The elevator doors had barely closed when Daniel’s phone buzzed. He read the screen, and his face went pale. “Nora, the wiretap caught a second voice on Vanessa’s call last night. Someone inside this building has been helping her.” My knees nearly gave out. Five weeks of whispers, a key used while I was away, and I had never once asked who could open my door without leaving a trace.

Then I heard it: a faint click from the stairwell at the end of the hall. A shadow slid across the wall. Our building manager, Gerald Pruitt, the man who had hugged me at my husband’s funeral, stepped out with a ring of keys in one hand and a heavy black duffel bag in the other. He looked at me, then at the officers, and whispered, “You weren’t supposed to be awake yet.”