I was reserving judgment on the actual unit, but I felt good about the location at least. The address she gave me was near Logan Circle, a neighborhood that was vibrant and largely safe. Most of the buildings in the area were either classic row houses or new construction, so her unit was almost certainly decent unless she was terribly unlucky. And Audrey was never unlucky.

Besides, her new home was only a few blocks from mine, and I was pleased with the idea of Audrey living so close to me. I envisioned us picking up our friendship where we had left off, getting manicures and brunch and dancing along to old Britney Spears songs in our pajamas. That night, we had opened a bottle of wine, and then another, as we caught each other up on our lives, and everything had felt so much like the old days that I thought I might burst with happiness.

In the morning, a hangover throbbing behind my eyes, I walked with Audrey to meet her new landlord. I crossed my fingers that this “Leanne” was truly who she claimed to be and that Audrey’s laissez-faire attitude to apartment shopping wouldn’t lead to trouble. We turned onto one of the neighborhood’s quiet, narrow side streets, lined with leafy green trees and colorful row houses. It was the kind of street that made you forget you were in the middle of the city.

Audrey stopped midsentence and checked the address on her phone. “Here it is. Home sweet home.”

I followed her gaze to a picturesque four-story row house, its brick painted pale beige and its shutters a crisp black. It was set slightly back from the sidewalk, a short path leading to the steps cutting through a small, grass-covered front yard. A couple of flowering bushes were crowded along the building at ground level, and window boxes dripping with flowers hung from the upper stories.

I exhaled with relief. “It looks nice. Which unit are you in?”

“B. I’m not sure which one that is. Maybe the second floor?”

I cringed, certain that “B” did not stand for second floor. I had seen enough “B” units during my own apartment search to know what it meant.

“Hey, check out the dungeon,” Audrey said, nudging me and pointing to an iron gate underneath the front steps. Behind it, a bright blue door was partially hidden below street level.

“Um …” I murmured, pointing reluctantly to the letter “B” above the buzzer next to the gate.

“Oh. I guess it’s my dungeon.”

I tried to give her a sympathetic look but she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Leanne said to ring the bell for Unit 1 when I arrived,” she told me, then set her jaw and marched up the front stairs, platform sandals heralding her arrival. She depressed the buzzer and then looked back at me, offering a brilliant, obviously fake smile.

Her smile dropped when the door swung open to reveal a thin, wiry man in his twenties. He had greasy dark hair looped into a bun on top of his head and a tattoo of something with wings—an eagle? a dragon?—spreading out from beneath his wifebeater, and he clutched a canned energy drink in one hand with jagged, dirty nails.