I looked out the window, reassuring myself that the sun was very much out. Then I told Esther she could stay where she was and descended back into the basement. In the main living room, I turned in a circle until I spotted the skinny door against the back wall. The door and the handle had both been painted the same white as the sheetrock around it, which would have been pretty good camouflage if it weren’t for the heavy silver padlock dangling from the doorframe. I approached it cautiously, paying close attention to the edges of my radius, just in case. If Olivia was in there, she was currently dead, but proximity to me would bring her to life, and she was still plenty dangerous as a human. By the time I got to the door, though, I was satisfied that unless the room turned into a huge tunnel, there was nothing Old World inside.
Behind me, I heard Esther climbing partway down the stairs, where she sat down to watch. I ignored her and looked at the padlock. It was shaped like the kind you see at the gym, but three times the size, and I didn’t think even my heavy-duty bolt cutters could gnaw through it. I went back to my bag of tools and pulled out a simple flat-head screwdriver. There was no way I was getting that padlock off without a blowtorch, but the two metal loops that it locked together were another story: they were just screwed into the door and the doorframe with ordinary screws. Rookie mistake. I could have taken the time to take out all the screws, but instead I poked the screwdriver into the U of the bolt and levered it back. I put my weight into it, and was finally rewarded with a splintering snap as the whole setup came fumbling into my stomach. “Hey,” Esther protested, but her voice was even weaker than it had been. I dropped the padlock onto the floor and pulled the door open.
Dark. Lots of dark. I felt around both sides of the wall but couldn’t find a switch. Trying not to think about what else I might find, I flailed my hand into the air a few steps into the room. Esther probably thought this looked hilarious. Finally, my fingers closed around a thin piece of string. I tugged.
There are some who might say that I screamed, but I maintain that it was more of a womanly bellow. Esther shrieked behind me. I jumped back a few feet, and when I finally got my breath, I stepped back in, letting my eyes adjust to the dim light and to the shock.
Every inch of every wall in the low-ceilinged room was covered in photos of me.
There were a few older shots—me in my high school graduation robe, a couple of shots of me running on a track. I’d only been on the cross-country team my junior year of high school, which was probably about when Olivia had found me. But most of the pictures were from the time of Olivia’s death onward. Me at the grocery store, me at a bookstore, me lying on the beach with a hat over my eyes. There was even a whole series taken through the windows of Molly’s house: me watching TV, making supper, napping on the couch with a spilled water glass on the floor next to me. I winced. No moment of my life was too mundane or too private for her to capture.
“They’re all of you.”
The voice was only a few inches behind me, and I jumped, half expecting to hit my head on the ceiling like a Looney Tunes character. “Jesus, Esther, don’t do that.” I turned around, and that’s when I saw the back wall of the room. This one wasn’t covered in pictures. There were just four big eight by tens, hung neatly, two on each side of the door. Each shot was of the person walking on the street, completely oblivious. Molly was captured at night, talking on her cell phone and throwing her head back to laugh. My brother Jack was walking with a slice of pizza in his hands. He was wearing his scrubs and an anxious look on his face, like he had to get back to work. Jesse was leaning against an unmarked car, reading from a file and chewing on his lip. Eli was wheeling a dolly stacked with boxes into Hair of the Dog.
You will not cry, I told myself. You will not run screaming. You will not stop breathing. I had gotten used to the idea of Olivia being obsessed with me, and while all those shots of me were creepy, they almost had an inevitability to them. But the pictures by the door were different. She had pinpointed the four people I cared about most. Had she left those out so I would know she was coming for them? I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket and stared at it stupidly, as if I didn’t know what it was.
“I think I’m gonna go,” Esther said behind me. “Um, good luck with everything.” There were footsteps, and then a heavy silence behind me. Smart girl, that Esther.
I don’t know how long I sat there, staring at my phone, watching it tremble in my shaking hands. Eventually, I was able to dial.
Eli got there first, as planned. I had closed the door to the Scarlett room and was sitting outside on the front steps. Hugging my knees again. He got out of the truck in a hurry, then slowed down when he saw me. I didn’t say anything as he crouched into my eyeline. He was wearing jeans and a dark-red T-shirt with Hair of the Dog embroidered on the left breast.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you leave work,” I said woodenly.
“It’s fine. Will’s there today. There was a fight last night, but I finished cleaning up half an hour ago.” Eli had that barely contained look he gets when he wants to touch me. I kept my eyes on the sidewalk. I had forgotten all about the other crime scene.
“The stairs are in the kitchen. The body’s at the bottom of the stairs, straight ahead. You need to get it out of there as fast as you can, because Jesse is on his way. He can’t see it.” My voice sounded dead even to me.
“Okay…” he said cautiously. “Are we switching vehicles? I can pick up the truck later.” He held out his keys expectantly.
“No. You’ll have to put the body in your truck. It should be light. Squish it down in front of the passenger seat. Whatever. I don’t care.”
He stood there for a moment, hesitating. I didn’t bother explaining that I didn’t have the White Whale with me. “Just do it, Eli,” I snapped. I didn’t look up again.
He disappeared from my vision, and I heard him step into the house. I didn’t move. After a while he came out carrying a surprisingly small plastic garbage bag, which presumably held the disposable body bag I’d left down there earlier. He loaded it in his truck without a word, but then came back to squat in front of me again. “It’s done,” he said quietly. “Scarlett, what is it?”