The Witness

The neighbor's name was Ruth. She lived across the hall.

Liza had never spoken to her beyond the basic pleasantries of apartment living — the nod in the hallway, the brief exchange about the elevator. She did not know Ruth well. She did not know Ruth at all, really.

Ruth knocked on her door on a Tuesday evening with a piece of paper in her hand.

"I saw someone," she said. "I do not know if it means anything, but you told me to call if — " She had been part of the system, Ruth. Liza had asked her to watch, to note anything unusual. "He was standing outside the building. Not inside. He was across the street, near the tree. He was looking at your window."

Ruth had taken a photo on her phone. Grainy, the figure half-hidden by branches, but unmistakably Drake. In the photo, he was looking up at the fourth floor — her floor — and the expression on his face was not anger, which was what she had expected. It was something else. Something patient.

Liza took the photo and put it in her evidence log and wrote the date and time and Ruth's name and she understood, with the clarity that came with these things, that the quiet was over.