Cable to Nothing

The coaxial cable had been dangling from the bedroom wall for three months, a dead snake Marcus kept promising to fix. Tonight, Elena had watched him disappear into the building's pool area with the woman from 4B—the one with the sharp laugh and expensive blazers. The spy software on Elena's work laptop pinged with another data breach alert, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

Corporate espionage paid well enough for this apartment with the skyline view, but lately Elena felt like she was manufacturing evidence against people whose only crime was greed. She pressed her forehead against the glass, watching them below. Marcus's back was turned, but she recognized the slump of his shoulders, the way he leaned forward when he was listening.

A rust-orange movement caught her eye—a fox, sleek and brazen, trotting along the pool's edge. The creature stopped, looked up at her window, its eyes catching the reflected city lights. For a moment they locked gazes, two observers caught in the act of witnessing.

The fox dipped its snout into the pool, lapped once, then vanished into the landscaping. Elena thought about last week, when Marcus had come to bed smelling of chlorine and someone else's perfume. He'd mumbled something about equipment malfunction at the gym, but she'd noticed the pool key on his nightstand, its rubber fob still damp.

She turned back to her laptop, closed the breach alert, and opened a new document. The cable still dangled from the wall, she typed, and I still believed him when he said he'd call the technician tomorrow.

Below, Marcus stepped away from 4B. He looked up toward their window, then pulled something small and metallic from his pocket—a flash of silver in the pool lights. Not a key. A USB drive. Elena's stomach hollowed as the fox reappeared, sitting on its haunches behind Marcus, watching her with knowing eyes.

Three years of investigations, and she'd missed the one operating under her own roof.