Dead Man District

by Julie Miller

  “One or the other,” she hollered back. “Pj’s before playtime, okay?”

  She smiled at his answering multipitched groan, picked up her own backpack and carried it to the kitchen. She flipped on the light switch and stopped in her tracks. “What the...?”

  Her oven was missing. Not blackened up the front edge. Not under repairs. Gone.

  “What...? Where...?”

  Before she picked up the phone to call Mr. Stinson and ask how she was supposed to cook breakfast in the morning, Corie forced herself to inhale a steadying breath. What she noticed then wasn’t much better.

  She sniffed the air again. Something smelled off. Different. Extra.

  Then she spotted the sticky note clinging to her microwave oven. She set her bag on the counter beside it and tore it off. She read it quickly, read it twice before breathing a little easier.

  Mrs. McGuire—

  Got the plug fixed. Don’t know how, but the wires had disconnected. The microwave works.

  Your oven will take me a little longer.

  We need to talk.

  Wally S.

  “You’re darned right we need to talk.”

  She crumpled the note in her fist and punched a couple of buttons on the microwave, just to reassure herself that she could heat up breakfast. Then she pushed up the sleeves of her cardigan sweater and got busy putting away the takeout box and cleaning up the mess of rearranged items and a grease smudge Mr. Stinson had left behind. She wiped down the countertops and found a space underneath the sink where she could move the pots and pans he’d taken from the bottom drawer of the oven and strewn across the counter. Then she pulled the sweeper from the pantry closet and swept out the dust bunnies that had collected under and behind the stove. She knew she should be feeling grateful for Mr. Stinson’s help instead of this nagging sense of violation. But how could she explain to the kindly older gentleman the sense of intrusion she felt knowing that someone had been in her apartment while she’d been away?

  He didn’t know her history. No one in Kansas City did. Not all of it. He thought he was being helpful, doing his job. Wally Stinson was being helpful. She was the one whose sense of friendly and helpful and normal had been skewed by her ex-husband’s violence and control, and her mother’s opinion that everything Kenny had done to her was just part of being married. Even when he’d been arrested for multiple counts of arson and witness intimidation and had taken a plea deal that guaranteed his guilt in exchange for less prison time, Corie’s mother had begged her not to divorce him. Kenny had money and connections and a veneer of status her mother accused her of throwing away.

  Corie had dropped the charges of domestic battery and attempted kidnapping, just to make sure Kenny went away and she got full custody of Evan.

  But any sense of security was fragile and hard-won. Yes, she’d broken all ties with Kenny and her mother. She’d moved away, changed her and Evan’s names and lived as invisible a life as possible. But that didn’t mean she still didn’t jump at shadows, worry when Evan was out of her sight, and fear the idea of someone watching her, touching her things without her knowing, trespassing on her life.

  She’d called Mr. Stinson this morning, and he’d promised to stop by. The man had keys to get into every apartment in the building. She’d known he would be here today. A normal person wouldn’t be upset by that. Oh, how she desperately wished for the day she could feel normal again. Her therapist in St. Louis had advised her to visualize what she wanted her life to look like in the future, and eventually she’d be able to let go of the past and she’d get there. During her counseling sessions, she’d also learned to think before reacting. Her feelings of fear and distrust were to be expected, given all she’d been through. But that didn’t mean she had to act on them.

  Take a deep breath.

  Think. Observe. Assess.

  Then react to what was really here.

  Corie did just that, taking the time to put away the sweeper and calm her fears. The building had been locked. Their apartment was locked. She and Evan were safe.

  Mr. Stinson’s presence accounted for the whisper of an unfamiliar scent that lingered in the air. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to pinpoint the fading smell of something woodsy combined with citrus. She opened her eyes and ran the water in the sink to rinse her dish rag. When she squirted the lemony hand soap to clean her hands, she thought she’d solved the mystery. Mr. Stinson had probably washed his hands here when he was done working. Moving the oven would have required a dolly and maybe some extra help from the part-time super who lived in the apartment below hers and helped with bigger projects like replacing a damaged oven.

