The Deal

The Morning After

The next day Lisa was laboring to open her eyes from what seemed like a 20 minute nap as opposed to a few hour sleep. It was 9:03am and she was badly hung over. "Why do I not rehydrate before falling asleep?" She said to herself while lying back with her eyes closed again, head pounding. She opened her eyes again and stumbled her way to the kitchen of her impressive one bedroom apartment and started the coffee maker. She spent the next several minutes scrolling through the large numbers of hilarious and ridiculous text exchanges on her phone from the night before. They were exchanges with colleagues and friends. Some of the text messages were accompanied by equally hilarious and ridiculous pictures. Lisa smiled. She could go through these texts and pictures all day and be fully content. Just then the phone started vibrating in her hand. It was an incoming call. The caller id displayed a picture of a beautiful selfie of an African American dancer and the name Serena Mitchell appeared at the top of the screen. This was odd because Serena never called Lisa, she would always text. Lisa accepted the call immediately.

"Hello?" Lisa said hesitantly.

"Lisa! It's Serena. Come to Eddie's! Oh my god, oh my god. Lisa, can you come!?" Serena was frantic. After these initial few words a loud bang was heard, almost like Serena had dropped the phone. Then there was a muffled sound followed by sobbing from Serena then quiet before a man's voice came through over the phone.

"Hello?" the voice said in a strong New York accent.

"Who is this? Is Serena okay? Give the phone back to Serena!" Lisa shouted into the phone.

"Ma'am, my name is Officer Jeff Richardo from the NYPD. I'm with Ms. Mitchell here at the apartment of," the officer paused as he seemed to shuffle through some paper notes "Mr. Edward Roberts."

"Yes, I know Serena and I work with Eddie. Is Eddie okay? What happened?" Lisa had many more questions but paused to give the Officer a chance to respond.

"Ms. Mitchell would like you to come to the apartment. We'll need your help with some information. We've had an incident here and we'll need your support in multiple ways. Are you close by?" Officer Richardo said calmly and professionally.

"Yes. I'm three blocks away. I'll be there as fast as I can. Probably 10 minutes."

"Thank you, Ma'am."

Before Lisa could ask her next question the Officer had hung up.

Lisa, in an instant panic, through a hoodie over her head, put on her running shoes, and started running down the street towards Eddie's apartment. She was still in her pajama bottoms but she didn't care. A flurry of thoughts raced through her mind. Was Eddie hurt? Why was Serena so frantic? Did he have too much to drink? Was he mugged? Is he conscious? Is he even alive? With each unanswered question entering her mind she seemed to run faster. She wanted answers and certainty.

Lisa reached 281 Sutton Avenue in just shy of 7 minutes. She scrambled up the 3 flights of stairs to Eddie's floor. While climbing the last flight of stairs she looked up to notice Eddie's apartment door was open. The landlord was standing outside on his phone and Lisa could hear Serena sobbing loudly inside the apartment. As she reached the door and stepped inside she was met by Serena who immediately grabbed her, wrapped her arms around Lisa tightly, and whaled. It was the kind of emotion Lisa had never seen from Serena before.

"He's gone! He's gone! He's gone!" Serena kept saying through her sobs.

Lisa was looking around the apartment trying to process what was going on. Her heart was pounding and she was confused as her eyes met the eyes of a police officer at the opposite end of the room.