Through Her Shattered Eyes ✔

Chapter 31

This makes it the third trip to the apartments. It's pretty much a straight drive to Buckhead, I know how to get there now. The ride up north feels like it should've taken longer since it's forty-five minutes away from Fayetteville but it surprisingly is short. We soon come across the entrance to the apartments and I pull in, driving around until the building where Faith lives comes into view. When it does, there's a spot I ease Mom's car into. I cut off the engine and remove the keys from the ignition, putting them inside my purse.

"Where are we?" Nathan asks as he unbuckles himself. "Is this the place you were talking about?"

"Yes. This is where I came to talk to Faith," I reply.

"Gotcha. So you think door one thirty-five is here?"

"I know it's here. However, there's something else I wanna see."

Both of us exit and climb out of the car. We walk straight ahead, going for the complex across Faith's. Reuben said Ben lived over on this side, opposite of his building. Even though Ben is not the killer, there's still something I want to confirm.

"You know where you're going?" Nathan inquires.

I shake my head. "Not exactly."

"What is it you're wanting to see?"

"Hold on a second."

Once we reach the complex, he and I stand there for a moment, looking down a long hallway that leads out to a small, fenced dog park. It feels strangely cool around here for an August day. And echoey, although Erika isn't showing me anything, letting me know we're in the right place. That's probably because we aren't.

"Reuben told me this is the building where Ben resided before he died. I called him yesterday and asked if Ben ever lived in one of the units around this neighborhood and he said he lived across from them here," I explain.

"So, you're trying to see where Ben lived precisely?"

"Uh, not quite, no."

I turn around to face the parking lot. Right then and there, I know door one thirty-five can't be here. From the direction my body's planted in, the point of view is different. It isn't the same way it looked from my flash, as I suspected.

"The parking lot from my flash, I tried to see if it's at the same angle and from where you and I are standing, it's not. That door is somewhere else."

"Oh, okay. I get it. Where do you think it might be, then?"

"I don't know..."

I shoulder past Nathan to take a look at the number of units in this building. There are twenty-nine of them and the apartment numbers only go from one sixty-one up to one ninety, which means we aren't in the correct place.

Nathan comes up beside me to look at the layout of the complex and notices right away door one thirty-five isn't here.

"Looks like we need to move down more," he states.

"Let's check Faith's complex just to be sure. Maybe the door's around there," I suggest.

"After you. I'll follow."

We sprint toward Faith's side, squeezing past a couple of parked cars and coming up to the plan mounted to the wall. Also twenty-nine units: one hundred one up to one thirty. We must not be too far. Nathan and I look behind us to see another building that sits in between Ben's and Faith's side. We run over to that one next, skidding to a halt once coming up to the sign. I don't need confirmation from the plan to tell me I'm in the right place. Erika stirs inside me, a string of incoherent whispers buzzing around my head, pressing me to move forward.