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Whoever comes inside does not knock. Fucking rude.

I hear the door shut, then the lock turns behind her. Keys hit the little table near the entrance with the careless sound of somebody who expects to pick them up again later.

“Ben?”

I know the voice.

My hand closes around the strap of the duffel.

Mara used that same tone across the kitchen like Simon was hers to order. Now she walks straight into his apartment with her own key. Cabinet doors open in the kitchen. The refrigerator seal pulls loose, followed by a long silence.

“Ben,” she calls, sharper this time.

I stay still behind the curtain while Mara crosses the apartment. Who gave her permission to stroll through his place? Ben gave her a key. Simon doesn’t own a door anymore. I loosen my grip on the bag before the zipper pull taps against the tub.

Mara’s footsteps stop outside the bathroom.

I hold the duffel against my legs while she steps inside. The room is too small for both of us, even with a shower curtain between us. She opens the medicine cabinet, then the drawer beneath the sink. When she moves closer, her shadow crosses the curtain and blocks the thin stripe of light along the edge.

“The toothbrush is gone.”

She’s talking to someone on the phone.

Mara leaves the bathroom without checking the shower. I wait until her footsteps reach the bedroom before I let my shoulders move away from the wall.

“He took clothes too. A couple days, maybe.”

The apartment is telling her exactly what I arranged it to say. A drawer opens in the bedroom. Mara closes it again.

“No, I don’t believe that.” Mara walks back into the living room. “Ben’s never missed a shift. He’d come in with a broken arm and make me send him home.”

Mara keeps talking while she moves through the apartment, checking the few places I already checked. “Nobody’s heard from him since his last close. He was still at the counter with that woman when we left.”

She stops. The silence lasts long enough that I lean closer to the curtain.

“His car is still in the employee lot,” she finally says.

Mara exhales through her nose. I can picture the expression. The same look she gave Simon whenever he annoyed her at the restaurant.

“No. I’m done waiting.” Her voice changes, losing the irritation and settling into the tone that made Simon straighten behind the line. “I’m filing the report.”

I stay behind the curtain while Mara stands in Simon’s apartment making decisions about him.

She’s lost that fucking role.

I wait until the front door finally closes and her key turns in the lock before I move. The apartment looks almost exactly as it did when I arrived. I put my ear to the front door and wait until the hallway stays quiet, then let myself out and lock up.

His car is still in the employee lot.

That’s Simon’s fault.

Mara can file whatever report she wants.

They’ll be looking for Ben. He’s already Simon.

CHAPTER 34

Jamie