Ear-Witness by Mary Ann Scott Page A

were standing side by side in the front lobby. When I yanked the basement door open, a quick scraping sound echoed up the stairs.
    â€œSomething’s down there,” I whispered.
    We stood quietly, listening. “Perhaps it was a mouse,” Carlos said. “Or a rat.”
    We held our candles out in front of us, and even though the stairs were wide enough for two, Carlos let me go ahead. I made myway down, right foot ahead each time, left catching up. On the nineteenth step I felt a change. The railing ended and I stepped onto the cement floor of the basement.
    â€œWe’re here,” I said. “The hall runs from front to back, like in the apartments. There’s a fire exit at the other end, but hardly anybody uses it.”
    On the way to the fuse box we passed the closed doors of the furnace room, the storage room, the garbage room and the laundry room. The laundry room? I moved my candle so I could take a better look. The door was shut. But how could it be, when it was always, always kept open? Wedged open, with a little triangle of wood, because of all the heat and steam.
    Panic hit me, hard. The noise I heard when we stood at the top of the stairs wasn’t a mouse. It wasn’t even a rat. It was the dull scraping sound wood makes when it’s dragged over cement; the sound of a door being forced shut, a door that had been propped open for years. My mind was jumping all over the place but I knew one thing for sure. That door hadn’t moved by itself.
    The man in Tammi’s apartment had run down the back stairs, and the back stairs ended right beside the fire exit from the basement. You didn’t have to be a genius to figure out who was behind that door.
    I made a quick decision. If the murderer wanted to hide in the laundry, that was just fine with me. What I was going to do was turn the power back on. Then I was going to get out of there, as fast as my legs would carry me.
    The fuse box was in a cubbyhole near the back door. I held my candle up to it, and pointed to the master switch.
    â€œIt is too high to reach,” Carlos said. “I will lift you, and you can do it.”
    I grimaced into the dark. “I’m pretty heavy,” I said.
    â€œYou are perfect,” Carlos said. He put his candle on the floor and squatted beside it.
    I climbed onto his back and swung my legs over his shoulders. Carlos grunted. Then he grunted some more, and I swayed upwards until the big switch was right in front of me. It was painted red. I pushed with one hand at the side that was sticking up. Then I pushed again. I couldn’t move it. It didn’t help that my hand was shaking.
    â€œCan you take my candle?” I said. My voice was shaking too.
    Carlos reached up, and as I lowered the glass, the flame blew from side to side and shadows jumped across the wall. I pushed theswitch again, really hard, with two hands this time. There was a loud snap, and light poured down from the hall fixture at the top of the stairs. The basement was still dark.
    I slid from Carlos’s shoulders to the floor. When I stepped away from him, his hand pulled at my arm.
    â€œJess,” he whispered. “Don’t go.” His hand moved up to my shoulder. “I want to kiss you.”
    â€œNow?” I said. I swung my eyes towards the laundry and swallowed hard.
    â€œYou did not say
no,”
he said. “So I believe you mean
yes.”
His face moved towards me and his mouth pressed softly against the side of my mine, sort of half on and half off. Probably I wasn’t doing it right, but he didn’t seem to mind. When I pulled away, it wasn’t because I didn’t like kissing him, it was because I couldn’t concentrate. I kept listening for that door, for the scraping noise it would make when it opened.
    â€œYou can’t stop now!” Carlos said.
    â€œI have to!” I answered. It wasn’t what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was
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