Chapter 1

My name was Jordan Carter, and I was a woman.

Gloria Grant from the apartment below me took me to court and accused me of assaulting her daughter.

The whole complex called me an animal, and the local news ran the story of the sick male piano teacher.

On the day of the hearing, I stood at the defense table and listened to their lawyer describe how I had violated a nineteen-year-old girl.

The judge asked if I had anything to say in my defense.

I held up my driver's license. "Your Honor, I'm a woman."

The courtroom fell silent for three seconds, and then the opposing lawyer's pen clattered to the floor.

*****

My name was Jordan Carter. I was twenty-seven, and I taught piano.

My name had been a running joke my whole life.

Every time somebody read it off a list, they paused and then checked. "Jordan Carter? Is that a man?"

I had gotten used to it.

My looks didn't help. I stood five foot nine, kept my hair short, and lived in dark blazers and loose T-shirts. I wasn't going for anything. It was simply easier to teach a kid at a piano bench without a skirt in the way.

My voice ran low, so people on the phone almost always called me Mr. Carter.

Now it had actually caused a problem.

I had lived in Sunrise Gardens for three years, leaving early and coming home late, and my relationship with the neighbors never got past the elevator. We nodded at each other and sometimes said hello.

Gloria Grant and her daughter, Sophie, lived in the unit right below mine.

Gloria was in her fifties, and her voice carried through the whole building. Sophie was nineteen, quiet, and she kept her head down around people.

My interactions with them were limited to running into them by the mailboxes downstairs or riding the elevator together for a minute or two.

Everything changed last Friday night.

That night, after finishing my last lesson, I got home at 10:30.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, I saw Gloria planted in front of my door with her hands on her hips and a face like a storm front.

Her voice was so loud that it lit up the motion-activated lights on the whole floor.

"Jordan Carter, you should be ashamed of yourself!"

My mind buzzed, and the bag of sheet music in my hand almost slipped to the floor.

"Mrs. Grant? What's going on?"

"Don't play dumb with me." She took a sudden step forward, her finger almost poking my nose. "My daughter is only nineteen. How could you do that? You beast!"

The last two words exploded in the empty hallway, echoing loudly.

The doors of the two neighboring apartments quietly opened a crack.

I kept my voice level. "Mrs. Grant, tell me what this is about. What did I do?"

"You have the nerve to ask." She yanked out her old phone, swiped the screen with force, and shoved it right in my face. "Look. Sophie told me everything. Last Friday night, did you go into her room? Did you do something to her?"

It finally clicked for me.

Last Friday night, around 8 PM, Sophie did knock on my door.

She told me the school's piano tuner was broken and she needed one urgently for tomorrow. She wanted to borrow mine.

I said she could come up and get it, but she said she was in her pajamas and asked if I could just drop it off at her door.

I agreed.

I grabbed the tuner, went downstairs, and handed it to her right at her doorway. She took it, thanked me, and I headed back upstairs.

The whole thing took less than forty seconds. I didn't even step inside her room.

"I did bring her the tuner," I took a deep breath. "But it was just at her door, and the whole thing took less than a minute. I never even touched her."

"Bullshit." Gloria's voice went up. "Sophie told me herself. She said you covered her mouth and held her down. You think a girl makes something like that up about herself?"

I laughed at that. "Mrs. Grant, this is a misunderstanding. Bring Sophie up here and let's sort it out face to face."

"Face to face, so you can lean on her again?" Her voice climbed another notch. "Not a chance. Either you pay me 650 thousand dollars right now, or I walk into the police station and sue you on top of it. You'll do time for this."

Six hundred fifty thousand dollars.

Now I finally got it.

This wasn't a misunderstanding; it was straight-up robbery.

"I'm not confessing to something I never did." I tossed the sheet music bag onto my shoulder and fished out my keys. "Go ahead and sue me. I'll see you in court."

"You..." Gloria clearly hadn't expected me to hold my ground, and her face went red. "Fine. You just wait."

She spun around and stormed downstairs, her footsteps pounding like a drum.

I unlocked the door, stepped inside, and locked it with a flick.

I pressed my back against the door, my heart thudding in my chest.

It wasn't fear. It was anger.