What Sarah Saw

PROLOGUE

SATURDAY, JUNE 22

Sirens. Flashing lights. Police tape holds back a dozen gawkers who felt an emergency at five on a Saturday morning was worth getting out of bed for.

It figures. People can be the worst.

Detective Ben Stevens folds himself out of his police cruiser and slams the door. The high-rise building he’s summoned to in the middle of the night is the definition of upscale. It’s all glass windows and white-washed concrete, with a wide half-moon driveway for valet parking in the front. Stevens ducks under the police tape, walks toward the entrance and spots what looks like a doorman crying while he talks to two uniformed policemen in the corner.

Inside the front entrance there’s more glass, windows, and white marble. A security desk is on the left of the immaculate doorway. A surly guard sits behind it and eyes Stevens suspiciously. A lounge is on the right. Stevens notes the huge television mounted on a wall, the array of expensive-looking white leather chairs, and a fully stocked, glass-enclosed bar with champagne, carafes of scotch and mix.

So, not only is it upscale, it’s pretentious. Oh, how the better half live.

An officer waits for him by the elevator. The officer is young, maybe mid-twenties. Clearly, this is one of his first homicide calls. He’s visibly upset as he punches the button for the third floor with a shaking hand.

What have we got? Stevens asks. The call just said there’s a white female victim.

T-that’s right, Shaky Hand says with a stutter. He consults his notebook as the elevator arrives and they climb in. 43 years old. Sylvie Green. M-married, no kids…

Stevens interrupts him. Sylvie Green? As in Francis Green, the real estate developer?

Shaky hands consults his notebook again as they arrive at their stop. I… I don’t know sir…

The elevator door opens, and Stevens is face-to-face with his partner Bianca Smith. She looks surprisingly fresh for someone pulled out of bed in the middle of the night. Then again, she’s 30 years younger than he is.

It took him a shot of espresso and a five-hour energy drink before he was fully alert and ready to drive to the scene. At sixty-two and only a few years from retirement, Stevens knows the drill. The dead never get any deader. And the scene is contained indoors. There is no reason to rush when a gruesome murder waits on the other end, in his opinion.

After decades on the job, Stevens has seen it all. Including whatever this new case is.

Get over here, Smith barks. She turns and briskly walks down the hallway. Stevens jogs to catch up with her.

43-year-old Sylvie Green found dead in her apartment an hour ago. The next-door neighbour was up late watching TV, heard a scream, and what sounded like a struggle. Called the police, and a unit arrived 12 minutes later.

They arrive at unit 14. The door is open, and Stevens sees movement inside.

Did the paramedics try to resuscitate her? he asks as he follows her into the suite.

Smith shakes her head. No need. You’ll see what I mean.

The open-concept great room is a copy of the lobby – white, more marble and a large bar cart in the corner. Floor to ceiling windows let in a twilight glow. The forensics crew works around the room, snapping photos, bagging evidence, and talking quietly. Smith brushes past them and leads Stevens down a hallway to a set of double doors. The master bedroom.

As they walk, Stevens notices blood splatter on the walls. He also steps over a small, red puddle beside the refrigerator marked with numbers by the crime scene techs.

She was chased? he asks, even though it’s more of a statement. She was clearly chased. There’s blood everywhere.

Smith pauses and nods. The first blow looks like it happened in the kitchen. We’re guessing she ran for the bedroom, fell, got hit again and kept running. The final blow was in the bedroom.

Any sign of forced entry?

No. But you came in through the lobby, so you know it takes more than a smile to get past the doorman and security guard, Smith replies.

No one saw anyone suspicious enter or exit the building?

No.

Cameras? he asks.

We’re working on it.

They stop outside the master bedroom. Stevens inhales sharply as he gets his first look at Sylvie Green. She’s lying face down in the middle of the floor in a pool of her own blood. The back of her head is a mess of bone, brain matter, and tissue. A blood-covered decanter is on the ground beside her body. It looks like it’s real crystal. The heavy kind.

