She picks up on the second ring. "I just talked to you forty minutes ago," she says, by way of greeting.
"I know. Did you lock the door?"
"Yes, Alex."
"Both locks?"
"Both locks and the doorknob, same as always. Mr. Roberts waved at me through the peephole." A pause. "He doesn't know I can see him doing it."
"Don't tell him," I say. "It would break his heart."
"I know." She sounds fond when she says it, which is another thing I love about her — the way she's decided to love Mr. Roberts despite herself, the way she let him in past the caution that keeps most people out. "Are you going to call me every hour?"
"Maybe every two," I say. "Don't push it."
She makes a sound that is almost a laugh. "I'm fine, Alex. I'm going to finish my drawing and then heat up the leftover pastaand then probably read for a while. Marta said she'd knock at noon."
"Good." I lean against the wall in the back hallway and lower my voice. "Evie, I need to ask you something and I need you to tell me exactly what you remember."
"About the man," she says. Not a question.
Of course, she knew. She always knows. "You said an old friend of mine came by," I say, keeping my voice light, keeping it the voice that is curious rather than alarmed. "Tell me about him."
"He was tall," she says. "Dark hair. He had really light eyes, kind of blue but not really. And he had a scar on his face." She pauses. "He came with Mr. Roberts so I let him in. He said he was going to be living across the hall."
The coffee I had this morning does something unpleasant in my stomach. "He said that?"
“Yes.” Another pause. "Alex, he helped me with my math. The long division thing I couldn't figure out. He explained it totally differently and it actually made sense." She says this with the particular enthusiasm she reserves for things that have genuinely impressed her, which is a short list. "He was nice. He said he'd come back."
He was nice. Victor Rozovsky, or whatever his name actually is, the man who watched me run without moving an inch, the man who planted himself across the hall from my apartment —nice.
"Okay," I say, because my voice is doing fine and I need to keep it that way. "That's good. Did he say anything else?"
"Not really. We just did math." A beat. "He's not actually an old friend of yours, is he."
It's not a question. It never is, with Evie.
"I'm not sure," I say, which is the closest thing to honest I can manage right now. "But Mr. Roberts liked him?"
"Mr. Roberts basically adopted him," she says, dryly. "He was practically offering him soup."
I exhale slowly. Mr. Roberts's instincts are not infallible, but they're not nothing, either. Thirty years of managing a building full of people has given him a kind of radar for the ones who intend harm, and he's never once been wrong in the two years I've known him. If he walked this man upstairs and let him through Evie's door, that means something. Not everything, but something.
And Evie wasn't scared. Evie, who flinches at raised voices and clocks every exit in every room and has never once opened the door to a stranger without running the full calculation first —Evie let him in and did homework with him and is waiting for him to come back.
If he'd wanted to hurt her, he'd had every opportunity.
He hadn't.
"If he comes by again," I say, carefully, "you call me immediately. Before you open the door."
"I know, Alex."
"I mean it."
"I know you mean it." Her voice softens slightly, the way it does when she's decided to be patient with me rather than frustrated. "I'll call you. I'm fine. Go wait tables."
"I love you," I say.
