Page 24 of Soft Erasure

Adherence floor suspended for orientation. Please confirm.

I confirmed the only way the band accepted: a thumb pressed flat to its face. There was no answer but yes. The number didn’t clear eighty-eight. They sent me down anyway. The elevator came for me on six and opened again downstairs.

Simon was at the curved desk. Thirty, his hair parted so straight it had been measured. He didn’t look up when I crossed the marble. Simon was learning to wait.

Two laminated cards lay on the desk, corners cut soft-round by a machine in a back office.

“Ms. Vale.” Simon clicked the Bic. “Thank you for attending. This will only take a moment.”

He angled the cards toward me.

“These are courtesy permits. They authorize officers to check on residents after a noise complaint. Only when necessary. We favor orderly halls.”

“Who decides whether it’s necessary.”

“Policy.”

He clicked the Bic twice.

“Whose policy.”

He smiled. He had been trained not to. The smile broke the part in his hair.

“Ms. Graham’s.”

Behind me, the lobby door breathed open. Two officers came in, dressed to look casual and not casual. Behind them, a woman in a blazer the gray of weather about to turn. She didn’t knock. She stood at the marble and let the room orient to her.

“Detective Kimberly Willson, Metro PD. Just a courtesy follow-up, Ms. Vale.”

“On what.”

“Vehicle movements last week. Your family’s physician, Dr. Caldren. Has he traveled recently.”

I had not seen her badge. I had seen her shoes, the polish even, the heel low. She had stood on the marble of expensive lobbies before.

“Doctors travel. Conferences. Retreats.”

“Of course.” She smiled. “Our LPR caught a flag near Valley Suites, nine days pre-incident. Room 1426. Paid through a shell company linked to someone familiar.”

The man behind her, older and slighter, wore no shield. A press card hung at his collar, PEMBROKE, H., Bay Tribune. He tipped his chin toward the ceiling, toward the camera set into it. He wanted me to see him do it. I noticed. The band didn’t.

She said one more thing. There had been a patient before me. Discharged at ninety-five.

Ninety-five was where I had started.

The band warmed.

WELLNESS (08:41): VR-7 reward available for restraint. Excellent behavior.

The system was rewarding me for not answering. It didn’t know whether I had anything to answer, and rewarded the silence as a precaution.

A second notification stacked under the first.

M. CALDREN (08:42): Need steadiness now? I’m in the building. One, two, three, four, five, six —

He had stopped at six. He was waiting for me to do the rest.

My thumb hovered. I started to type seven, the way I had started to on the dock, matchbook in my pocket. I deleted the s and typed instead: