Last Seen in Apartment 4C

When the paramedics took Mrs. Vale out of 4C, they left her apartment door open long enough for me to see the shape of her slippers beside the radiator. The television was still on. The noon weather report kept repeating the same warning about fog on the expressway.

I shut the door, locked it, and taped a notice over the knob so her nephew could collect the keys. By six that evening, the notice was on the floor and the deadbolt was open again.

I told myself the nephew had come early and forgotten to check in. I went back upstairs with the spare key anyway. The apartment was cold enough to make my eyes water. The television was off now. In the bedroom, the closet door stood open, and both slippers were gone.

I checked every room. No one. I relocked the door and jammed a folded business card into the frame so I would know if it opened again.

At 11:40 p.m., Mrs. Alvarez from 3B called the emergency line to complain about pacing overhead. I told her 4C was empty. She said, very quietly, that she knew it was empty. The footsteps only bothered her because they stopped each time she held her breath.

The card was on the hallway runner when I came up. Inside the apartment, the kitchen chair had been pulled to the front window. Someone had left a wet handprint on the glass at shoulder height, though the sink was dry and the pipes in 4C had been shut off that afternoon.

I should have called the police. Instead, I went to the window and looked down into the courtyard, expecting to see kids, drunks, anyone who might explain the print.

Mrs. Vale was standing directly below, bareheaded in the rain, wearing the hospital gown they had cut open at the chest. She looked up when my shadow crossed the blinds.

Her mouth never moved. The voice still came from behind me.

"Do not let her in," it whispered from the dark bedroom. "She followed me home."