Chapter 6 - The Apartment Key
Nora returned to Cameron’s apartment on a Tuesday morning with two police officers and a cardboard box Leah stole from the diner’s produce delivery.
“Borrowed,” Leah corrected.
“You have been spending time with eight-year-olds?” Nora asked.
“Just you.”
The joke died when the elevator doors opened.
Cameron stood at the far end of the hallway.
He had been told not to be inside during the civil standby. He was allowed to remain nearby because the apartment lease carried both names and there was no protective order yet.
He wore a navy sweater Nora had bought him for Christmas.
That irritated her more than it should have.
Officer Bell, the same officer from Union Station, said, “Mr. Hale, stay where we agreed.”
Cameron lifted his hands.
“I’m cooperating.”
Of course he was.
He had always cooperated when witnesses were present.
Nora unlocked the apartment herself.
The first thing she noticed was the silence.
No television.
No music.
No Cameron asking why she was late.
The second thing was that her framed photographs were gone.
Not broken.
Gone.
She walked into the bedroom.
Her clothes still hung in the closet. Her shoes were lined beneath them. The normality made her throat tighten.
She packed fast.
Jeans.
Work shirts.
Medication.
Her grandmother’s earrings.
The cheap ceramic bowl Leah made in a pottery class and Cameron called ugly.
She packed that carefully.
In the desk drawer, the folder where she kept tax returns was empty.
Nora stared at it.
“Missing something?” Officer Bell asked.
“Financial papers. Copies of my Social Security card. Old tax forms.”
“Were they here when you left?”
“Yes.”
Cameron’s voice came from the hallway.
“She took those months ago.”
Nora turned.
He remained beyond the doorway.
“You don’t get to talk to me.”
“I’m answering the officer.”
Officer Bell said, “Then answer me. Did you remove documents from this desk?”
“No.”
Nora looked at him.
Cameron’s left thumb rubbed the side of his index finger.
He did that when he was trying not to smile.
She had once thought it meant anxiety.
“I want that noted,” Nora said.
“It will be.”
Cameron sighed.
“This is insane. You’re turning a relationship problem into a criminal case because Vincent Moretti told you to.”
Nora kept packing.
“He didn’t tell me to file anything.”
“He doesn’t have to. He scares people for a living.”
The sentence was not entirely wrong.
That was Cameron’s talent.
He found one truthful brick and built a false house around it.
Nora zipped the first suitcase.
“You followed me to Union Station.”
“I was worried.”
“You tracked my phone.”
“We shared location.”
“I turned it off.”
“You forget things when you’re upset.”
Nora’s fingers stopped on the zipper.
There it was.
The old doorway.
You forget.
You misunderstand.
You’re emotional.
She looked at Officer Bell.
“I’m ready to leave.”
Cameron’s face changed.
Just slightly.
He had expected the argument.
He had prepared for it.
Walking away gave him nothing to push against.
At the elevator, he said, “Martin opened those accounts.”
Nora did not turn.
“He admitted he knew about them,” Cameron continued. “Ask Moretti why his own CFO had your documents.”
Officer Bell pressed the elevator button.
Cameron took one step closer.
“Ask Vincent what he gets if I go to jail.”
Bell said, “Back.”
Cameron stopped.
Nora faced him then.
“What do you get if I keep doubting everyone except you?”
His expression went blank.
That was the first time she had ever asked him a question he could not answer by changing the subject.
The elevator opened.
Nora stepped inside.
Cameron said, “You’ll come back when this gets too complicated.”
Nora looked at the box in her arms.
The ugly ceramic bowl was wrapped in one of his old T-shirts.
“No,” she said. “Complicated is where I should have gone sooner.”
The doors closed.
Outside the building, Leah loaded the car.
Nora stood on the sidewalk holding her apartment key.
She had planned to leave it on the kitchen counter.
Priya told her not to surrender access while her name remained on the lease.
So Nora kept it.
That bothered her.
The key felt like unfinished business.
Leah touched her shoulder.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
Nora looked up at the third-floor window.
Cameron was not there.
For once, she did not need to know where he was.
That evening, Nora called the apartment manager from the shelter. Her voice shook when she explained that she had left because of abuse and needed to understand the lease without alerting Cameron to her location.
The manager was not especially kind.
He was useful.
Both names were on the lease. Nora could not simply surrender her key and erase liability. He sent her the written early-release procedure and told her what documentation the company required.
Nora hated every line of it.
She also felt relieved.
The problem had steps.
She emailed the paperwork to Priya and put the apartment key in an envelope marked NOT YET.
Leah, sitting on the second bed eating vending-machine pretzels, watched her.
“You know you could have let me yell at him today,” Leah said.
“I know.”
“I had material.”
“I’m sure.”
Leah’s smile faded. “Why didn’t you tell me how bad it was?”
Nora folded the lease procedure once.
“Because every time I said one thing out loud, I heard how the next thing would sound.”
“And?”
“And I wasn’t ready to hear it all together.”
Leah nodded.
She did not say she wished Nora had trusted her more.
That mercy made Nora want to trust her more now.
Before turning off the light, Nora took the apartment key back out of the envelope and photographed both sides. Priya had told her to document everything she returned later. Cameron once mocked her for keeping receipts because, in his words, “normal couples don’t build cases against each other.”
Nora uploaded the photographs to a folder only she controlled.
Then she put the key away again.
She was not building a case against a relationship anymore.
May you like
She was building a record of her own decisions.
The difference was small enough to fit inside an envelope and large enough to let her sleep.
