…”…gets arrested.” He reached into the glove box and showed me a badge. “Detective Ruiz,” he said. “Your neighbor called us forty minutes ago. A man went into your apartment with a key. We’ve had someone following his phone ever since.” The red dot on his screen wasn’t me. It was him.
“Who is he?” I asked, my voice shaking. Detective Ruiz kept his eyes on the third-floor window. “Did you date someone named Derek Moss last year?” I nodded slowly. Three dates. I ended it when he showed up at my work uninvited. He’d been angry. Then he’d disappeared. I thought he’d moved on.
“He didn’t,” Ruiz said. “We’ve been watching him for two months on another complaint. He copied your key from the hook at your work. He’s been in your apartment four times while you were on shift. Your neighbor finally saw him tonight and called.” He looked at me in the mirror. “We knew you’d be coming home soon. So we picked you up before you could walk in on him.”
“How did you know my name? Fridays?” Ruiz smiled faintly. “Your neighbor. Mrs. Okafor. She said you always come home Fridays at this time. She said to tell you she’s watching your plants.”
At 11:52 p.m., three officers went up the stairs. Two minutes later, the light in my window went off. Then they walked Derek out the front door in handcuffs. He saw the car. He saw me in the back seat. For the first time, I watched him look scared.
Detectives found a notebook in his bag. My schedule. Photos. A list of things he’d moved in my apartment, little things, so I’d think I was forgetting.
I stayed with Mrs. Okafor that night. She made me soup at one in the morning and gave me her spare room. The next week, I baked her a cake. She told me she’d seen him three times before tonight but hadn’t been sure. “The fourth time,” she said, “I stopped being polite.”
