I was paralyzed, afraid to even blink. There was no more movement in the hall, but I could hear breathing—no, panting. Someone was panting outside that door. The wine turned unpleasantly in my stomach. Whoever was in the apartment was now between me and the only exit.

Get out of the bathtub, my mind screamed at me. That door is going to open in five seconds and you are going to go the way of Janet Leigh in Psycho if you don’t get out of the bathtub right fucking now.

And then what? Even if I were able to leap from the tub and lock the door before the heavy breather in the hallway threw it open, then what? I would be trapped inside Cat’s bathroom with no cell phone and no way out.

The doorknob clicked slightly, a soft but ominous sound, as though someone had gripped the handle on the other side but not turned it.

Yet.

Forget thinking three steps ahead. Survival was all that mattered. Mind nearly blank with terror, I flung myself out of the bathtub. Lavender-scented water splashed over the tiles as I lunged for the door, and my feet slipped out from underneath me. My knees smacked the ground hard enough to bring tears to my eyes, and I cried out in pain. My hands flew to my mouth, as though they could shove the noise back in, as though there might remain some mystery about where I was. The doorknob turned, and I squeezed my eyes shut in a panicked, pointless attempt to prevent the inevitable.

“Audrey?”

His voice was so calm, so normal that I almost believed it was an auditory hallucination. Slowly, I opened my eyes. Max was standing in the doorway, wearing his favorite Ted and the Honey T-shirt and an expression of concern.

“Are you okay?” he asked, setting down a paper Whole Foods bag and holding out a hand to help me up from the floor.

I scrambled to my feet without assistance and grabbed a thick towel, wrapping it protectively around my body. “Max? What are you doing here?”

“Checking on you. I knew you were here alone, and you weren’t answering my calls. I was worried. I wanted to make sure you were okay.” His voice dropped as he looked at me closely. “Are you okay?”

I ached to fling myself into his arms and let his gentle hands soothe my rattled nerves, but I took a step back instead. I still had some serious questions about those photographs, and, besides, I’d told him I needed time to think. He shouldn’t have just come barging into someone else’s home looking for me.

Someone else’s locked home, I remembered with a start.

“How did you get inside?”

He tilted his head slightly. “The door was unlocked.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yeah, it was. When you didn’t answer after I knocked, I got concerned. I tried the knob and it opened.”

He was lying. I had locked that door. Or I thought I had locked that door. But if I had, how had he gotten inside?