“Iris . . . ,” Emily called weakly. Helplessly, she watched as Iris got down on her hands and knees and tumbled through the dog door. Then she unlatched the patio door, letting Emily in. “Welcome,” she trilled, picking up an oven mitt that was sitting on the island and sliding it over her hand. “Would you like some fresh-baked muffins? A cup of tea? I make a good suburban housewife, don’t I?”
Emily looked around the kitchen. It was massive, with a six-burner stainless-steel stove and the longest granite-topped island Emily had ever seen. An enormous fridge sat off to the left, a shiny cappuccino maker was on the counter, and a wine refrigerator filled with bottles stood near the pantry. Not even Spencer’s kitchen was this luxurious. Yet it had an unlived-in quality to it, too, the appliances a little too clean, not a speck of dirt in the grout of the tiles, every single towel monogrammed with a swirly letter M. It was strange to think that a mental patient had grown up inside these walls—when Emily was younger, she’d assumed that nothing bad happened to people who had this much money.
“What was wrong with Tripp, anyway?” Emily whispered to Iris, who was searching through a drawer across the room, the mitt still on her hand.
Iris inspected the items hanging on the refrigerator, flipped through a desk calendar, and opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of 5-Hour Energy. “The doctors said he was schizophrenic, but I think that’s bullshit. He was the sanest person there. Super smart, too. He was always coming up with fun dates for us to go on within the hospital walls.” She pulled out a picture in the drawer, squinted at it, then let it flutter to the floor. Emily scrambled after her to pick it up. An older couple were clinking wine glasses. The man wore a Santa hat on his head.
“There’s got to be something of his,” Iris grumbled. She crossed the room. “Come on. Let’s go upstairs.”
She headed down the hall and up the stairs as if she’d been here before. Colorful oil paintings lined the walls, including a swirly one that reminded Emily of Aria’s Van Gogh. Her stomach gurgled. It was easy to forget about the painting, hidden inside Aria’s closet. But what if that was what Agent Fuji wanted to talk to all of them about?
Iris tried each of the closed bedroom doors. When she looked through the third one, she gasped and plunged inside. Emily followed. A twin bed stood in the corner. There were lines in the carpet from where the vacuum had swept, and the bureau was free of clutter. It reminded Emily of Iris’s depersonalized room at The Preserve.
But then Iris opened the closet. A few plaid shirts hung on hangers, and a single milk crate sat at the bottom. “Bingo,” Iris whispered, shedding the oven mitt and pulling the crate into the room.
Inside were paperbacks, notebooks, and an old cell phone with a cracked screen. Iris grabbed the notebooks and leafed through them. Emily ran her fingers along the pages of an old copy of 1984. Was this all Tripp’s mom kept to remind herself of him?
“Not a single frickin’ thing,” Iris said to the notebook, slamming it closed.
“What were you looking for?” Emily asked.
“My name in a heart. Something.” Iris rummaged through the crate some more, tossing aside stuffed animals, an empty water bottle, a container of hand sanitizer, a hospital bracelet that said THE PRESERVE AT ADDISON-STEVENS. When she got to the bottom of the crate, her jaw wobbled. “Well, I guess that proves it. I meant nothing to Tripp.”
“Maybe he brought something of yours with him when he left.”
Iris snorted. “I’ve been kidding myself for way too long. Tripp and I never really had anything real. It was stupid to come here.”
Suddenly, she tucked her head between her knees and let out a muffled sob. Emily paused for a moment, not sure what to do. Her hand hovered over the small of Iris’s back, but she wasn’t sure what to say to make her feel better.
Instead, she picked up the cell phone and pressed the power button. Surprisingly, a Motorola logo appeared on the screen. She clicked on the CONTACTS button. Everything had been deleted. She opened up the texts, but that folder was empty, too. A few photos had been saved, however—a penis-shaped cloud, a golden retriever, and then, the third photo, a girl Emily knew well.
“Oh my God,” Emily whispered.
Ali’s blond hair cascaded down her shoulders. Her blue eyes sparkled. She wore the same white pajamas that Iris had been wearing at The Preserve. Emily guessed the photo had been taken a few years ago, when Ali was maybe fifteen.
Iris wiped a tear and looked at the screen, too. She let out an annoyed sniff. “Well, I guess you found something.”
“Why would this guy have a picture of Ali?” Emily asked shakily.
Iris leaned back on her hands. “Because we all were at The Preserve together. We were friends.”
Emily stared at the picture again. Just seeing Ali’s face in somewhere so unexpected made her itchy. Someone just out of the photo had an arm slung around her shoulder—the only identifying thing was a gold watch on the person’s hairy wrist. She squinted at it. Had she seen it before?
She pointed to the disembodied hand. “Who’s that?”