Chapter Twelve
I stared at our little house. That feeling struck me again—a sense of violation, of wrongness. The feeling of not being alone in a place where you believed you were very much alone.
Mia had gone rigid. "Did you forget to lock the door?"
"No, of course not." I rubbed my exhausted, heavy-lidded eyes with the back of my arm. How much had I slept last night? Two hours? Three? Even less the night before. "At least, I don't think so."
We were both thinking of Marcus, of that terrible night that had scarred us both.
The front door had been ajar then, just like now.
The memory surged through my brain, relentless and unbidden. The cake box in my hand. Mia in her canary-yellow dress with the white flowers laughing at some dad joke Marcus had told as we walked up the path to our home. A celebration for straight A's.
The key had never touched the lock. The front door was cracked open. Cold air spilled out.
Marcus's shoulder brushed mine as he stepped ahead. His voice came out low and rough. "Stay back."
But we hadn't. Of course, we hadn't.
We slipped in behind him, our shoes squeaking on the hardwood. The house was too quiet. The TV was off, no cartoon noise, just the hum of the fridge. Our dog was at the groomer's. No one was supposed to be there.
The hallway seemed to stretch on forever. Every shadow looked like a crouched creature waiting to spring at us.
"Hello?" Marcus called. No answer.
We moved deeper into the house. The cake box grew heavy in my hands, its cardboard edges biting into my fingers.
Then I saw it. A blur of movement at the end of the bedroom hallway. A large dark figure bolted sideways into the kitchen. Headed for the back slider.
Marcus charged. "Stop! Hey!"
My body moved before my brain could catch up. I grabbed Mia's arm and yanked her with me, shoving her down behind the kitchen island. Her yellow dress fanned out on the cold linoleum.
"Don't move!” My heart hammered in my throat. Adrenaline surged through me, making me slow, clumsy, stupid.
I fumbled for my phone but couldn't find the right pocket. My fingers felt thick, unwieldy. The cake box slid from my other hand. It hit the floor with a wet thud.
I peeked around the corner of the island. Marcus and the intruder were locked in a vicious battle. A chair skidded, then fell onto its side. Someone grunted. Shoes scraped across the floor.
The gun appeared. Black metal in the intruder's hand, materializing out of nowhere.
A thin, broken sound tore from my throat. "Marcus—!"
A single shot rang out. A crack that split the world.
Marcus’s body jerked.
Time went wrong, thick and slow.
He collapsed straight down, like his strings had been cut.
The dark figure sprinted through the kitchen, into the foyer, and out the front door.
I dropped the phone. It squawked, "911, what's your emergency?" I crawled to my husband on my hands and knees. Something cold and sticky soaked my palms. Melted ice cream cake. And blood.
His shirt blooming red. I pressed my hands to the wound, hard then harder. I felt the hot, slick gush under my fingers.
"Stay with me," I begged. "Stay, just stay." The words useless and frantic. "Don't leave me!"
He tried to breathe. The sound came out wet and rattling. His eyes searched my face, then slid past me. "Mia… "
"She's okay, Marcus. She's okay. You saved us, baby. It's okay, stay with me. Stay with me!"
Sirens wailed somewhere far away. Faint at first, then growing louder. They were still too far, still utterly useless.
"Help is coming, Marcus. Hold on," I said, my throat shredded. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
Marcus's fingers twitched against my wrist. They loosened. His hand went slack. His eyes unfocused. They stared straight through me.
The sirens screamed closer. Pointless now. Too late. Always too late.
In horror and disbelief, I turned toward Mia.
She was standing trembling beside the island.
Her yellow dress too bright, garish. Her face white, her eyes too big, too empty.
At her feet, cake leaked from the torn box, melting pink ice cream spreading in a slow puddle that mixed with the red.
Strawberry and iron, the scent of urine, of bodily fluids.
The metallic taste of blood in my throat—
"Mom?"
Mia's voice cut through the haze of memory. The kitchen dissolved, the blood, the ice cream cake. I was back on the uneven stone walkway in the rain, soaked through and shivering, facing my open front door.
The police had caught the man who'd killed my husband two days later. He'd been a heroin addict, in and out of prison several times, with a rap sheet as long as my arm for burglary, armed robbery, and aggravated assault.
