FAREWELL, MY FRENEMY
A few hours later, Emma pulled Sutton’s vintage Volvo into Ethan’s driveway to drop him off. Across the street, Sabino Canyon loomed ominously. Next door, the Banerjees’ house was dark and silent.
Ethan’s home, a sand-colored bungalow with paint chipping from the siding, was one of the smallest on the block. It looked like it had been nice at one point, but it’d fallen into disrepair. Emma suspected
Ethan tried to maintain the place as well as he could, but it was hard for him to keep up with it with his dad gone—Mr. Landry had more or less walked out on them a few years ago, when Mrs. Landry had been
diagnosed with cancer.
Ethan turned toward her. “Good night,” he whispered, leaning across the gear shift and placing the softest kiss imaginable on her lips. She closed her eyes. For just a moment, nothing in the world existed
beyond the place where her lips met his.
“Good night,” she said, as he pulled away. He gave her a long look, then got out of the car and loped up the driveway to his house. The car’s headlights threw deep shadows around him—long, skinny
abstracts of his body. His clean-laundry smell still lingering in the car, she watched him as he climbed the steps to the porch and let himself in.
Emma smiled to herself, touching her mouth with her fingers as if she could somehow hold the memory of the kiss there. She watched as the light in Ethan’s room snapped on a moment later and imagined him
sitting down at his desk, opening his calculus book or turning on his laptop, his dark blue eyes thoughtful under his furrowed brow.
Cute Boy Hugely Distracting to Amateur Detective. The headline flashed before her eyes as if it were in print, an old habit of hers. She shook her head to clear it, then put the car in reverse and backed down
the driveway.
As she turned onto the street, her eyes fell on Nisha’s house. She paused with her foot on the brake. A low wall with wrought-iron filigree surrounded the yard, but she could see that most of the windows
were dark. She could just make out the glimmer of the pool in the backyard. A sharp, painful ache cut through her heart. That was where it had happened.
Emma thought of what Dr. Banerjee had said about Nisha’s room being ransacked. What if the killer hadn’t managed to find what he was looking for? If Dr. Banerjee and the cops had already gone over the room,
it was a long shot. But it was still worth a try. She pulled the car to the curb and put it in park.
The motion-activated porch light sprang to life when she was a few feet from the door. In contrast to Ethan’s weed-strewn yard, the Banerjees had a Xeriscaped garden full of white river stones and flowering
cacti. But there were signs of neglect here, too—half-rotten fruit lay where it had fallen under a fig tree. Twigs and leaves floated on the brackish water in an austere marble birdbath. As Emma approached
the porch, a large tabby cat with matted hair meowed piteously at her, its lamp-like eyes shining in the dark.
Emma stopped at the door. The cat swam around her ankles, a low hopeful purr coming from its throat. She swallowed, her nerve faltering—was it insensitive to ask a grieving father questions about his
daughter’s death? What would she even ask, anyway? She glanced behind her at the dark, hulking shape of the canyon. The murderer could be watching her, even now. What if she made things worse for Dr.
Banerjee? What if Sutton’s killer decided that he, like Nisha, knew too much?
She rang the doorbell before she could change her mind. The sound of the chime ringing out so suddenly in the quiet evening made her jump. After a long moment, she thought she could hear footsteps, and then
Dr. Banerjee flung open the door.
Even though it was just a little past seven, he wore a long tartan bathrobe hanging open over a pair of mesh athletic shorts and a coffee-stained T-shirt that read HOLLIER TENNIS DAD. His thick glasses were
askew on his face, making one eye look grotesquely magnified while the other squinted blearily. His hair stood up in a wild cloud around his head.
Before Emma could say anything, the cat streamed past his legs into the dark hallway beyond. Dr. Banerjee watched it go with an abstracted frown. “Agassi?” Then he glanced up at Emma. For a moment he looked
blank, as if he did not quite remember who she was. He blinked at her.
“Sutton,” he said at last. “Hello. Did you bring Agassi home?”
“Um, I actually wanted to ask you something. About Nisha.”
His eyes seemed to focus sharply, his look of mild confusion evaporating at once. “What is it? Do you know what happened to her?”
Emma bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Dr. Banerjee. I don’t understand it either.” She shifted her weight. “But I was wondering if I could . . . go in Nisha’s room? I won’t mess anything up. I just want to say