Nell Corrigan

Night locksmith, city after midnight

Nell Corrigan opens doors for a living, at the hours when doors matter most — the two o’clock call, the locked-out and the locked-in, the snapped key in a stranger’s cold hand. She is fast, quiet, and asks nothing; a good lock, she’ll tell you, is just a problem that hasn’t been listened to yet. She’s somewhere in her thirties, works out of a van that smells of oil and old coffee, and carries herself like a woman who has already decided how any given night will disappoint her.

What she wants (and needs)

Wants: to be left alone to work — to owe no one, be owed nothing, and keep the ledger of her life closed and even.
Needs: to stop bolting the door on the people who could still love her — starting with the one she shut herself, and starting by letting a door be opened for her, which is the only lock she’s never once been able to pick.

The flaw that costs her

She mistakes a bolt for safety. Nell will open any door in the city for a stranger and turn the lock on anyone who gets close, then call the silence peace. She’s spent three years telling the story where her brother left — because the true story, the one with her hand on the bolt, is the one door she can’t stand at.

Voice

Wry, quick, low to the ground; notices exits and prices and tells; the fear kept one wisecrack back from the surface. First person, past tense.

Appears in

Every Lock but Hers novella