  But to completely dismiss her suspicions, Corie needed to do a little more investigating. Did the super wear cologne? Did his assistant? She wanted to verify that the extra scent in her kitchen belonged to one of them and her paranoia was simply an overreaction. It was yet another reason to get Evan into his pajamas and hurry downstairs to speak to the building super before he turned in for the night.

  As she picked up a towel to dry her hands, her gaze landed on the dessert plate sitting in the drainer beside the sink. Matt Taylor had returned it early that morning, washed and dried, before heading to his shift at Firehouse 13. Since she and Evan had been in their usual mad dash to get ready for school and up to the bus stop, she’d thanked him again, thanked him for comparing her pie to his grandmother’s and then, realizing the silliness of their rushed morning conversation, had told him goodbye and set the plate in the drainer before running back to her room to throw on some mascara, blush and lip gloss, grab their coats and backpacks, and get them up to the bus stop.

  But that silly conversation at her door meant that Matt had been at her apartment twice now in the past twenty-four hours. Maybe that’s what felt off about the apartment tonight. Other than the movers and Mr. Stinson, who was old enough to be her father, she hadn’t had any man in here. Did Matt have a scent that lingered in the air? Somehow, she had the impression that he wasn’t a cologne kind of guy. But that didn’t mean he didn’t put off natural pheromones that spoke to something purely feminine inside her. Was she just projecting her thoughts, imagining something had changed in her apartment because an attractive man had been here?

  Corie put the plate away and leaned against the edge of the sink, staring at her reflection in the window there. She looked a little older and a lot more tired since the last time she’d thought of any man as attractive. She hadn’t thought about a man that way in years. Not since Kenny and their ugly divorce. Not since remaking her life to keep her and Evan safe.

  She was human enough to objectively appreciate a good-looking man, even to be a little bit in awe of the utter masculinity of size and strength embodied by her neighbor, especially in that sharply pressed, shoulder-hugging black firefighter’s uniform he’d been wearing this morning. The day she and Evan had moved in, and they’d first met Matt Taylor, she had to admit, she’d been afraid of him. Her ex-husband, Kenny Norwell, was of average height and build, and he’d been scary enough when he’d used his words and his fists and his threats against her. Sharing the close quarters of an elevator ride with Matt had made her feel practically helpless. She appreciated him respecting her need to keep her distance. She’d never heard him swear or raise his voice in anger. Over the months they’d shared the same apartment building, she’d deduced that he wasn’t a seething powder keg about to blow, that he was truly a quiet, gentle-natured person, despite his size.

  Still, she’d been feeling like something was off in her apartment for a couple of days now, even before Matt’s suspicions about the oven fire had reinforced her own and made her anxious to get him out of her space, no matter how kind and helpful he was being. The cherry pie had been as much an apology for her sudden haste in getting rid of him last night as it had been a thank-you for allaying her fears about the fire. And for impressing Evan with the watch a
nd timekeeping responsibility. Being estranged from her mother and stepfather meant there was no strong adult male influence in Evan’s life, other than a couple of wonderful teachers. And she certainly wasn’t going to get involved with another man just to give her son a father figure. She’d learned the hard way that marrying a man didn’t make him a good father—or husband.

  Corie reached across the sink to pull the curtains shut and cancel out both her perpetually wary expression and the cold night beyond. Maybe she could ease up a little on her isolationist rules that had become second nature to her and strike up a friendship with Matt. Just so Evan could have him as a friend, too.

  Only, she had a feeling that Matt might be interested in more than friendship. And she couldn’t give him that. At least, she thought she’d felt those vibes of attraction, felt the heat of a wandering gaze plastered to her backside. And her mouth.

  She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been kissed. The last time she’d wanted a man to kiss her.

