I drive past once.Don’t look at her directly.I don’t need to.Peripheral vision is enough.I see the building.The entrance.The lighting.Coded access.I turn the corner and circle back.I park half a block down.Turn the engine off and the lights out.
She’s already at the door when I look up.Keys in hand.No fumbling.No searching.Her finger pressing in a code before she steps inside without looking back.She’s gone.Just like that.
I sit there longer than necessary.Because I need more information.Because I don’t have enough.A decade without her.And I know nothing.Where she’s been.What she’s done.Who she’s been with.Why she was there tonight.How long she’s been there.Because what I do know is she isn’t the same woman I knew all those years ago.
I reach for my phone.Stop.My hand hovers for half a second.Then drops back to the wheel.I don’t react like this.I assess.Then I act.
But one thought slips through anyway, and it’s uninvited.Sharp enough that I feel it settle somewhere deeper than it should.She didn’t look surprised to see me.And that, more than anything else, is a problem.
The drive south through the city is quiet.Not because the city is.It never is.Lights shift.Engines hum.Horns sound, and tires glide over pavement in steady, predictable patterns.Movement everywhere.Systems layered over systems, all of it functioning because there are rules holding it together.I follow them without thinking.I always do.That’s what the rules are there for.
The building rises exactly where it should.Forty-five stories of glass and steel.Clean lines cutting into the night sky like something intentional.It’s sharp edges only made soft by the reflection of Lake Michigan.
I pull into the garage, park in my assigned space, and shut the engine off.Stillness settles immediately.I sit for only a minute and then climb out of the car, the sharp beep sounding as I activate the locking system.The elevator climbs the forty floors to deliver me to my apartment.
And even though the ride is silent, my thoughts are loud.I don’t check my phone.Don’t shift my weight.Don’t break the quiet just to fill it.I watch as the numbers climb in order.Predictable.Expected.When the doors slide open, I stride down the long hallway to my door.
I press my thumb to the reader, and the door unlocks with a soft click.I step inside, closing it behind me with the same measured precision.The space greets me exactly as I left it, with everything in its place.No surprises.No variables.
I set my keys down in the tray on the table by the door.Same spot.Every time.Shoes first.I don’t kick them off.I don’t leave them by the door.I walk to the closet off my bedroom, remove them, and place them on the rack where they belong.Parallel.Even spacing.Aligned with the rest.
Order isn’t preference.It’s necessity.Jacket next, on the proper hanger.Next are my clothes.Changed out with efficiency, not thought.T-shirt.Soft pants.Fabric that doesn’t distract.Doesn’t pull focus.Everything I wear has a purpose.Even when it looks like it doesn’t.
The kitchen is exactly as it should be.Surfaces clear.Lines uninterrupted.Nothing out of place.I open the fridge.Meal prep containers sit stacked in uniform rows.Labeled and dated.I take one out.Set the oven temperature and slide it in.
Whiskey is next.Just one glass.Three fingers.No more.No less.I don’t sip it immediately.I set it on the counter and walk to the built-in desk, sliding my laptop open with a single, smooth motion.The screen lights the space in a cool glow.
I type her name and hit search.Results populate instantly.Of course they do.Everyone leaves a trail to trace.Everything connects if you know where to look.
Vanessa Caldwell.
Chicago.
Art.
The first hit is expected.It’s what she was studying when we were in college.I click on the link.The page is clean, minimal.Head of Art Restoration.Art Institute of Chicago.She’s done well for herself.It’s precise work.Detail-driven.Requires patience.
I keep scanning.
Education.Northwestern University.No surprise there either.The dates align.I don’t linger on them.There’s nothing useful in that.No personal links.No tagged accounts.No oversharing.Nothing that isn’t meant to be seen.
I lean back slightly, glass still untouched beside me.Then reach for it.I take one slow, measured sip.Then I search again attempting different angles and entry points.Social media is a dead end.Old connections that are mentions but without context.Fragments that don’t build into anything useful.That seems unusual.Not impossible.But unusual for the girl I knew.
I refine, expand, pull from older networks.People we knew.Names I haven’t thought about in years.There’s minimal insight at best.I sit there longer than necessary, eyes scanning, filtering, discarding.
Data without clarity is noise.And I don’t tolerate noise.But she doesn’t resolve.No matter how I shift the angle, how I adjust the search, how I trace the connections, she stays just out of reach.My jaw tightens.Barely.Just enough that I feel it.That’s when it settles.
Not the lack of information.Not the gaps.Not even the dead ends.It’s the fact that she didn’t look surprised.I set the glass down.Untouched after the first sip.
Ten years.And not a flicker of hesitation.Not a second of confusion.There was recognition, and it was immediate, contained, handled.Like she’d already accounted for it.
I don’t like that.And I trust it even less.I close the laptop.Not because I’m done.Because this isn’t how I approach a problem.I gather information, and then I act.Tonight was an observation.Nothing more, nothing less.But tomorrow, tomorrow I’ll know more.
And when I do, she won’t be the only one prepared.
Chapter Three
Vanessa
