Chapter 4 - The Door on Eighty-Second StreetJackson Heights in July is a furnace of brick, concrete, and the rich, heavy scent of roasting spices, diesel exhaust, and roasting corn from street vendors.
The apartment building on Eighty-Second Street was an old, six-story walk-up with peeling green paint around the front door, a broken intercom system with names scratched out in faded black marker, and rusty iron fire escapes zig-zagging up the facade like spiderwebs.
My black sedan idled discreetly down the block, parked half a car-length away from a fire hydrant. Marco wanted to come with me, but I told him to stay in the car.
Some doors are meant to be opened alone.
I climbed the four flights of stairs to apartment 4B.
My heart was pounding against my ribs—not from cardiac arrest this time, but from a strange, terrifying mixture of dread and long-dormant grief. Every step up the concrete staircase felt heavier than the last, the air growing warmer and more humid with each landing, smelling faintly of bleach, old carpet, and boiling laundry.
I stopped in front of apartment 4B.
The door was made of scarred wooden panels with three different locks—a standard deadbolt, a chain, and a heavy iron drop-bar.
I raised my hand and knocked twice.
Tap. Tap.
Inside, there was a brief, sharp scuffle of footsteps. The sound of a metal chain rattling against its housing. Then a small voice spoke through the wood, muffled and cautious.
“Who is it?”
I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second, recognizing that voice instantly from the 911 recording.
“It’s the man from Fifty-Third Street, Lily,” I said, keeping my voice as gentle as I could manage. “The man who fell down.”
A long silence followed.
Then the sound of locks turning. One. Two. Three.
The door swung open six inches, held back by the safety chain.
A pair of wide, dark brown eyes peered out through the gap—eyes that were an exact replica of my own staring back at me from a mirror thirty years ago.
Lily looked up at me, her blonde curls messy, wearing the very same faded yellow dress she had worn on the Manhattan sidewalk.
She didn't look scared. She looked profoundly surprised.
“You’re standing up,” she said.
“I am,” I replied, offering her a small, tight smile that felt unfamiliar on my face. “Thanks to you. May I come in, Lily?”
Before she could answer, a voice called out from the dim, cramped kitchen at the end of the narrow hallway.
“Lily, honey, who’s at the door? Is the delivery from the pharmacy here?”
The sound of that voice hit me in the chest harder than the heart attack had.
Elena Bennett stepped out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a faded dish towel.
She was thirty-two years old now. The sharp, youthful angles of her face had softened into a quiet, tired beauty. Her dark hair was pulled back in a loose clip, and she wore a plain gray t-shirt and jeans with a small paint stain on the knee.
She stopped dead in her tracks five feet down the hallway.
The dish towel slipped from her fingers, dropping silently onto the linoleum floor.
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Her dark eyes went wide, locking onto mine with an expression that wasn't anger, and wasn't joy, but a profound, overwhelming shock—as if she were looking at a ghost risen straight out of the East River.
“Dominic?” she whispered.
