The Tenant Upstairs

Ada has lived in the two-flat for twenty-two years, ever since she and her husband stopped being able to afford the house across town. She rents the upstairs apartment to nice people who pay on time. Elias pays six months up front. He is quiet and thin and takes his shoes off in the hall. She likes him. Six weeks later, Ada finds him at the bottom of the basement stairs. The police call it an accident. Ada tells them she was asleep. Ada heard two voices that night. Then Elias's sister arrives from Phoenix with a suitcase and no hotel reservation, and Ada offers her the spare room, because offering things is what she does now. What she does instead of sleeping. What she does instead of grieving her son, whose fall at a job site was also ruled an accident. Marisol has a list of questions. Ada has an answer for every one of them, and one of them is a lie. The security footage is in the freezer. Ada knows what she has to do about it. She just has to survive the unlocked hour first.