Chapter 1
It was 2:17 a.m. Cloris Lane stared at her phone screen, her fingertips cold.
On the screen was a hotel booking—made with her VIP account, for the newly opened five-star hotel on the east side of the city. Someone booked a king room and checked in tonight.
In the notes section, it read: [Wedding anniversary surprise. Please help with the setup. Thank you.]
Wedding anniversary. Today was her and her husband's seventh wedding anniversary.
Her husband, Larry Ward, was sleeping right next to her, breathing steadily, even letting out a soft snore. His arm was draped across her waist, so heavy that she felt like she could barely breathe.
Cloris turned her phone's brightness all the way down and tapped into that woman's social media.
The latest post was from three hours ago. [He said he wanted to give me a home.]
The photo attached showed the city lights outside the hotel's floor-to-ceiling window, with a man's silhouette reflected in the glass. It was blurry, but Cloris knew exactly who it was.
She backed out, cleared the app, set the phone back on the nightstand, and closed her eyes.
In the darkness, she brushed the wedding ring on her finger, twisted it around once, but didn't take it off.
At 6 a.m. the next morning, Cloris got up right on time, made breakfast, woke the kid, and sent him to school, all like clockwork. Before heading out, she stood in front of the mirror for three seconds, put on her ring, and then left.
After dropping the kid off, she drove to the city hall and parked outside for ten minutes.
At 8:52, she didn't go in.
At 9:30, she got home. As she pushed the door open, she instinctively glanced down at the crack under the door. There was nothing there.
Cloris didn't know why she checked.
Maybe it was because, over the past month, she'd found something in the crack under her door twelve times.
The first time was three weeks ago.
That day, Cloris's period hit, and she curled up writhing in agony on the living room sofa. She had no painkiller at home. She was in too much pain to head downstairs, nor did she have the energy to go buy any.
She lay there, with cold sweat on her forehead, staring at the ceiling, thinking, 'I might as well die from this pain.'
Then she heard a soft rustle at the door, like something being slipped under. It was the sound of paper sliding across the floor.
She crawled over. Sitting there in the crack under the door was a blister pack of painkillers, two pills.
Cloris was stunned for a few seconds, and then suddenly yanked the door open.
No one was in the hallway, and the motion-sensor light flickered on and then off again. The dark gray security door next door was sealed tight, as if it had never been opened.
Cloris had lived here for two years and had never seen the neighbor.
All she knew was that the person next door lived alone. The door was always closed, and there was never any trash outside, never any packages.
Sometimes, late at night, she'd hear faint footsteps inside, like a cat walking on wooden floors. Sometimes she wondered if there was actually a person living there, or just a cat.
She picked up the pills, hesitated for a moment, then popped one out and swallowed it.
The second time was a week later.
That night, Cloris had worked overtime until 1 a.m., and by the time she got home, she was running on fumes.
She was starving and exhausted, but when she opened the fridge, it was already empty, and had been for three days. Larry had promised to buy groceries, but he hadn't even come home at all that week.
She sat in the pitch-black living room, suddenly not wanting to move. She didn't want to turn on the lights, didn't want to order takeout, didn't want to shower, and didn't have any will left to live.
She just sat there, no idea how long she'd been there. Then, she heard a noise coming from under the door again.
This time, it was a plastic bag, being pushed in bit by bit. Inside was a box of instant food, a bottle of water, and two pieces of candy.
This time, Cloris sprang to her feet, rushed over, and yanked the door open. The hallway's motion-sensor light flicked on, and she caught a glimpse of the neighbor's door just as it was closing.
The last sliver of warm yellow light slipped through the crack, and then disappeared as the door clicked shut.
She stood in the doorway, barefoot in her pajamas, clutching the instant food, stunned for a long moment.
"Thank you," Cloris said to the closed door.
No one answered.
After this kind of thing happened several times, Cloris started to get used to it.
Whenever she was at her absolute worst, this would happen.
Like the night she cried after her boss chewed her out, and the morning she got a call from the debt collectors.
Like the afternoon she realized Larry had blocked her on social media, and the rainy night she had to take her feverish kid to the hospital all by herself.
Whenever she got home from those messes and glanced at the crack under the door, there was always something there.
Sometimes it was a pack of tissues, sometimes a bag of fruit, sometimes a few candies, sometimes an umbrella.
There were no notes, no messages, not a single word. But she knew that someone was out there, paying attention.