Chapter 33
I’m wearing all black in order to blend in better with the night.
Zala’s house sits next door to Fred and Ivory’s, so it only takes me a couple minutes to reach the curb hugging her yard, although it feels as long as a Death Row walk.
The sky is a black velvet sheet suffocating the stars.
Her porch light glows like a single interrogating eye.
When I reach her mailbox, I check for obvious signs of someone tracking me—the crunch of frosted grass beneath feet, puffs of cloudy breath rising in the frigid air—but it’s hard to carve out people lurking in the shadows when it’s this dark out.
The mailbox door opens with a metallic pop, and I slide my arm in, reaching from corner to corner hoping to touch paper. Anything with Zala’s name will do. But it’s empty, and now I face another decision. I need to get inside her house.
Squaring my shoulders, I remind myself that this is a casual, sociable visit.
Zala—or Gillian, or whoever she is—won’t murder me in her home.
That would arouse way too much suspicion and make a heck of a mess to clean up.
So I choose to present this as a totally normal visit between friends with a shared concern over their murderous neighbor.
Just two women chatting about a missing woman and a homicide.
If I’m lucky, I’ll figure out Zala’s real name and if she has any connection to it. Hallmark material, really.
In one hand—my injured left one—I clutch a pocketknife tucked into my coat pocket. While I don’t think Zala would overpower me or risk killing me, I can’t take any chances.
With my free hand I knock. Beyond her closed door I hear faint mumbling, and a minute later Zala opens the door wearing massive fluffy slippers and a robe so thick she could survive in the Arctic.
Her expression is cautious, like she’s expecting a salesman or a cult recruiter, which makes sense considering the late hour.
My palm reassuringly grasps the cool metal of the hidden knife.
“Oh, it’s you, Shari.” Her voice is flat, and she scans the street, then lifts her gaze to the night sky. “It’s awfully late. Did we have plans?”
“Not exactly. I’ve just been worried that the police haven’t updated the media with anything new about Ivory. I was hoping maybe you heard something and we could talk. As friends.”
She looks skeptical as she hesitates but then steps aside. “Sure. Come in.”
Her living room is tidy in that don’t touch anything way. I search for a sign of where she might keep a piece of mail, a magazine, anything with her full name on it, but this woman’s house looks as sterile and impersonal as a model house.
She gestures to the couch but doesn’t sit herself, which is an effective way to make a guest feel like a defendant. There is no offer of tea or coffee or a refreshment of any kind, which is fine by me. I’d be cautious of consuming anything Zala offered me.
“It’s been crazy what’s going on in Doomwood Falls,” she comments, breaking the ice. “First Ivory going missing, and then a woman’s body found at the waterfall. It’s a little terrifying, if you think about it, our small town so plagued with murder.”
“Speaking of Ivory,” I clear my throat, “have you heard anything new about her case?”
Her arms fold tightly across her chest. “Why?”
“Because it doesn’t seem like the police are doing anything to search for her. They supposedly tracked her cell phone’s last location to some beach resort, but that was a week ago and no one’s laid eyes on her since she went missing. I’m starting to worry that she might not be missing but is…”
“Dead?” Zala finishes for me because I can’t utter that awful, horrible, definitive word. “You and everyone else in the neighborhood are thinking the same thing.”
We’re both quiet for a moment, so I take the opportunity to peruse the space.
I spot a magazine across the living room on a table next to a plush armchair.
I’m mulling over the most inconspicuous way to go over there when I almost forget the other reason I came here, which is to ask, “Have you happened to see Freida in the past week?”
Zala thinks for a moment, or at least she pretends to. “No, I can’t say I have.”
“I’m worried about her. No one has seen her for days.”
“Her mother is missing. She’s probably afraid to leave her house,” Zala suggests, and it actually does make sense.
“Do you think we should go check on her to make sure she’s okay?”
