"Can I have their names and the work order?"
Richard glanced at Daniel, who had followed him upstairs. "Mr. Kim can explain."
Daniel looked at the floor. "I wasn't informed of a gas emergency in this unit, sir. I didn't attend an inspection."
For the first time, Richard seemed surprised that an employee had contradicted him in public. He recovered quickly and claimed a separate technician had been contacted. Mitchell asked for that person's details, then advised the Washingtons to speak with a housing attorney as soon as possible. The officers recorded Richard's explanation without accepting it as proof.
After they left, Richard lingered in the hall. "You called the police over a safety inspection? That's really how you want to play this?"
Eleanor held the door with one hand. "Someone entered our home without telling us and disturbed our belongings. We had every reason to call."
"You'll find out how expensive your little war can become."
James stepped beside her. "Please leave."
Richard walked away, but Eleanor waited until she heard the stairwell door close before turning the lock. She then wedged a small wooden stop beneath the door, an action so unlike her usual habits that she stood looking at it for several seconds. The apartment had not changed shape. The rooms were the same size. Yet she felt as if the walls had been pushed inward while she was gone.
Lillian called that evening. Her security camera, installed after packages repeatedly vanished from the hallway, showed Richard entering the Washington unit at one forty-seven in the afternoon. He remained inside for forty-three minutes. No technician accompanied him, no emergency responders came, and he carried a phone that he raised repeatedly toward the couple's doorway and belongings. The video did not show every room, but it contradicted his account of a brief safety check.
James watched the recording in silence. He paused it when Richard emerged and held the phone close to his face, smiling at something on the screen. For a man who spent his career identifying points of structural failure, the pattern was becoming unmistakable. Richard did not want their cooperation with repairs. He wanted their disappearance, and every day they stayed made him more reckless.
Eleanor had to step outside onto the balcony after the video ended. The geraniums were dark shapes against the neighboring buildings. She touched the nearest leaf, feeling its cool surface beneath her fingers, and tried to remember the morning routine that had once made her grateful for this place. She could still hear the sound of a stranger opening her jewelry box in an empty apartment.
"I'm not sure I can keep doing this," she admitted when James joined her.
He pulled a chair beside hers. "Then we won't do it alone."
"I don't want to leave."