Chapter 19: Rehearsal

Cassia's POV

On Friday morning, the lobby screen at Lakeshore stopped showing the weather.

It showed a white slide, in a font that was trying to be handwriting.

"CASSIA, I'M SORRY. COME HOME."

It looped every thirty seconds, under the company logo, over the heads of everyone waiting for an elevator.

A security guard stood under it with his arms crossed, looking at the ceiling.

"He paid for the slot with his own card," he told me. "Facilities says it's legal for a week."

"It's all right," I said. "Leave it."

People watched me walk across the marble.

I kept walking, and I did not look up, and I did not slow down.

Upstairs, a courier was waiting at my desk with a small box and a clipboard.

It was the same courier, and he looked apologetic.

Inside the box was a brass house key, on a white ribbon, and a printed listing for a greystone in Logan Square.

Under the listing was a card in Cory's hand.

"Your own front door. Your grandmother would have wanted it."

I sat down.

My grandmother's envelope card had said "For your own front door," and I had never shown it to him.

I had put it in the bottom of the joint file the week she died.

He had gone through that file, found it, and kept it for when it was useful.

"Oh, he didn't," Kat said, reading over my shoulder. "He did not use your grandmother."

"He did."

"I'm going to put that key somewhere he'll be able to feel it."

"No," I said. "We're going to put it back."

I wrote a single word on a sticky note, stuck it to the ribbon, and walked the box down to the front desk myself.

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