That was a year ago.
So long ago that even the Google Maps image of 779 Sterling Place has been replaced by an updated view.
I turn off my phone.
My bedroom becomes once again as dark as it is hot.
I wipe the sweat from my eyes. Outside the window, there are no cars on the street. The only sound is the hum of the city pressing on invisibly through the night.
For a moment I consider calling the cops. I consider telling them everything I've just recalled. But then I think about the time they arrested my dad and roughed him up, thinking he was selling meth. When they realized they had the wrong guy, they just left him bruised and shaken without as much as a sorry. And then I remember how slowly the detectives moved when they were investigating my sister's disappearance. Even in the early days after Shanna had gone missing, they couldn't work for fifteen minutes straight without going out to get a cup of coffee. And when they did actually work, they mostly just filled out report forms and affidavits.
Lying in the dark, I think about the last time I saw my sister. I think about how she was so drugged that she could barely lift her head from the mattress in that dank basement. I think about the wire wrapped around her wrists.
Another wave of guilt and regret surges into me as I remember the sound of her voice screaming at me to run.
I get out of bed. I crawl out the window. I lower the fire escape ladder and climb down into the alley.
It's so dark without the street lights that I can barely see where I'm going. But I know which way south is, and I'm able to keep to the sidewalk well enough, and I'm pretty sure I can find where my street crosses Sterling in the next neighborhood over.
What I don't know is whether my sister is still alive. Or what's in that basement now.
I just know I have to find out.