No wonder they didn’t need the paramedics. Sylvie Green was dead. There was no way someone could have survived such a brutal assault.

Crouching down, Stevens takes a closer look at the possible murder weapon. She was killed with her own scotch decanter?

That’s what it looks like, Smith says. Although, I think it had gin in it.

The detectives finish processing the scene and ride the elevator back down with the body in silence. They’ll discuss the case later, once they’re alone. It’s understood among police that what’s said at a crime scene is never discussed where anyone can overhear the details – like loose-lipped cops who love to gossip – and they need to be careful. Francis Green has a reputation for being an ill-mannered ass on the best of days, and his baby girl was just brained with a booze bottle. He’ll want answers and will want them fast.

The sun has started to rise, and the audience behind the police tape outside the building has grown. The paramedics come forward and start loading Sylvie Green into the back of the ambulance.

A piercing scream stops Stevens in his tracks. Smith also freezes beside him. Behind the police tape, a brunette woman in pajamas is howling at the top of her lungs. A man tries to restrain her, a look of horror on his face.

Oh God, no. she wails as she holds onto the man like he’s a life preserver. She’s dead. I knew this would happen.

Her words put the detectives on high alert. Smith and Stevens start to power walk toward the hysterical woman. Before they get close enough, she emits one final, boneshaking scream, turns and sprints in the opposite direction. The man she was with looks at the detectives for a moment then takes off also. Two uniformed officers launch themselves after the pair, but it’s too late. They’ve already disappeared.

PART ONE

THREE MONTHS BEFORE

SARAH

CHAPTER 1

The first time I realized something was seriously wrong with the couple living across the street, I was out running.

It was an early Saturday morning in March. The sidewalks were muddy and wet, and I still needed to dodge random piles of snow along my route.

Despite the difficult conditions, I prefer winter running. It’s usually quieter, with fewer people on the sidewalks and not as many cars on the streets in the early morning hours. It’s peaceful. My oasis – and my therapy.

Theo won’t join me when the conditions outside are like this. He says he’s a fair weather runner and I get it. Secretly, I don’t mind when he decides to stay in bed and lets me do my thing. It gives me more time to think.

To relax.

To spy.

To be fair, I never planned to start spying on my neighbours. Also, spying is too harsh a word to define my actions, in my opinion. What I’m doing is information-gathering. And watching, out of a genuine concern for a woman I’ve never met in a building I’ve never entered.

Theo and I moved into our ground floor apartment a year ago, on a late winter Saturday morning just as muddy and wet as the days are now. Our possessions are few, as we both prefer the minimalist approach to a house stuffed with useless items. By sundown that first evening together, we were sipping wine, sitting in our tiny yard – which we lucked into, because how many apartments have a yard? – chatting about the day and taking in our surroundings.

I noticed the fancy high-rise building across the street that first night, but not the occupants living in it. That came much later. Almost a year later.

Settling into a new neighbourhood is like starting to watch a new television series without researching what it’s about – you feel a bit uncomfortable the first few episodes, but gradually figure out the flow. Our first months in our new home were spent investigating the nearby shops, learning street names, and watching our neighbours. Not in a creepy way, just a curious one.

Before this move, we’d lived in a series of tiny shoebox-sized apartments in locations all over the city. Every few years we’re on the move. We have no intention of buying a house and prefer the nomad lifestyle. We can regularly meet new people and experience more of the city. It feels like we’re living more life, whether that’s true or not.

Our new neighbourhood was nicknamed Little Bohemia many years ago, due to its slight resemblance to much larger, actual bohemian neighbourhoods in other big cities like Belleville in Paris, or Echo Park in Los Angeles. The name stuck, and Little Bohemia became the trendy place to eat, live, and shop. You’ll find all kinds of people here. Young professionals – like us, or so we tell ourselves – families, and richer people, like I imagine those living in the beautiful high-rise building across the street are.

