the SEVEN-FIVE project

2004-02-26 - 1:10 a.m.

Parker was never an easy one to find when he didn't want to be found. I figured today would be no exception. I didn't call or try to contact him before we left Shawston, so he had no idea we were coming.

When we left Steph's building I gave Nikki the quickest directions I could to Parker's apartment. On the drive I just stared at Nikki and smiled, she kept glancing at me and telling me to cut it out.
"Stop staring at me like that." She yelled and hit me in the arm, again.
"I'll stop staring when you tell me what I didn't witness back there." I turned back to watching the road.
"They say that by nature everyone is experimental with their sexuality, it seems to happen in college for most people by some stroke of fate, but anyway. During the little time I spent in college I met Steph. We were good friends and all that crap. One night while we were drunk we started making out on a dare. After that it just kind of happened a lot, I don't know how to explain it. I'm normally not attracted to women, but I was attracted to Steph. So we 'dated' for a while and when I left school we were still friends but that was it, until that little show or sorts." She spoke quickly, obviously not wanting to talk about it.
"That's cool. I never went to college. My parents died the summer after I graduated high school, so I scrapped my plans for college to stay with Natalie."
After that the conversation just died. It didn't even trail off, we just stopped talking until we pulled into the parking lot for Parker's building.
Parker had always lived in Redstone and always lived in this building. Or at least for as long as I'd known him he lived in this building. When I decided to move to Redstone after the Palmero incident he was the first person I called. Luckily his roommate had just moved out and he was looking for a new one.
I dug into my bag as we walked around to the front of the building; Nikki was surprised that I still had a key for it. "Parker wanted me to keep one, just in case he always said." We walked through the main hallway, the super nodded at me and mumbled something in Spanish as we passed his office.
When we got to Parker's apartment, number B-7, I got a feeling something was wrong. It physically felt colder around his door, I felt the color rush out of my face, and I began to shake somewhat violently.
"Seven, what is it?" She put her hand on my shoulder and tried to stop the shaking.
"Something doesn't feel right Nikki. Something feels very, very bad behind that door. I am not going in there. I backed away from the door and leaned against the wall opposite it.
Just then the super walked down the hall towards us. His keys in one hand, an envelope in the other, he approached us with his normal leisurely swagger. "Seven, Parker said to give you this when you stopped by." I noticed he didn't say 'if you stopped by', but 'when you stopped by' as if we were expected.
I took the envelope with a nod and he turned back down the hallway to his office. I flipped the envelope over in my hands several times and kept looking from it up to Nikki and back.
Nervousness had taken over, my palms were sweaty and my mouth was dry. I couldn't take it, I shoved the envelope to Nikki and said, "You open it."

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