Blackbird Read Free Page B

the ninth floor. When the doors open the hallway is empty, the carpet stitched with a strange arrow pattern that points you forward. Somewhere a loud copier is spitting out pages. You pause at the suite marked 909, listening to the quiet beyond the door. There are no footsteps, no voices, no shuffling of papers.
    No one answers when you knock. You knock again, louder this time, but no one comes. You sit against the wall, your knapsack between your legs, when an idea comes, unbidden. You draw the pocketknife from your backpack and flip it open, the blade catching the light. You wedge the blade between the lock and the doorframe, angling the tip so it puts pressure on the mechanism. After a few seconds of maneuvering, it pops, the door springing open.
    You know you’ve done it a hundred times before. It was too easy, too quick, your hands so steady and sure. You return to the thoughts from the car: You have done something wrong. There’s no other reason for you to know what you do. There’s no other reason you’d instinctually reach back, using the end of your shirt to wipe the knob clean, to work away any fingerprints that might still be on the frame.
    The door opens and you half expect to see someone there, sitting behind the desk or in one of the chairs lining the wall. The room is empty, the computer screen dark. Magazines are fanned out on a kidney-shaped table. The Economist , National Geographic , Time .
    The desk is covered with a blotter and a gold cup crammed with pens. There’s a framed photo of two blond children sitting on a dock. Their feet splash in the water. You take a few steps beyond the sitting room, turning past a frosted-glass wall with GARNER CONSULTING written in metallic script. You turn the knob and an alarm begins to wail.
    You cover your ears and look around. Cash is strewn across the carpet. A safe sits in the corner, its door half open, the lock scuffed and broken. The desk chair has been turned on its side. The drawers are emptied over the floor, papers and folders everywhere.
    You remind yourself that you haven’t taken anything, haven’t even touched the safe or the cash. You are here because you were told to come. Still, you think only of the security camera downstairs, the knife in your pocket, how easily you broke in.
    Outside, in the hallway, several people have already emerged from their offices. A man in a three-piece suit stares at you over his wire glasses. “I don’t know what happened,” you say, looking at two women hovering beside him. One is on her phone. “I didn’t do anything.”
    The man looks at your knapsack, then down the hall, where a few more workers huddle together. You wonder how long you have before they move toward the elevator or the stairs, blocking the exits. There are only seconds to decide: try to explain, or run.
    You run.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    ..................................................................

CHAPTER FIVE
    THE SALESGIRL IS watching a cartoon when you walk in, her eyes on the small flat-screen television in the corner of the room. Three dresses are slung over her arm. As she sorts through them she turns to you, studying your face.
    “Can I help you?” she calls out.
    “Just looking.” You disappear down a side aisle.
    She takes a few steps so she can see you. It must be your stained jeans, the dirty, sweat-soaked T-shirt. You look like the type of person who would shoplift, and you can’t help but feel she’s not that far off. You are already gauging how easy it would be to pull a bunch of shirts from the rack, slip two or three into your bag when she’s not looking, and just leave. You start down another aisle and she finally turns away.
    You spent nearly twelve hours across the street from the office building, crouching in the back of a parking garage, hidden behind a pickup truck. You watched the police come and go, the building empty out as the sky went black. It was nearly two in the