Innocence

Before other traffic might appear, I sprinted after her. She raced up the front stairs of the house as I followed the passageway that led to the alley.

The fire escape switchbacked up the building, looking as though it ought to ring loudly beneath my feet like the bars of a xylophone struck exuberantly, but my ascent was quieter than pianissimo. A window framed soft light at the second-floor apartment, and the draperies were only half closed. As far as I could see, the room beyond was deserted. I turned onto the next flight of iron treads.

At the fourth floor, Gwyneth had opened the window for me; but she was not waiting. At the farther end of the dark room, beyond an open door, a cut-crystal ceiling fixture brightened a hallway wall with prismatic patterns.

Switching on my flashlight, I noticed words printed in black letters on the white windowsill, but before I could consider them, Gwyneth appeared beyond the open door and said, “Addison. Come to the kitchen.”

By the time I climbed through the window and slid it shut behind me, the girl was gone. I stood in a generously proportioned room as sparsely furnished as a nun’s cell: narrow bed, single nightstand, lamp, digital clock. The place smelled fresh, and I could relate to the minimalism.

Across the hallway lay an equally large room, containing only a desk, an office chair, a computer, a scanner, and two printers.

A lamp turned low illuminated a living room that must have been twice as large as my three underground rooms combined, but the place felt like home because of the books. There was, however, only one armchair, as if her