The next morning smelled like hallway dust and someone else’s toast. I wasn’t planning to stick around long—just drop off some laundry and make sure Mom hadn’t obliterated the apartment again.
I’d barely turned the corner when I heard the latch click. Denise—next door—poked her head out like a turtle checking for predators.
“Oh! Thought I heard someone,” she said, eyes wide, hair piled in a way that suggested she’d given up halfway through the attempt. Her voice had that dry, breathy tone that comes from too many shouting matches and not enough company.
“Good morning,” I said, already regretting eye contact.
“You here for your mother?”
“Yeah. Just checking on her.”
“She’s lucky,” Denise said, stepping halfway into the hall. “Most people don’t have anyone left to check on them.”
Her apartment door hung open behind her, revealing a narrow path through towers of boxes, laundry, and old newspapers. It made my mother’s place look like a model home. The air that drifted out smelled faintly of air freshener fighting a losing war.
“Did you hear about what happened last week?” she asked.
I paused. “What happened?”
“You didn’t hear?” Her eyebrows lifted like she was about to deliver state secrets. “They came for Mr. Halbrook. The one in 1C. Hauled him right out. Said it was ‘non-compliance.’”
I frowned. “Non-compliance with what?”
She shrugged, lowering her voice. “You know. The treatments. Said he wouldn’t let them in. But that’s not the real story.”
“Of course not.”
She leaned closer, glancing up and down the hall as if management might be hiding behind the radiator. “Word is he caught them planting something. Said it wasn’t bedbugs they were after—it was tracking devices.”
“Tracking devices?”
“That’s what Mary said. Well, Mary heard it from Earl, whose niece was in the office when he complained. He came storming in waving one of those red-circle papers, yelling that they were putting the bugs in, not taking them out.”
I sighed. “You sure this isn’t just gossip?”
“Gossip?” Denise’s eyes narrowed. “You think gossip gets people evicted? You should’ve seen his place after they cleared him out. Door left open for days. Nothing inside. No furniture, no clothes. Just one of those papers with the circle on it.”
Her voice softened, almost to a whisper. “They leave it like a warning. So the rest of us remember to cooperate.”
A door at the end of the hall creaked open. Denise flinched and slipped back into her apartment, the door closing with a soft click.
The hall went quiet again.
When I reached my mother’s door, I could feel Charlotte pacing behind it—her shadow moving under the crack. She always knew when something was off.
So did I.