But he remains at the bottom of the steps, looking up, watching her disappear back into the apartment alongside Mikaila.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

CONNOR

PRESENT

Diana calls that night and tells me Bowman is still tied up with Zach.

“Sit tight,” she says. “It may be tomorrow morning before you get her undivided attention.”

After I hang up, I go into the kitchen and find the remains of my smashed door still scattered everywhere. I need to clean that mess up, but I go past it, impressed by the amount of force Zach was able to deliver with just one solid kick.

I take the rickety stairs down to the basement and cross the room to the door leading to the outside. The one lacking a dead bolt that everyone and their brother has been using as a portal to my world.

It smells musty down here. The air is cool. Around the edges of the room, boxes and boxes of old crap are stacked, waiting for someone to go through it and toss it out.

I give Zach credit—he didn’t need to smash this door down. He must have used a credit card or knife to get past the tiny lock. He even closed the door behind him when he came in.

I spend little time in the basement unless it’s to do laundry. I look around and see an old kitchen chair, one with a broken rung underneath. It’s been down here hoping to be fixed since before Emily and Jake died, so I take it over to the door and wedge it under the knob. It fits well and has a purpose again for the first time in years.

But I’m not sure the chair alone will keep anyone out. I look some more and find a cinder block. I’m not sure why it’s here. I think it came with the house. When I pick it up, my fingers sink into the cobwebs inside it like cotton candy. I place the cinder block on top of the chair, hoping to make it harder for anyone else to come in. And I make a mental note to call a locksmith.

I wipe the cobwebs off on my pant leg and turn to go. When I reach the bottom of the stairs, I stop. I see across the room some boxes that hold items from Jake’s room. Clothes. Books. Toys he played with when he was little.

Just like the broken chair, they’ve been down here for years, waiting for me to deal with them. And I haven’t wanted to. I couldn’t bring myself to take the job on, and I always told myself I was too busy with other things.

There’s a lot of crap from the past I haven’t dealt with.

Maybe it’s time.