As it turned out, she lived at the Discovery Beach Resort, one of the very towers that had looked down on us earlier (and from whose uppermost floor she had watched us touch down). And while I was mystified at first by her choice of residence—there was no electricity to power the elevators, for example—her modus operandi quickly became clear: for it was, quite simply, one of the highest and most defensible positions in town (the trek up to the 10th floor alone, especially with her in tow, had more than proven that). What was more, it was high enough from the earth that what had happened below could—if you just listened to the soft jazz sifting from her boombox and tried hard enough—almost be forgotten, at least for a while.
None of which is to say I wasn’t shaken as I sat next to her bed
