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PROLOGUE

W hat a day, what a way to live your life in total isolation. Sometimes I’d stare out the sliding glass door of my second-floor balcony apartment. I spent too much time people watching. I was an incognito peeping Tom, or the female version, a peeping Tonya. I would observe people living their busy lives, wishing that I had a vibrant life of my own. I was exaggerating. I had a life, but I wasn’t living it to the fullest. I couldn’t live it now, no matter how badly I wanted that fundamental freedom. There were too many ghosts in my closet and bats in my belfry.

I had been in my new apartment building for just a short time when I noticed him. I didn’t know all the tenants by name, but I had seen all of them in the three months after I moved in. This roguish guy didn’t fit. There was something different about him, something private and sinister. I knew evil people. I wouldn’t quite call him that, but he was ominous in his way. He wasn’t friendly or nosy. He wasn’t helpful or loud, but there was something— dangerous. He avoided eye contact at all costs. He could easily fit into the weirdo category if he weren’t so ridiculously and raggedly handsome.

We would briefly bump into each other at the community mailboxes, at the parking lot dumpster, or in the laundry room. He didn’t speak to me. He didn’t gawk. He didn’t acknowledge me, although I was fairly attractive. I was at least a solid seven to White men in the looks department and maybe an eight to Black, Latino and Asian men. Something about this elusive man was off.

I was in the small parking lot at the rear of the complex when I noticed his amber-colored eyes. I got a glimpse of his alluring gaze and froze in my tracks. I sensed danger. His eyes didn’t fit his face. They were warm but sinister all at the same time.

He had an old classic car, but he always walked the streets. From my balcony window, I could see him coming and going in the darkness of the night. I didn’t use to be this judgmental. I was never this nosy, but I had time. Life, it had a way of grabbing your innocence and choking the hell out of all you believed in.

There were six regular apartments in the complex and one lone basement apartment. The basement was where he lived— alone. There were women, lots of women. They entered at night and emerged in one piece in the early morning. I waited for the day that one of these women would disappear, never to be seen again. That day never came. They always left the basement on their own; with a waiting Uber or Lyft to whisk them back to their regular lives.

In my short time in the complex, I had brief introductions with all the tenants, but not him. I didn’t know his name. It wasn’t on the communal mailboxes. His mailbox just had the letter “Z” That’s weird. That’s suspicious. His age and his political affiliation were all a mystery. It seemed no one really knew him. His name never came up in the hallway, elevator, mailbox, or parking lot conversations. Maybe I was the only one that thought he was strange.

The lack of excitement in my life made it easy for me to focus on this random stranger. The freaks came out at night, but he wasn’t freaky if you didn’t count his harem of women. He was quite handsome in his guarded, nonchalant manner.

I had all sorts of strange men on my radar since my last breakup. I fell asleep at the wheel and had a relationship with a dangerous stalker. He was more than a stalker. Even now, I found it hard to admit just how bad my ex really was. It’s sad to say, but some men would go out of their way to deceive you. They lure you in by pretending to be a gentleman. My ex replaced honesty with deception. He was the reason I lost all hope in the male species. Where were the good, chivalrous, and trustworthy men? I know they’re out there somewhere, but where? This was just another question that I didn’t have the answer to.