“I know,” I say, my throat tight. “I have to go.”
Daphne reaches into her laptop bag. Fishes out a card with her email and phone number and hands it to me. “If you need anything, give me a buzz. I’d be more than happy to talk again.”
I don’t look back at her as I stand and push my way out the side door. There are too many thoughts pinballing in my head. Too many awful, awful scenarios to consider.
The worst is that Jack Canning might not have killed Juliana and Susan. Tom may have killed an innocent man, and a guilty one could be walking free in Sunnybrook.
But if Jack Canning didn’t kill Susan and Juliana, why did he have pictures of Susan in his dresser drawer?
If Jack Canning didn’t kill Susan and Juliana, why were his last words I’m sorry?
I promised Rachel I would come over and help her run through our routine. No one wants to say it, but we all know that if Rachel can’t land the triple pirouette by Monday afternoon, Coach might pull her out of the competition routine.
The Steigers’ basement is not like normal people’s basements. Alexa, Rach, and I have spent many nights down here, lounging in our bathing suits in the Jacuzzi tub, sipping the virgin strawberry daiquiris we made behind the bar. A few years ago, Rach’s dad installed a full gym with equipment more expensive than the Planet Fitness my mother and Tom go to. Rachel and I have dragged the treadmill to the corner to make room for her to dance.
My phone is synced with the Bluetooth speaker. I back up the music to the 1:20 mark in the song, to the prep for the pirouette. She’s anticipating it too much, trying to overcompensate with speed when it’s all about keeping the turning leg straight.
Rachel runs through the routine from 1:20, and I don’t realize that the music has stopped until she joins me by the speaker. She drags the back of her hand over her sweaty forehead. “Was that better?”
Truthfully, I hadn’t even been paying attention that time. “You’re getting there,” I say, and Rach seems content.
“I need a break,” she says, fanning her face with her hands.
I grab my phone and close out of the music player. My heartbeat picks up when I see that there’s a text from the last person my sister talked to.
I shoot a glance at the open door; in the other room—her dad’s “man cave”—Rachel has turned the TV on. I type out: Which part?
“Mon! What are you doing in there?”
I keep one eye on my phone as I head into the other room, where Rachel is on the leather couch. She’s lying on her back, hands folded over her stomach, which rises and falls to match her rapid breathing. “Do you wanna get pizza?” she asks.
“I thought you were cleansing.”
“Eff that.” Rachel tilts her head back to look at me. “Are you still sick? You’re kind of pale.”
My phone buzzes in my hand. “I have to pee,” I say. “Be right back.”
Once I’m shut in the basement bathroom, fan on, I sit on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub and open the most recent text.
I feel a surge of irritation.
The person is typing; the ellipsis disappears, as if they’ve deleted their response. I may have struck a nerve. A knock at the bathroom door makes me jump. “Monica? Are you okay in there?”
“Yeah. Coming.” I flush the toilet and wash my hands for show, resting my phone on the edge of the sink. As I’m drying my hands, a text lights the screen.
* * *
—
Rachel and I split a veggie pizza and watch an unfunny comedy on HBO before she drives me home. As she’s pulling into my driveway, my phone buzzes.
I sit up so straight I hit my head on the ceiling of the car.
Rach puts the car into park. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” I turn to look across the street; the driveway to the unfinished house is still empty, the woods on both sides completely still. “I thought I saw a deer.”
I palm the ceiling and climb out of the car. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Sure. See you Monday.”
I watch Rachel pull away, itching to cross the street to the unfinished house. But I’m not stupid; I’ve considered the possibility that this is a trap and whoever is texting me may be a psychopath.
A psychopath who definitely knows where we moved.
When I look up, I spot movement in our kitchen window. My mother, probably, prepping dinner. Keeping an eye on the driveway, awaiting my return. Even if she weren’t already up my ass, she’d have questions if she caught me lurking around the property across the street.
We keep the front door locked all the time, and I don’t have my key on me. I input the code for the garage and take the door inside that leads into the kitchen. Mom is over the stove, using a spatula to break up the hunk of pink meat crackling in the frying pan. The menu chalkboard on the fridge says that tonight is turkey chili.
She doesn’t turn around. “You’re home late.”
“It’s not even five.”
Mom calls into the living room. “Petey, what are you doing?”
Petey shouts that someone just burned his entire village to the ground, and Mom shouts back that he needs to put down the game, change out of his soccer uniform, and read a few chapters of Where the Red Fern Grows before dinner. I want to tell him not to waste his time, that the dogs die at the end and everything sucks.
When my mom’s back is turned, I cross the kitchen to the sink and peer out the window. The house is still there, existing in an entirely nonthreatening manner.
“What are you looking at?” My mother’s voice sounds behind me.
“Nothing. Do I have time to walk Mango before we eat?”
My mother’s eyebrows knit together. “Why do you need to walk him right now?”
“Because he’s put on weight and I don’t want him to die.”
She blinks and shakes her head. “Be back in fifteen minutes.”
I grab the leash from the key rack and call out to the dog. “Walk? You wanna go for a walk?”
Mango trots into the kitchen at once, sitting at my feet obediently. I attach the hook through the loop in his collar and leave out the front door. The second we step outside, he bolts forward, dragging me down the driveway, tail bobbing up and down like he can’t believe his luck.
He hooks right, and I tug on his leash. “No. This way.”
My dog is not the brightest or fastest, but he has impeccable hearing, and he can bark like a motherfucker. If there’s anyone lurking in the house, Mango will hear him or her and go berserk.
The leaves on the lawn crunch under my feet. Once every two weeks, the owners come and mow the grass to placate my mother. I cross onto the driveway and climb. It slopes hundreds of feet up to the house, and Mango gets lazy halfway through our hike. By the time we get to the front door, he’s lagging behind by a good foot, resisting every tug I give his leash.
The outside of the house is complete, but there’s no door to the garage. The hair on my arms pricks. Anyone can get inside. I swallow and head through the door off the garage, which matches the one on our house.
A thin layer of sawdust coats the floor of the kitchen, and none of the cabinets have doors. A chandelier without lightbulbs hangs from the dining room ceiling, the wiring still exposed.
I spot the outline of footprints in the sawdust.
I straighten, slowly. Trace the footsteps out of the kitchen and into the living room. The footsteps stop at the bay window facing the street. A cigarette butt is inches from my shoe.
The bay window offers a near-perfect view of my house that makes my stomach turn.
I approach the bay window.