Straight to voicemail.
No.
“Dad,” I say, hating how my voice trembles. “‘Please pick up. Something’s happened. Call me back right now.”
I try again. And again. The same recorded message in his tired voice asking me to leave my name and number.
Behind me, sirens wail in the distance, getting closer. I should stay.
I should wait for the fire department, for the police, for someone with authority and weapons and training to handle whatever this is.
“Dr. Conti?” Chief Rodriguez’s voice breaks through my thoughts and I turn to him. He’s staring at me with barely concealed concern. “Is everything alright?”
No, everything isnotalright. I stare at him, unable to think of anything except the cloying fear that Dad hasn’t answered his phone and I’m terribly afraid something horrible has happened to him
“I–I have to go,” I finally say. “Please call me when you hear anything.”
Ignoring the chief’s shouts, I run to my Honda, my hands shaking so badly it takes four tries to get the key in the ignition.
The engine turns over with a reluctant wheeze, and I peel out of the parking lot, leaving rubber on asphalt and the burning ruins of my life in the rearview mirror.
Chicago’s streets blur past me. I weave through late night traffic like a madwoman, running two red lights and taking corners fast enough to make my tires scream.
Every second that ticks by on the dashboard clock feels like a countdown to something horrible and irreversible.
“Come on, come on,” I mutter to myself as I turn down his street. My body feels jittery, like I’ve just consumed too much caffeine. I just need to make sure Dad is okay.
This is probably just a stupid prank some idiot teenager is playing.
I know that when I reach Dad’s apartment, he’ll open the door and all my anxiety will have been for nothing.
Dad’s apartment building comes into view—a run-down three-story walkup in a neighborhood that’s seen better decades.
I barely throw the car into park before I’m rushing inside.
I take the stairs three at a time, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I can feel it in my throat.
His door is standing open.
Not just unlocked. Open, like someone walked through it and couldn’t be bothered to close it behind them.
What I see makes me want to scream.
The hallway light spills into his living room, illuminating overturned furniture and scattered papers.
Family photos lie smashed on the hardwood floor, glass crunching under my feet as I step inside.
“D-dad?” My voice comes out as a croak as I gingerly move forward. “Dad, are you here?”
The kitchen table is overturned, one leg snapped clean off.
Cereal bowls and coffee mugs lie in pieces across the linoleum, and there’s a dark stain spread across the white cabinets that looks suspiciously like?—
“Oh god.” I press my hand to my mouth, bile rising in my throat. Blood. It’sblood, spattered across the walls like some kind of abstract painting created by a lunatic.
A single black business card sits in the center of the destroyed kitchen table, pristine and untouched among the chaos.
I pick it up with trembling fingers.