  Then again, she was so out of practice with relationships that she could be reading Matt Taylor all wrong. Matt was a quiet man who kept mostly to himself. As far as she could tell, there was no woman in his life. He was all about his work. And clearly, he worked out. Muscles like his didn’t just happen. She’d seen him coming home in his black KCFD uniform or wearing a KCFD T-shirt like the one that had stretched across his broad chest last night often enough to know he was a firefighter, even before he’d announced it in the hallway last night. He was polite, a little awkward when it came to conversation, completely unaware of, or maybe embarrassed by, his dry sense of humor. But was he shy? Or was he reclusive for other reasons like she was?

  Corie hung up the towel and headed out of the kitchen toward the bedrooms to make sure Evan was getting ready for bed. Certainly, she counted a few men among her friends—coworkers, classmates at Williams University. But they were more acquaintances than anyone she’d feel comfortable hanging out with in her own home. And nothing with them had ever fluttered with interest, much less real desire. Abuse, blackmail and living in fear of her and Evan’s lives had made trusting a man impossible—and being attracted to one too big a risk to take.

  She barely recognized the womanly impulses inside her anymore, but last night, something had definitely fluttered. Matt had sensed she was in danger and had come to her rescue. He’d taken several practical steps to keep her and Evan safe and to prevent any further damage to her kitchen and apartment. And he’d done it all without grabbing her, threatening her or talking down to her like she was an idiot who wouldn’t understand.

  Although Corie doubted she’d ever feel completely safe again after surviving her marriage to Kenny, for a few minutes last night, she hadn’t been afraid. She’d been worried that Evan could have seriously injured himself, and that she’d have to dig into her meager savings to come up with the money to replace the oven if the super and building owner blamed her for negligence and didn’t feel like replacing it. She’d even been unsettled by her suspicions that the fire hadn’t been an accident.

  But she’d felt safe with Matt Taylor in her apartment, taking up a lot of space, taking care of them, smelling like a man and saying unexpectedly silly things that made her want to laugh. She’d felt safe right up until the familiar survival instincts that had kept her alive for more than eight years had taken hold, and even the temptation of touching hard muscle and the warm skin of that tattoo peeking from beneath the sleeve of Matt’s T-shirt had faded beneath her need to protect Evan and herself at all costs.

  She couldn’t indulge these rusty sensations of sexual awareness that had awakened inside her. But those few minutes of feeling safe, of feeling like a woman, of picking up the subtle signs of a man being interested in her, had been worth at least a slice of cherry pie.

  Reaching Evan’s room, she knocked softly on the doorjamb and stepped inside. He was already in his pajamas and building on his fortress. Surveying the whirlwind that was her son determined to have fun without disobeying her, Corie shook her head. She picked up his backpack from where it had hit the floor and set it in the desk chair before gathering up his discarded clothes and dropping them into the clothes basket inside his closet. She folded the sweater he’d been wearing and hugged it to her chest, hating to interrupt the bad guys attacking the ramparts of the castle and the dragon lord, or whatever that winged creature was he’d created, raising the towers ever higher in the battle of Evan’s desk. But she needed to settle her fears. She opened the drawer of his dresser and set the sweater inside. “Hey, sweetie. You haven’t opened a new soap or sprayed some of my perfume in the apartment, have you?”

  The dragon swooped down and knocked over several tiny block warriors as he answered. “Ew, no. I don’t like any of that girly stuff.”

  “Did you spill anything in the kitchen this morning?”

  Evan pushed to his feet, his saving-the-world game momentarily forgotten as his sweet face aged with a frown. “Mom, is something wrong? I know the rules. I wouldn’t break them. I know we have to stay safe now that Dad’s out of prison. I haven’t even told any of my friends my real name.”

  Oh my. Corie’s heart hurt at the maturity she heard in Evan’s voice.

  “Evan McGuire is your real name now. Remember? The judge in St. Louis said so.” Her mistakes and fears had forced her little boy to grow up way too soon. She crossed the room to wrap him up in a hug, cradling his head against her breasts and stroking her fingers through his shaggy brown hair. “It’s okay, sweetie. I’m okay. I’m sorry if I worried you. Mr. Stinson removed the oven from the kitchen, and it’s kind of throwing me off.”

