Her skin flushed as she held his gaze. “I see you, too.”
Their bodies connected in a frantic crush. His hoodie disappeared, and then her sweater. And then his shirt. They were on her bed, and her jeans were off, and she was only in her underwear. She reached for his zipper.
Ollie placed a hand over hers. “Is this okay? Are you sure?”
These were the questions that required honesty. “Yes,” she said. “Are you?”
“Yes.”
She kissed him again, gently pushing aside his hand. “Yes,” she repeated.
“Yes,” he repeated.
The boy with the pink hair was asleep, and her grandmother had texted thirty minutes earlier that traffic was moving, but it was still slow. They had at least another hour.
Makani replied: no prob! keep me updated.
Her favorite song blasted through the speaker as she contemplated the rise and fall of Ollie’s bare chest. His stomach was flat, much flatter than hers, and he looked more content in slumber than he did when he was awake. He looked soothed. The sex had been surprising, and not only because it had been quiet. (Just in case.) It had been different from their first time. It had been better. It had been more.
Makani watched Ollie until thirst overpowered her. She redressed, tugged a blanket over him, and went downstairs into the kitchen. The flatware drawer was open.
Her pulse spiked. “Grandma?”
Apart from the tick of the grandfather clock, the house was silent. Makani closed the drawer with a shaking hand. She can’t be home yet. She rewound an hour to their arrival, trying to remember if the drawer had been open when they’d passed through the room. She didn’t think so, but, admittedly, she’d been distracted.
It must have been open.
Her grandmother must have opened it before leaving for her appointment. It was good that she’d gone to the specialist. Maybe they would finally get some answers.
Makani filled a plastic cup with tap water and chugged it. She refilled it for Ollie but then decided to use the downstairs bathroom, her grandmother’s bathroom, before returning. With the loud music, she didn’t think he’d be able to hear her peeing in the upstairs bathroom, but she was still self-conscious about it.
When she returned to the kitchen, the flatware drawer was open. Her body lurched to a halt. She gaped at it from the threshold.
The tracks must be loose. It’s been rolling itself open this whole time.
But a lump thickened inside her throat.
Makani wasn’t sure why she felt afraid. She glanced at the back door, but it was locked. She glanced behind her, but she was alone. Of course she was alone.
She crept into the kitchen and pushed in the drawer, just a few inches. Testing it. Waiting for it to roll back out.
It didn’t.
She pushed in the drawer, all the way.
Waited.
Still nothing. Maybe Grandma is right. Maybe I really am the one losing my mind. The thought was unsettling, because it could be true. A period of time did exist that was difficult for Makani to remember. Perhaps these recent forgetful occurrences were remnants of her past trauma. Or perhaps, even worse, evidence of a new progression.
Shame poured through her as she stared at the drawer, willing it to open. She pressed her ear against its veneer and listened.
Nothing. The drawer held firm.
“Shit,” she whispered.
Makani shook her head. She went to grab the water, but the cup was empty.
“Shit,” she said again, spinning around. She didn’t know if she was searching for her grandmother or Ollie, but there was still nobody there. With trembling hands, she refilled the plastic cup and carried it toward the stairs, the water threatening to slosh over the sides. And that’s when she noticed the jigsaw puzzle.
The sky was filled in.
The puzzle had been completed.
Makani dropped the cup. Water splashed onto her jeans as the cup bounced and spilled across the carpet. She scrambled to pick it up.
“Grandma?” she called out. “Grandma, where are you?”
Why had she sent those texts? Was this a test to see if Makani would lie to her? Did she know that Ollie was here? Oh God. She’d probably heard them upstairs, and now she was waiting for him to sneak out so that she could confront Makani. It was something her mother would do. She loved to set up Makani and then punish her for taking the bait. Was her grandmother more like her mom than Makani had realized?
Makani rushed back into the kitchen. “Grandma? Are you home?”
There was still no reply.
She slammed the cup onto the counter, grabbed a dish towel, and returned to dry the carpet around the base of the stairs. Her cheeks burned. Her heart felt as if it would burst from her chest. If Ollie had heard her yelling, he was being smart and remaining hidden. Clutching the wet towel, she headed back to the kitchen and stopped dead.
The cup was gone.
Her mind spun. Unable to process it.
“Grandma?” Makani sprinted toward her grandmother’s bedroom at the back of the house. “Are you in there?” She pounded on the closed door, and when no one answered, she barged into the room. The bed was made. Everything was in its usual place. She even checked the closet—she didn’t know why—but it was empty.
She hurried back to peer out the kitchen window toward the driveway and staggered backward. The cup was sitting in the center of the countertop. And every single drawer and cabinet was wide-open.
Makani felt paralyzed. The driveway was visible from here, but it held no cars.
“Ollie?” she whispered. She forced herself to turn around, half expecting, half hoping for him to be standing behind her.
He wasn’t.
In a daze, she stumbled toward the stairs. Her eyes snagged on the completed jigsaw puzzle, and her body temperature chilled as a new horror settled in.
The killer had rearranged Rodrigo’s living room furniture.
Makani remembered the drawers and cabinets—how many times they’d been left open in the last two months. What if the victims were toyed with before they were murdered? The acts against them could have been almost invisible. Gaslighting. Things that an officer would never notice while inspecting a crime scene.
The police had assumed that Rodrigo’s furniture had been rearranged after his death as a part of the elaborate staging that the killer seemed to enjoy. But what if the killer had rearranged Rodrigo’s furniture before his death?
A hooded figure stepped out from beside the grandfather clock.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Makani’s scream reverberated throughout the house. It rattled the pictures on the walls.
The figure jumped, startled by the volume of her terror, and dropped something. A knife thudded onto the carpet between them.
For a surreal moment, they were both frozen. A beige camouflage hoodie hung low over the killer’s face, but Makani could see that he was male and white. He was also young, a teenager, judging from the slightness of his frame.
Makani glanced at his knife. It was large. The fixed blade was at least seven inches of steel, and it had two cutting edges—one regular and one sawtooth.
Its pointed tip was razor sharp.