“Hello?” she says, but there’s no answer, only a low-pitched hum. “Is anyone there?”
“You’ll have to go outside if you want to hear them,” Ethan says from the living room. “Phone service is hit or miss in this house.”
“Oh. Okay. I’m gonna go wash my hands, and then I’ll step out and call them back.”
There’s a powder room off the front hall, and there’s a dish of soaps shaped like seashells beside the sink basin, the towels on the rack are looped off at the middle with thick lengths of raffia ribbon that’ve been tied into bows. It reminds her of Seever’s house, because Gloria had decorated like this—carefully, thoughtfully. She washes her hands, turning one of the soap-shells in her palms to get a lather going, and dries her hands on the thighs of her jeans.
She comes out of the powder room and pauses to look at the photos nailed up on the wall before going outside. There are a lot of them—pictures of the grandfather in a business suit, the grandmother rowing a boat on a lake. It looks like Ethan’s grandparents are travelers, but there are no children in the photos. Lots of friends, it looks like, lots of good times. Sammie peers at a few of the photos, looking for Ethan’s face among the old ones, but she doesn’t spot him. But Ethan’s shy—maybe he doesn’t like his picture taken.
The wall of photos, it makes her think of Seever’s house. Again. She hasn’t thought of the time she’d spent in that house for a long while, but now it’s come up twice in the last few minutes. Why? This little house is nothing like Seever’s McMansion.
Her phone buzzes in her hand as she’s looking over the photos, but it’s a text this time, from a number she doesn’t recognize. I’D FORGOTTEN I HAD THE GUY WHO CALLS ABOUT SEEVER’S STUFF STILL SAVED IN MY CALLER ID. HERE’S HIS NUMBER.
The art dealer, she realizes. Simon. She’d thought he might not get back to her at all, that she’d have to search out a new angle, but it looks like things are about to turn around. Fuck you, Weber, she thinks, tapping on the number Simon had sent over and starting a text.
HI, she types. I WAS TOLD YOU’RE LOOKING TO BUY SOME OF SEEVER’S ARTWORK. PLS CALL OR TXT ME BACK. THX.
She finishes, hits Send. Then, she hears a muffled, canned voice, coming from somewhere nearby.
Alright, alright, alright. She recognizes the sound—it’s a cell-phone alert, the kind you download and use instead of the standard ring or beep. She’s heard all kinds of them, usually while at work—alarms set to sound like Christmas music or belches or even the revving engine of a racecar—and she’s even heard this particular one before, used by a woman who blushed bright-red when the man’s voice bellowed out of her purse. It’s from Dazed and Confused, the woman had said. I love that actor, but I can never remember his name.
“Was that your phone?” Sammie asks.
“I must’ve gotten a text,” Ethan says.
She can hear Ethan moving around, shifting pillows and books, hunting for his phone.
“Oh. Okay.”
I’D REALLY LIKE TO MEET WITH YOU, she types. Hits Send.
Alright, alright, alright.
“I didn’t realize you had that ringtone,” she says slowly. It can’t be a coincidence, that she sends a text and Ethan’s phone immediately goes off. Can it? Oh, stranger things have happened, she’s crazy for even thinking it, but she still takes a shuffling step toward the front door.
“I actually have two phones. I pay for one, my mom pays for the other.”
“I’ve never heard of someone having two phones,” she says.
Or maybe she was crazy for not thinking it sooner.
“It helps me keep things separate,” he says. “Otherwise it gets confusing.”
I HAVE A QUESTION.
Send.
Alright, alright, alright.
Ethan. She never found out his last name, doesn’t know anything about him except that he made sandwiches for a living. But he’d known all about her, right from the very beginning, because he’d read all her articles in the Post, he’d especially enjoyed the ones about Jacky Seever. And she’d liked the attention, she’d told him things about the case, more than she should’ve, Ethan was good at listening, he was kind, and he’d been interested in her writing, and he had a crush on her, it felt good to have a man look at her like that, even if he was just a kid, he was harmless.
Wasn’t he?
“Maybe I should go over your writing some other time,” she says, still typing into her phone. She can’t stop, not now. She has to know.
ARE YOU THE SECONDHAND KILLER?
Send.
Alright, alright, alright.
She should run, but she can’t seem to move. If this were a movie, she thought, I’d be screaming at the dumb bitch not to stand there like an idiot but get moving. The killer’s in the next room, you’ve got to go. Good advice, but sometimes life is more like a movie than most people realize, and she’s frozen to the spot, watching her phone and waiting.
Her phone vibrates in her hand and the screen lights up. She has her answer.