  He let her hug him for about as long as an eight-year-old who thought he needed to be the man of the house could stand. He pushed away, tilting his wise green eyes up to hers. “I know you don’t like changes in your routine. But I didn’t do anything.” He crossed his finger over his heart. “I swear.” He glanced over at his sprawling stronghold. “I dragon swear.”

  Truly, the strongest vow that Evan McGuire could give. To his way of thinking, nothing could get past the dragon protecting them. If only reality could be as assuring as what this medieval fantasy world had become for her son.

  “I’m not blaming you. I just wanted to check.” She spared a couple of minutes to admire his dragon beast and the newest turret on his castle before catching a glimpse of the time. “You finish getting ready for bed. Remember to set the timer when you brush your teeth. I’m going to run downstairs and talk to Mr. Stinson for a minute. When I get back, we can read another chapter of that fantasy book together, okay?”

  “Okay!”

  With her son excited like the little boy he should be, darting off to the bathroom to do her bidding, Corie grabbed her keys from her bag. She locked Evan in and took the elevator downstairs. When her knock on the superintendent’s door produced no response, she followed the sound of men’s voices out the back door of the building.

  A cold wind whipped through the alley, wrapping Corie’s polyester dress around her thighs and cutting through to her skin. Shivering as she stepped around the corner of the row of dumpsters, she found Matt Taylor crouched in front of what had once been her oven, with the building super leaning over his shoulder, shining a flashlight inside the appliance. Corie overlapped the front of her cardigan, clutching it together at her neck. “Mr. Stinson?” Matt instantly pushed to his feet and the superintendent stepped back, momentarily blinding her with his light before he pointed it toward the snow blowing across the asphalt. Corie tried to see what they’d been in such rapt conversation about, but she mostly saw a charred black hole. “Can’t it be repaired?”

  If she wasn’t mistaken, Matt shifted his position to block the bulk of the wind. Not that she would warm up anytime soon, but at least she wouldn’t get any colder. It was a thoughtful gesture. “Did you get a hot dinner?” he asked, forgoing any sort of greeting and not answering her questi
on.

  Corie nodded. She was more interested in what the two men had been discussing than the temperature of the nighttime air or the condition of her stomach. “Evan and I ate at the diner. Does this mean the oven can’t be fixed?” She dropped her gaze from Matt’s steady dark gaze to Mr. Stinson’s disconcerting frown. “Do I have to pay for a new one?”

  While she was calculating how many extra shifts she’d have to pick up to pay for a new appliance, Mr. Stinson cleared his throat. That didn’t bode well. He rubbed his hand over the top of his balding head, then stepped back to gesture to the space between the dumpster and recycling bin. “Does your son like to play with matches?”

  “Excuse me?” Obeying the unspoken summons, Corie scooted around Matt and peeked into the hidden nook.

  In a circle of scorched asphalt where the snow had melted away sat what she assumed was her discarded iron skillet. A black stain of soot climbed the brick wall above it and surrounded the milk carton that had melted into a flat plank and sat in a pile of ash in the pan. More surviving bits of charred debris lay scattered around it, stretching out into the surrounding snow like bony fingers, as if someone had kicked snow onto the flames to put them out. She’d like to think this was a homeless person’s fire that had gotten out of hand. But the fearful suspicion crawling up her spine told her that was just wishful thinking.

  Corie hugged herself impossibly tighter, automatically defending her son—automatically throwing up every defensive barrier she possessed against the nightmares of her past. Another fire. Two in two days. Her voice came out brittle and sharp. “What are you implying?”

  Matt adjusted his knit cap over his ears as if he was making conversation about the weather. “I found a chemical residue coating both of the heating elements in the oven. I found the same gelatinous residue inside the lip of the milk carton.”