might affect my acting career.

Neither Jim, nor his replacement, “Alias,” had turned up. I sucked in the crisp air a few times to calm my breathing and reminded myself that at least the alarm was on if I got attacked in Sarah’s room and the perpetrator tried to escape.

The ledge outside my window spanned only six inches, but in school I’d taken ballet, which made me nimble, and gymnastics, which had given me loads of practice on balance. If I could somersault and cartwheel on a beam four inches wide, I could sashay my way along the ledge that wrapped around to Sarah’s bedroom.
Stay positive,
I told myself.

Once my Skechers were off, I climbed over the sill with bare feet. The icy cold of the cement ledge surprised me and froze my toes. It sent chills up my Achilles. I didn’t even want to consider what would happen if someone from the street spotted me and called the cops. I might end up on the evening news. I saw the headlines: Girl Caught Breaking into Her Own Apartment Refuses to Press Charges.”

Might be my only claim to fame if I didn’t make it in the acting world, I thought.

I dug my nails into the shingled exterior wall, trying to get some balance as I edged along the ledge. In some areas, I barely had a fingertip hold and had to poke my fingers into any crevice I could manage. I refused to think of spiders living in the cracks. A snail probably moved faster than I did. When my hands felt the coolness of the glass on Sarah’s window, I pressed my cheek against it and sighed with relief. I squinted into bedroom. Except for a night-light Sarah left perpetually on next to her bed, the room was dark. I couldn’t see anyone in there. Only shadows. But, the thudding persisted. It was louder, now that I listened through the glass. I imagined Sarah lying behind the bed, wounded, and tapping with her knuckles to signal for help. I hoped it was just my years of watching horror movies that filled my mind with such tragic images and that my supposition was not remotely close to reality.