The streets of Little Bohemia are lined with cute, mismatched, colourful storefronts. You can buy everything here – groceries, marijuana, sex toys and baby clothes. It’s a weirdo paradise, right in the middle of downtown Winnipeg. The fact that most of the buildings are eclectic just adds to the charm.

Our apartment sits in the bottom corner of a brand new four floor building. It’s one of several new buildings in the neighbourhood that are slowly replacing the old houses too dilapidated for restoration. The high-rise across the street is another example. Of course, many residents of the neighbourhood are horrified new buildings are replacing the historical relics that make up part of what Little Bohemia is. But not everything can be saved just because it was once beautiful.

To the right of our building is an old, Victorian-style house that’s still in miraculously good shape considering it’s about 120 years old. A husband-and-wife live there with two young kids, a boy and a girl. We don’t talk to them. It’s not that they’re standoffish. They’re just desperately trying to keep their offspring alive, and don’t seem to notice other humans as a result.

I don’t have kids, and never wanted them, so their daily grind looks like my worst nightmare.

Our building is quiet, and in the time we’ve lived here I’ve only occasionally spoken to another occupant. There was one loud party above us a few months back, but otherwise, it doesn’t really feel like anyone else is home. This suits us just fine, as Theo hates small talk and I’d likely be too friendly and scare everyone away.

Directly in front of us, across the street, is the fancy high-rise. I call it fancy for good reason. There’s a doorman who also takes car keys and drives vehicles into an underground parking garage, and I can see a security guard sitting in the lobby when I run past. I assume he knows everyone by first name, but status and protocol ensure they’re referred to as Mr. This and Miss That.

The building is 28 storeys tall. Yes, I counted. But that’s only because I needed to know which floor the couple I was watching lived on.

After living here a year I’m still just as in love with my neighbourhood as I was the day we moved in. It’s vibrant, trendy, but not overrun with hipsters yet. Actually, there’s a perfect ratio of hipsters to normal-ish people, and Theo and I consider ourselves to be the latter. To me, this neighbourhood has its own pulse and heartbeat. I love it. It’s home.

When I run early in the morning, I often don’t wear headphones. It’s not a safety thing. I like to take in the morning. The quiet of the trees. The sounds birds make when they wake up. On this particular morning, I also heard an argument. Two people, a man and a woman, yelling at each other at full volume.

Their voices bounced off the pavement and surrounding homes, making it difficult to make out their words. But I can tell the difference between voices filled with happiness or rage, and this was definitely the latter.

I was only able to notice it was a couple arguing on the third floor of a high-rise across the street because I caught movement on their balcony. The sliding glass door was open, and the lights were on inside.

I couldn’t see who they were, though. Not then.

The couple living in the high-rise caught my attention a second time one Friday evening as I sat in my yard with a glass of wine, a book, and a blanket. I’d looked at the building countless times since we moved in, but it was usually in a detached way – like how I’d glance at someone walking by on the street.

To be fair, I do look at everyone walking past me. If they seem friendly, I’ll smile or say hello.

Life is too short to ignore people around you. Though, thinking about it now, it’s likely that thought process that got me into this mess in the first place.

I pause partway through a chapter in my book and glance up just in time to see a woman rush through the sliding glass door, onto her balcony… then lock the door behind her, from the outside. Turning in my direction, I can see she looks frantic, wild, scared. Her blonde hair is in disarray and her arms are bare even though it’s cold out.

Even from a distance, it looks like she’s frightened by something. She’s pacing like a caged animal, gaze darting inside, to the street, inside again. I feel like this woman is looking for a way out. For help.

A moment after she locks the door, a man’s silhouette appears through the glass. He waves his arms and gestures – I assume – for her to unlock the door and come back inside. He’s too far away and partially blocked by the door for me to make out his face. I can’t see much of him at all,