A rap at the door made me jump.
“Christ.” I stood, turned on a lamp, stubbed my toe, then limped to the door. I pulled the chain lock free, twisted the deadbolt, and opened it to reveal… an empty landing. I stepped forward and craned my neck to see down the first few steps of the stairwell. “Hello?”
Nothing.
I must have still been stoned from the NyQuil.
I took a step back into the apartment and my bare foot smacked a package on the floor beside the doorframe. I crouched, knees cracking as I collected the item. It was lightweight and flat, like a sheaf of cardboard, and wrapped in Hanukkah paper, which was printed with glittery dreidels.
Across the front, in bold Sharpie, was scrawled:
Bring this to the roof.
-C
C was Calvin, right? I hadn’t seen much by way of handwriting samples from him, but I leaned toward this being a man’s penmanship, simply based on its appearance. Except, if it was from Calvin, why not wait for me to answer the door and go up to the roof together? Even more important than that—why was he skulking around my rooftop at night in the freezing cold? Had medical leave finally caused him to snap?
Brows furrowed, I glanced to my immediate right at the stairs that led to the fourth floor, which then ultimately led to the roof access. I took another wary step into my apartment, returned to the couch, and picked up my phone. I called Calvin, but after half a dozen rings, his voicemail picked up.
“Detective Calvin Winter. Please leave a message.”
I growled, hung up, and grabbed my coat and scarf from the rack beside the open door. I pulled out snow boots from the closet and shoved my bare feet into them. Pocketing my phone, keys, and grabbing the mystery gift, I left the apartment. I trudged to the fourth floor, then rounded the corner and took the final set of stairs to the roof, illuminated only by the glow of an overhead EXIT sign. The metal door screeched obnoxiously as I pushed it opened onto the wintry night. My steps on the pea gravel were momentarily drowned out when I started hacking up a lung, and by the time I’d finished, I was doubled-over, wheezing, and taking in gulps of air when I could catch my breath.
“You okay, baby?”
I turned toward that warm, deep voice and saw Calvin silhouetted by the city’s night sky, a gray, blurry halo settled around his head. “S-sure,” I managed. “Never been better.” I waved the gift while slowly righting myself. “What the heck?”
Calvin stepped out of the saturated light and came toward me. I could make out his arm still in a sling, scarf around his neck, and pea coat thrown over his shoulders. He reached a hand out and touched my face. “You’ve got a fever.”
“Good thing it’s below freezing out here.” I cleared my throat a few times and then asked in a voice more like my own, “What’s going on?”
Calvin smiled, a little sweet and a little shy. “Why don’t you open that first?” he said, nodding at the wrapped package.
I gave him a skeptical look.
“The store was selling wrapping paper for 50 percent off. All they had was Hanukkah-themed.”
I tried to hum “I Have a Little Dreidel” as I tore the packaging, but it really just sounded like I was trying to cough up my other lung, so I stopped. I dropped the paper and held up… the spinner board for Twister. “Oh. This is… you shouldn’t have.”
Calvin chuckled. He wrapped his hand around my nape, and his cold fingers felt so good against my flushed skin. “Come sit down.” He led the way toward an open section of rooftop where two lawn chairs were set out, looking north. He dropped into one seat and patted the second.
I perched on the edge of the seat and stated, “I’m not limber enough for naked Twister.”
“Why do you assume we’d play naked?”
“I’m not a nine-year-old at a sleepover, and I like how you look without pants.”
Another smile flirted across Calvin’s face. He dug his phone out of his pocket, saying, “Why don’t you give it a spin?”
I’d opened my mouth to protest, to admit to Calvin that the last time I’d been in charge of the spinner was at Craig Gerhart’s eighth birthday, and my classmates had howled with laughter when I tried to announce the colors and kept mixing them up, and my dad had to come pick me up early when Craig’s mother found me hiding in the linen closet crying. But then I noticed that the same penmanship—Calvin’s—had written the color within each circle.
Green. Yellow. Blue. Red.
I bit my lip, flicked the spinner, and announced, “Left foot, blue.”
Calvin tapped out a text message, then pointed. “Watch the sky.”
“Watch the sky for—” The rest of the question didn’t get past my lips as dozens of lights shot up from a street below, surpassed the surrounding rooftops, and swam across the night sky in a silent, coordinated dance. They pulsated from the cores and moved outward in a circular motion, mimicking the explosion of fireworks without actually breaking any city laws by shooting off pyrotechnics. “Oh my God.”