A random act of violence. Wrong place, wrong time. Bad luck. The criminal got 20 years. We got a life sentence of grief, heartache, and loss.
That wouldn't happen again. Not here. Not in this safe, elite enclave.
That's why I chose this place. I told myself we were safe here. The words rang hollow inside my head.
My hand strayed to my phone in my jacket pocket. Calling the police sounded like a terrible idea. They were already suspicious. I didn't want to give them access to our house, our things, or our lives, unless we were forced to.
Certainly not before I figured out what to do with those damn slippers.
From inside the house, Apollo barked loudly. My knees went weak with relief. There probably wasn't a sadistic killer lurking inside with Apollo enthusiastically slobbering all over him.
Then again, Apollo was about as likely to lick a burglar as he would Mia or me.
I turned to Mia. "Wait on the porch with Apollo. Let me check it out."
I managed to open the door enough for the German Shepherd to barrel out and pounce on Mia. I extracted the Mace from my purse and held it in one hand, my phone in the other hand, 911 at the ready.
Anxiety thrummed through my veins. I checked the house. In the bathroom, I yanked the shower curtain back in one exaggerated sweep. The linen closet held stacks of towels and haphazardly folded bedsheets. The kitchen held day-old dishes in the sink.
I went back downstairs, into my office.
My blue composition notebook was gone. The one where I kept handwritten notes for my freelance assignments, to-do lists, and snippets of ideas. The same one that had been moved the other day. It had been right here on my desk this morning, sitting next to my laptop.
Now, it was missing.
Dread sank its claws deep into my chest. A rush of nausea rolled through me so hard I had to brace a hand on the desk. Cold sweat broke out along my spine.
Someone had stood here. At my desk. In this room, where I wrote, drank coffee, and surfed the internet. Someone who knew when we left for school, when we got home, when the house sat empty with Apollo snoring on the couch.
I scanned the room for anything else out of place.
The coffee mug I'd left on the coaster had been moved to the windowsill. A framed photo of Marcus, Mia, and me at Navy Pier was face down on the shelf where it had been upright this morning. The table lamp had been shifted to the other side of the desk. My desk chair was pulled out too far.
The smallest things. A stranger's signature, written in negatives.
Like they wanted me to know.
I had locked everything. I knew I had. After the opened window, I'd triple-checked the deadbolt before we left for the precinct.
I'd changed the locks the day the house closed.
Brooke was the only person with a spare key. I'd given it to her over fall break last October when Mia and I went to Grand Rapids for the day and needed someone to let Apollo out. Rowan, Viv, and Camille had all gone on quick getaways. Only Brooke had remained home.
Once she had it, I figured she might as well keep it in case Mia or I accidentally locked ourselves out. I never left a spare under a planter or anywhere else. I wasn't taking chances after last time.
Either she had come in here, or someone she trusted enough with the key had entered my home. Like her daughter.
I didn’t think Brooke would enter my house without permission, but what about Alexis? She had been standing beside our mailbox when we'd arrived home. Had she just walked down our driveway after letting herself inside?
My skin prickled all over.
The house no longer felt safe. It was all we had. We had nowhere else to go. We couldn't even afford a cheap motel at this point. My bank account was woefully empty, even more so since I'd had to delay the deadline for my latest freelance assignment. If I didn't work, we didn't eat.
I would call a locksmith today to change the locks again. I wasn't sure of the cost, but I'd put it on my credit card and pray my limit wasn’t maxed out. And then I'd talk to Brooke to get my spare key returned. I didn't know what else to do.
Through the window above the desk, I could see the street, wet and gray, where someone must have watched us pull away this morning, then watched us drive back after the precinct, waiting for their chance to slip inside.
I longed to call the police. But if I notified the cops that someone had broken in, had only taken a single notebook and moved some objects around, they'd think I was crazy. That I was unhinged, losing my damn marbles. That I was unraveling.
Even worse, they already considered Mia a suspect. If I invited them in now, they'd tear through everything—our rooms, our devices, our lives—and still conclude Mia was guilty. I thought of the slippers again and shivered.
I stared at the empty spot on my desk, feeling the eyes of whoever had been here as if they were still watching me through the glass.