We rode over to a neighborhood I’d rarely been in before, one with houses that were older and more run-down than the ones we all lived in, houses that hadn’t been renovated in any of the real estate booms that had hit the Bay Area in the last however many years. The neighborhood was between the freeway and the train, and we could hear noises coming from either side of us as we snaked through back streets to find the house.
Finally we located it, a small, one-level bungalow covered in chipped stucco, in the middle of a street that ended in a cul-de-sac. It was dark outside and some of the streetlights were broken, so I couldn’t tell what color the house was, but it might have been pink. Hard to see how it could ever have been attractive; now it just looked shabby. Poor sweet Nora Sinclair, presumably now settled into her nursing home, had really let the place go. I wondered how she linked up to all of this.
We parked a couple of houses away, next to a house that appeared to be under construction, just far away enough to see Isabel as she drove up and got out of her car. She was wearing a trench coat and sunglasses even though it was completely dark out, hair wrapped in a scarf. She looked like a spy from some old movie—unrecognizable but completely glamorous.
Alex could barely hold back a laugh. “Really?”
“Always the drama queen,” I said. “I’m surprised she kept things so low-key when she went to get the pills.” It made me smile, though. I liked the idea that Isabel was the same person I’d always known, even though time had passed and things had gotten complicated.
Isabel dropped off the pills in the mailbox in front of the house, looked around quickly to see if anyone was there, and then got back in her car and drove away. It happened so fast, it was almost like it hadn’t happened at all.
“And now?” Justin asked.
“Now we wait,” Raj said.
“And what then?”
“Then we follow.”
We sat and watched for cars, but the only one we’d seen was Isabel’s. We could hear the sound of the train, and traffic on the freeway, but no one drove by. As I watched, though, I could see someone walking down the street, heading toward the house.
“Someone’s coming,” I said.
“A car?” Alex asked. “I don’t see anything.”
“A person,” I said. Which was weird enough—no one really walked in Marbella. The more likely option was that the person had parked somewhere else. Maybe so they wouldn’t be spotted going up to that mailbox.
We watched as the person kept walking down the street, inching closer to the mailbox. The person was wearing dark clothes and a baseball hat, like Isabel had on the video, like I had at Walmart. Apparently we had our own uniform. I couldn’t even tell if it was a boy or a girl.
Justin could, though. He started yelling as soon as the person closed the mailbox, bottle of pills in hand. “That’s Mark!” he shouted. “That’s my boyfriend!”
Before we could stop him, Justin jumped out of the car and started sprinting toward Mark. “So much for trying to follow him,” Alex muttered.
“So much for no ambush,” I said. “What do we do?”
“Give him a minute,” Raj said. “Clearly he wasn’t expecting this.”
With everything that had been happening, I had trouble believing Justin was somehow surprised, but whatever. We watched as Justin caught up to Mark and grabbed his arm. We weren’t close enough to see the expression on his face when Mark realized who’d found him, but we saw him put his finger to his lips. Did that mean he was worried that whoever was in the house would hear them? They whispered together for a while, Justin’s arms flailing; Mark eventually reached out to hold them down, trying to calm him. I supposed Justin was starting to understand how the rest of us felt; it almost made me feel bad for him. But not quite.
Finally, Justin headed back for the car. Mark turned around and walked in the opposite direction, back to where I assumed he’d parked. Justin slammed the door behind him as he returned to the backseat. “Don’t even say it, Alex,” he hissed. “I get it now, okay?”
None of us asked him what he got. We knew.
“Did you learn anything?” Raj asked. “What does he know?”
“More than we do,” Justin said. “He wouldn’t tell me anything other than that his life would be over if he gave up who was behind this, but he did say we could follow him. He’s doing the drop-off now. He said he can’t have anything to do with what we decide, but if we follow him, we’ll get all the information we need. He says he didn’t know what was happening to me, to all of us, but I’m not sure I believe him.”
I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a tear run down his cheek. I hoped Alex would stay quiet; now wasn’t the time for her to say what I knew she was thinking. I started the car.
“He’s around the corner, in a blue Civic,” Justin said. He’d wiped his face and was trying to sound like his usual snarky self. “He said we can just follow him. Get your camera phones ready, people. He told me he’d make sure we have a good shot.”