Pretty Wanted Read Online Free Page B

and a ponytail came to the door, a gray cat trailing inquisitively behind her.
    I smiled, trying to put on my friendliest face. “Hi. We’re looking for someone—well, we want to find out about someone that used to live here a long time ago. Her name was Brianna Siebert. Do you think you can help us?”
    The woman paused a moment and then shook her head. “Name doesn’t ring a bell, but I haven’t been here that long.”
    “Do you know anyone who might have lived in this building fifteen years ago?” Aidan asked.
    “Actually, there is one lady, there at the end of the hall.” She pointed to 3H. “Mrs. O’Leary. She’s been here for a while. You could try her.”
    We thanked her and moved on. This time, Aidan knocked. No one answered at first but we could hear the faint drone of a TV inside.
    Aidan hit the door again, a bit louder.
    “Coming,” we heard a voice call, and then footsteps in a lopsided rhythm. Someone with a limp, or hip problems, maybe.
    The door opened to a woman with dyed red hair that capped a heavy patina of makeup and false eyelashes. She was probably in her seventies but she was clearly fighting against it.
    “Can I help you?”
    Aidan tipped his head at her. “Yes, ma’am. We’re wondering if you might have known someone who used to live in 3B. Her name was Brianna Siebert.”
    I glanced sidelong at him, admiring his sudden show of manners. The woman was clearly responding well to them, too, because she smiled.
    “Brianna? Hmm. No, I don’t think I remember anyone of that name. There was a family that used to live in that unit, with a few young boys. I don’t remember a Brianna.”
    “When did you first move here?” I asked.
    “Right after my husband died, 1999.”
    That wouldn’t work. “She would have lived here in 1997. Anyone else here that would have been around that long?”
    She shook her head. “I’m afraid not. People come and go, you know. Was this a friend of yours or something?”
    She was my mother. I felt the words like a bone in my throat. She was killed. “Yes,” I said. “A friend.”
    She smiled, looking genuinely sympathetic. “Sorry I can’t be of more help, dear. I’d say you should try 3B but that unit has been empty for the past month. The last tenants moved away.”
    “Should we try people on the other floors?” Aidan asked after she’d shut the door.
    It was freaking me out to be in this building, so close to where the murder took place. It was impossible not to be acutely aware of that haunting history. I paused in front of 3B, staring at the little brass number, as if standing there could tell me something, but of course it couldn’t. Not unless I was a TV psychic.
    We were wasting our time here.
    “No. Let’s move on. We can always come back if we need to. Can I see that map?”
    He pulled it out of his bag and handed it to me. I’d marked Blueberry Hill on there. It was only a couple of blocks from the apartment building. She’d had an easy commute. She must have been a practical type of person.
    As we stepped back outside, I tried to look around and see what she must have seen every day on her way to work, tried to process it through her eyes. Bars with neon signs, a bookstore, a butcher shop with a green awning, a hamburger joint. It was a funky neighborhood. Had it looked like this then? What had she liked about it? What did she want to change? What had she daydreamed about? Had she taken me with her, ever, to work? Or to stroll around the neighborhood? Did I check out the little dogs on the street, like the two dachshunds in matching Christmas sweaters crossing in front of us?
    Blueberry Hill was right where it was supposed to be, an azure marquee out front with light-up figures of a man and woman dancing on its uppermost edge. It looked like a relic from another time. Maybe some things didn’t change, not even after fifteen years.
    We walked in through the front door, but the place didn’t seem to be open to customers just yet.