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Chapter Eighteen, Part One - Step Into the Light

Chapter Eighteen

Step Into The Light

The rest of the weekend came and went, during which I experienced a euphoria so wonderful it was almost a sin. I was floored from the kiss I'd shared with Danny. It didn't matter that we weren't together, or that we'd never gone on a date or even exchanged telephone numbers. The kiss was enough to make me forget all of that. And other things as well. But by Wednesday, sharing little flirtatious smiles with my future husband in the hallway was doing far less to distract me of my suspicions of Erica.

Two floors below us the doorbell rang while Margot and I sat glumly at the top of the stairs. Several hours earlier, I'd asked Dad to excuse me from dinner - Lana and I had a lot of studying to do for a test in an unnamed subject. Thanksgiving Break was next week, and I reminded Dad that if I failed my test neither of us would enjoy our vacation. So, in the end, he had relented with the compromise that I would at least try to be back in time for dessert.

"I so wish we could switch places," said Margot with a sigh. "Going through Erica's apartment sounds way cooler than this."

"Trust me - this is all a lot less cool than it sounds," I grumbled, reaching in my pocket to feel Erica's key that I'd stolen from Dad. "You sure you can do this?"

"Duh, I mean, what's gonna be so hard about it? All I have to do is pretend to like the bitch, right?"

"Well, when you're down stairs, sitting across from her at the dinner table and you're suddenly reminded that she might've placed a curse on our mother, we'll see how hard it is for you to pretend to like her."

"Hurry back - please," said Margot, miserably.

"I'll go as fast as I can. And don't worry - everything'll be ok."

I said the words aloud, but even I had trouble believing them.

* * *

From start to finish it only took me a half hour to reach Erica's apartment, which was only a short bus ride away. I was let off a block up the street from her building, still making pretty good time. Lana was there to greet me at the corner.

"Thanks for letting me come. Seriously I did not wanna miss this."

"Well it wasn't entirely for unselfish reasons," I admitted, as we approached the apartment building. "I really didn't wanna do this alone either."

Erica's apartment was a plain, brown building, several floors tall. There was nothing special about it, and nothing to indicate either luxury or eccentricity. In fact, in such a quiet, peaceful section of the neighborhood, it was extraordinarily obscure. Which didn't strike me as odd at all. In fact, it was exactly what I had expected.

We entered a dark, empty lobby that ended in a long hallway of apartment doors. Ignoring these, Lana and I headed straight to the elevators. According to the letter and the number inscribed on the key, Erica's apartment was 4A, which probably meant the fourth floor.