Called Home by Melissa F. Miller
Author:Melissa F. Miller [Miller, Melissa F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781940759357
Publisher: Brown Street Books
21
Aroostine got turned around once during the drive from the office park to Dahlia’s apartment building. Night was falling, and she’d been distracted by the expanse of open space to the right of the highway. A sign identified the spot as ‘Falls Park.’
Sure enough she glimpsed the city’s eponymous Falls as she exited the highway and got back on course. Even in the fading light, she could tell the park was well-maintained. All rushing waterfalls, trimmed green grass, and groomed paths, watched over by a tall observation tower and an enormous granite statue of a bison.
She felt the tug of the slice of nature plopped down in the middle of an urban environment but ignored it. This wasn’t a sightseeing trip.
She followed the steady traffic to the outskirts of town—to a neighborhood that could generously be described as ‘fringe’—and turned left onto a cul-de-sac. At what would be the two o’clock position on a watch face, she pulled up in front of a pair of squat, tired-looking buildings that shared a parking lot. The buildings were set back from the quiet street by a wide hilly lawn.
She checked the address Roxanne Markham had given her against the Falls Manor sign. It looked as if Dahlia’s unit was on the third floor of the building to the left of the resident parking area. She refolded the paper and returned it to her pocket as she got out of the truck.
She took the steps from the sidewalk to the common parking lot by twos then hurried across the parking area to Dahlia’s building. She pushed on the steel entrance door—more to check the box that she’d tried than out of any belief it might be unlocked—but it swung open.
Just inside the door, a row of metal mailboxes lined the wall to the right. To the left, a windowless door displayed two signs: one read ‘Leasing Office’; the other, ‘Closed.’ A long hallway ran the length of the building. She followed it past a half-dozen metal doors until she reached the center of the building, where a pair of elevators, one on each side of the hallway, interrupted the rows of apartments. Presumably, six more apartments ran from the elevators to the back of the building.
She spotted an emergency exit sign at the far end then turned in a slow half circle to look back at the front of the building for a second set of stairs. There it was, behind the mailboxes. She’d missed it coming in. Her grandfather had taught her basic situational awareness as soon as she could walk. Learn all the ways into and out of every space you inhabit. It was advice that had served her well more times than she cared to remember.
She continued down the hall, passing one apartment from which the television was blaring a game show and one in which someone was cooking something that smelled amazing—beef stew and freshly baked bread, if she had to guess. Her stomach growled in appreciation.
She ignored it and kept walking.
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