Those people had also probably been better at remembering things.
My alarm was on my phone.
My messages were on my phone.
Ben would text me in the morning when he arrived, and I wouldn’t answer, and then he might tell Tobias, and Tobias might—
I stopped there.
That thought opened too many doors.
The point was, I needed to go back.
I dressed quickly, tugging on a clean shirt that immediately started soaking through where my hair rested against the fabric. I shoved my feet into shoes without socks, regretted it instantly because wet ankles in sneakers felt like a sensory crime, then wasted another thirty seconds finding two socks that didn’t match and deciding I no longer cared.
By the time I finished, my apartment looked like I’d been robbed.
I gave the mess one last look, delegated cleanup to Future Cove, grabbed my bag, my badge, and the backup security chip, and headed for the door.
The next problem was getting there.
I couldn’t order a rideshare without a phone.
After locking my apartment behind me, I crossed the hallway and knocked softly on Mrs. Alvaro’s door.
She opened it a moment later in a robe the color of lavender soap, her silver hair clipped on top of her head, and an expression already suggesting that whatever I needed was going to be both inconvenient and entertaining.
“Cove. How ya goin’?”
“Hi. I’m so sorry—”
“You always start with that.”
“I know. Sorry.” I winced. “I mean—right. Um. I left my phone at work, and I need to get back there, but I can’t call anyone because I don’t know their numbers, and I can’t order a rideshare because, again, phone.”
She stared at me for a beat before practically cooing, “Oh, honey.”
That was not encouraging.
“I know,” I said miserably.
“You want to borrow mine?”
“Please.”
She stepped back and let me inside without another question. Her apartment smelled faintly of lemon cleaner and cinnamon, warm in a way mine never quite managed to be. The television murmured in the living room, paused on a crime documentary with a grainy image of a house that looked much less expensive than Tobias’s but somehow significantly more threatening.
She handed me her phone.
That almost made me emotional, which was deeply embarrassing, so I focused very hard on downloading and opening the rideshare app instead.
“You know the address?” she asked.
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“It’s complicated.”
