The Annoying Sleepwalker novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: A Hundred and Twelve

The stairwell on four smelled of floor wax and old rain.

Casper went up first with his camera running.

I came behind him and kept my hand on the rail.

Kelsey was crouched on the landing behind the fire hose box, in her coat, with a duffel bag between her feet.

She looked up and did not try to run.

"You came," she said.

"Where are they?" Casper said.

She reached behind the box and held out a small zippered pouch.

Casper opened it and counted four memory cards, the card reader and the little drive.

His shoulders came down.

"They're all here," he said.

"I told you I didn't give them to her," Kelsey said.

"You took them," I said.

"I did." She stood up slowly. "I took them because I was scared of what she'd do to me if I didn't. Then I stood in that hall and watched you walk down the aisle with your head up, and I couldn't."

"That doesn't fix my laptop," I said.

"I know."

"It doesn't fix the guitar or the drive or the interview I missed."

"What interview?" Kelsey said, confused.

I shut my mouth.

In this life I had not missed it. Nobody here knew it had ever happened.

"Never mind," I said. "Why are you here?"

Kelsey held up her phone.

"She told me to delete everything every night," she said. "I did. Every night."

My stomach dropped.

"But the phone backs itself up to my mother's cloud account," Kelsey said. "I never turned it off. I didn't know how."

She turned the screen toward me.

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