Inside These Walls by Iris Baxter

Author:Iris Baxter [Baxter, Iris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-06T16:00:00+00:00

***

“I don’t want to bother you with that,” I say, even though I’m secretly thrilled Lee wants to accompany me.

“No bother at all. You’re my tenant, and I want you to feel safe in the apartment,” Lee says.

“I really appreciate it, Lee.”

We step into the elevator and take it down to the first floor. Lee leads the way to the security office and knocks on the door. It takes a few minutes for the door to open and an elderly man with thick-rimmed glasses to poke his head out.

“Hi,” Lee says. “We were wondering if we could check some of the camera footage.”

The guard keeps staring at Lee incredulously, so I quickly add, “Someone’s playing a prank on me, and I want to find out who it is.”

The guard’s head turns toward me when he hears my voice, he stares for a while, and then gives me a brusque nod.

“Okay.” He opens the door for us.

“Thank you so much,” I say.

The guard leads us inside. It’s a small office, hardly bigger than a pantry, made to look even smaller because of the big monitor sitting on top of the desk.

“Here, knock yourselves out. I’m gonna go out for a smoke,” the guard says.

“You’re not gonna stay with us?” I ask.

“No. Why would I?”

“We might need your help to find the correct videos.”

“Not my problem. You want to see it, you find it.”

“What if we mess something up or cause damage to the office?”

The guard shrugs. “That’s above my paygrade. I’m just here to look at the cameras from time to time.”

It’s clear that the guard doesn’t care about the job. He’s most likely already retired, and this is a side gig for him. Why should he bother to do more than the bare minimum?

“We’ll take it from here, then,” Lee says. “Enjoy your cigarette.”

The guard takes the jacket off the hanger, puts it on, and steps outside without a word. At least he isn’t giving us trouble about wanting to see the feed.

Lee sits at the chair and starts fiddling with the computer. He’s clicking through things.

“You said you found it in your mailbox just now when you came home, right?” he asks.

“Yes.” I cross my arms.

Lee double-clicks something and it opens the camera feed of the entrance of the building.

“It only has this one camera,” he says.

“That should be good because it covers the main entrance. There’s no way to get around that,” I say.

“Yeah.”

I watch as an unfamiliar tenant walks inside, opens her mailbox, and disappears out of view.

“This is from a week ago.”

“Too old. I checked my mailbox the day before yesterday, and the message wasn’t there.”

“So whoever placed it there, did it either yesterday or today. Let me try and find it.”

Lee clicks through some folders some more. This goes on for a few minutes. We don’t talk. The only sounds in the room are the whirring of the computer and the clicking of the mouse.

“Cozy place, huh?” Lee breaks the silence after a while.

“Yeah. Very homey.

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