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“Give my regards to my sister, won’t you?”
It echoed in my head, the significance sinking in.
“Is everything okay?” Neil asked.
I snapped to my senses, noticing Neil had pulled away from me. He squinted his eyes, head tilted.
“Sorry,” I said. “I zoned out for a moment there. You were saying?”
“It’s getting late. Do you want a ride home?”
The prospect of him taking me home was tempting, but I already felt overwhelmed and overstimulated from so much close, one-on-one time with him. Any more and I might explode from the tension. The walk to the train station would calm me down and help me process my thoughts. “That’s okay. I’ll take the train.”
I gently pushed Chichi off my lap. She padded back over to Neil’s suit jacket.
Neil walked me to the door. “Have you got everything?”
“I think so.”
“Oh—don’t forget this.” He swiped the envelope containing my tip off the kitchen island and passed it to me.
“Thanks.” I slipped it into my bag, blushing with renewed embarrassment that I was his cleaner.
Neil opened the door for me, and I stepped into the corridor. “See you at work tomorrow,” he said from the doorway.
I nodded. “Good night.”
We lingered there for a second before Neil finally closed the door. I didn’t catch my breath until I heard it lock. My head was reeling.
While I waited for the lift, I typed a string of words into the search bar on my phone. “Zelthia Singapore Daniel Ling sister.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ipsyched myself up to confront Neil at work the next morning. I knew he’d be mad at me for digging, but there was something I had to ask him. Something I had to know.
My heart thudded as I approached Neil’s office, but when I reached his door, I realised it was locked shut. That was strange in itself, but even stranger was the blue Post-It note attached to the surface. In Neil’s spidery scrawl, it read:
Meet me on the roof.
N.
Dread blossomed in the pit of my stomach.
The roof?
I thought the roof had been locked and out of bounds since Alex died. Why would Neil go there? And why did he want me to join him?
It crossed my mind that it could be some kind of test, or maybe even a trap, but my concern for Neil overrode those thoughts. What if the police had missed something in their investigation, and danger lurked? The rumoured rickety railing, or an uneven surface which could cause him to stumble towards the edge…
The memory of Alex falling to his death replayed in my head. The human-shaped downward blur. The all-consuming sense of terror as I realised what I had witnessed.
I took a deep breath. What mattered most was checking on Neil. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to him.
The fire exit door was next to the lifts. I pushed it open and entered the cold concrete stairwell. The stairs did one zigzag up before reaching a windowless landing, lit by a faint, flickering bulb. This was the end of the road. A large, heavy-looking steel door awaited me—the door that had been locked to staff since Alex died.
I turned the handle and forced the stubborn door open. It squeaked on its hinges, and a vortex of howling wind leaked through the widening gap and into the stairwell. I squinted my eyes against the gust and the brightness of the overcast sky.
The roof was a wide concrete surface, flat apart from the air-conditioning units, vents, and satellite dishes jutting out. A safety barrier bordered the perimeter. Neil stood at the edge, looking out at the cityscape. The blustery wind ruffled his hair and whipped at his tie.
