Chapter 1 — 2:07 A.M.

“I’m not Tunde.

But if you’re really scared, I’ll come.”

Emeka Okonjo never imagined he would say those words at seven minutes past two in the morning, sitting on the faded sofa of his small apartment in South Boston, still in his work boots, his hands stained with grease.

The phone had chimed when the whole city seemed dead asleep.

Emeka was an industrial electrician and a single father to ten-year-old Winnie.

His wife, Adanna, had died of cancer four years earlier, and ever since, he had trained himself to wake at any sudden sound — a cough, a creaking floorboard, a call in the dark.

Tonight Winnie was sleeping over at a classmate’s.

And the voice on the line belonged to no one he knew.

Chapter 2 — Wrong Number

“Tunde.

Please.

I’m at Mass General.

Room 608.