“It’s mostly peaceful. Half the houses are empty, so it’s not hard to pick up individual thoughts. Some guy drove by about five minutes ago with a pretty strong intent to slam his fist into his wife’s face because she was hounding him about something. Money, I think. There’s a girl at the end of the block who wanted to smash her sister over the head with the toaster just now, but her better nature or common sense took over and she settled for kicking her. The one that had me most worried was the kid on the bike—you remember? Before Taylor came down with the sketch? He was having some pretty serious thoughts about self-harm, and in my experience, those thoughts are a lot harder for our better natures and common sense to push away.”
I sit down on the couch and rub my eyes. My three hours of sleep is starting to get to me. “I wasn’t questioning whether you could pick out their thoughts. It’s just . . . like you said last night, Dacia was mad when she left the police station, mad that I blocked her. Maybe mad that I embarrassed her in front of the guy who was with her. She could have cooled off by now, though. She told me her boss didn’t want me harmed. And they might send a lackey . . . someone to grab me, someone who sees it as doing his job. Can you pick up on that?”
“Sometimes. People who work as hired muscle, who ‘grab people’ for a living, generally kind of like violence. That’s even true of some cops I’ve known. Anyone driving by will see my car out there, so they’ll probably assume you’re not alone. Maybe even assume there are weapons, and they’ll be thinking about contingency plans. Pretty sure that will be enough to trip my wires.” He glances at the Scrabble box on the coffee table. “Maybe we should start a game? Taylor’s going to be pissed if she hunted for it and we didn’t even play.”
I don’t get the sense that Taylor did much hunting, but it’s a diversion, so I agree. And Aaron turns out to be a good player. Not Emily MacAlister good, but he has a knack for strategy.
Taylor comes down when the board is nearly full. She’s wearing Deo’s earbuds and his turquoise cuff is attached to her left ear.
“We found the—” Aaron stops when he sees Taylor’s raised hand. The gesture smacks of diva, but I keep quiet as well. She grabs one of the pizzas and a bottle of water, then heads back up to her cave.
I place the o and s tiles I’m holding at the end of Aaron’s previous word, path. The last tile lands on the triple word score.
“Pathos.” He curses softly and shakes his head. “I thought of pathed, but all of the d tiles were used, so I figured that was safe.”
It’s already dark and we’re finishing up Scrabble Battle number two when Taylor comes back down. She’s carrying the pizza box—empty, judging from the angle at which she’s holding it—but no sketch pad. Deo’s earbuds are around her neck now. Her clothes are drenched.
“Anything?” Aaron asks.
“I’m not finished, but I need a break. So show me what you found.”
Aaron flicks on the computer and shows her the location, near Havre de Grace.
“I thought that was a type of cheese?” she says, as she pans around the map.
“Pretty sure that’s chèvre,” Aaron says. “And the people there pronounce it haverty grays, not the Frenchified way. You can’t see much more on the map. There’s no street view that far down the road. And judging from the satellite view, there’s no pool.”
Taylor sniffs. “No biggie. Could have been a kiddie pool, a big puddle, something like that. I just got the sense of water a few times when I was drawing. This is the place, I’m certain. What did Molly say?” She pushes the computer aside and snags two slices of pizza from one of the boxes in the fridge.
“Molly’s been kind of quiet, actually.”
And she has. It’s been hours since I’ve felt her presence. The last time was when we looked at Taylor’s sketch.
“She’s still there, though, right?” Taylor’s question comes between bites, and when I nod, she looks over at Aaron.
“Did you check the property records?”
“Dead end. Some sort of holding corporation.”
“Maybe Sam—”
“Sam’s at the hospital ’til nine,” Aaron says. “Giving Ella a break for a few hours.”
“I know. He told me earlier. But Porter’s in his own room now. They can have phones in there. Let’s FaceTime. Pa will want to know all of this, too.”
Molly stirs, as I’m pretty sure Taylor expected she would, when she used Molly’s name for Porter. I resist the temptation to give her a dirty look, because I’m not sure she’s doing it intentionally. But either way, she’s clearly wagging a conversation with Porter in front of Molly like a piece of cheese to lure a mouse out of its hole.
I glance around quickly, to be sure there’s nothing that would give away our location. “Don’t let them know where we are, okay? I’d rather they didn’t have to lie in case the police ask them about my location.”
Even though I don’t say it, I’d also rather Sam and Porter just plain didn’t know, in case one or both of them decides I’ve made the wrong decision about keeping the police out of this for now.
“And let’s not say anything yet about Delphi,” Aaron says. “I’ll wait and talk to Sam first.”
“What’s Delphi?” Taylor asks.
“I’ll fill you in after we hang up.” Aaron finishes entering the digits, and a few seconds later, Sam’s face appears.
“Yeah. What’s up?” One of those over-the-bed tray tables is partially visible behind him, with a brown paper bag and two take-out cups.