“I wouldn’t worry too much.” She waves me off. “Kids are more resilient than you think, especially a girl like Freida. She’s as tough as nails. I’m more concerned about the dead woman they found in Doomwood Falls. And that unusual detail about that case. So odd.”
“What unusual detail?”
I don’t recall reading anything that stuck out to me as odd. Unless you count the fact that a woman was murdered in a town that ranked as one of America’s Top Ten Safest Place to Live list. Two women gone in a week is pretty unusual for a town with a zero percent homicide rate.
She continues, almost carelessly, “Didn’t you hear? The poor woman was found without a shirt on! How mortifying!”
That detail wasn’t made public. I would know, because I researched the heck out of the case after I opened up that bag with my wet shirt souvenir.
I checked every source to make sure my name wasn’t attached in any way.
Then I double-checked. No article, no rumor mill, no neighbor gossip ever mentioned anything about Janet Vick being shirtless when Marshall found her.
Only one person—the person who sent me the shirt—could have known that detail. Did Zala send it to me? I reach into my pocket and feel the edge of the blade folded into its metal vessel. My fingertip traces the indentation in the handle, ready to pry it open if needed.
“Where did you hear that?” I ask.
Zala’s eyes snap to mine, confused. “Hear what?”
I unfold the blade.
“How do you know she was missing her shirt? Nothing in the news mentioned that.” I’m not going to let this go without an answer, and if she goes on the offensive, I’m prepared to fight back. “Who told you that?”
Realization of her mistake distorts her expression from a kindly grin to an annoyed frown. “I don’t recall where I heard it.”
Her slippers swish against the carpet as Zala steps to the side of the sofa where I’m sitting and she sighs loudly, mentioning something about the late hour. When I don’t instantly rise to my feet, she gestures to the door.
“I hate to be rude, Shari, but I was in the middle of getting ready for bed. It’s late and time for you to go.”
I’m running out of time and conversation, which means my window to discovering a clue to Zala’s real identity is narrowing. If only I could get a look at that magazine, or access an office or desk of some kind. I wonder if she keeps magazines in her bathroom like my own mother does.
“Do you mind if I use your restroom before I walk home?” I smile sweetly. “Weak bladder.”
“Of course.” She nods like she completely understands my dilemma. “It’s right through that hallway.”
I open my mouth to thank her, but the walls suddenly erupt in red and blue lights flashing violently. They strobe through her gauzy curtains, turning her living room into a deranged night club.
Zala’s head whips toward the window. “What the heck is going on out there?”
I jump up from the sofa and rush to the window where Zala is already standing, pulling the curtains aside. One patrol car turns the corner. Then another. And a third. All of them are barreling straight toward my house. The law enforcement mood lighting washes my lawn in patriotic panic.
“Come on,” Zala urges me to follow her. “Let’s see what’s going on.”
From her front yard we watch three police cruisers park in the street, blocking my driveway, their lights bouncing off every mailbox and windowpane. Several officers climb out with their hands on radios, static crackling in the air.
Along the entire block my neighbors appear like paparazzi drawn to a celebrity. Curtains twitch open. Front doors swing wide. People emerge onto their porches wrapped in blankets with phones aimed and recording. And all those eyes—and every phone—are fixed on my home.
“Why are the police at my house?” I wonder aloud, because it could be any number of things, from the discovery of what’s behind my bookshelf door, to sinking Janet Vick’s body.
My worst fears rise to the surface. Did they find my DNA on Janet Vick? Would that be enough to ensure my arrest?
Zala pivots to me sharply. “That’s a very good question, Shari. Why are they at your house?”
I can’t answer, because I don’t want to incriminate myself. “I don’t know…” I mutter, but what I do know is that tonight is not going to end well for me.
With that realization, I sprint home, hoping to head off the police before Mamma or Luca attempt to inject themselves in my defense and land in jail alongside me. Ready or not, I’m about to face whatever disaster is waiting for me on my own turf.
My shoes slam against the pavement, and the cold bites my fingertips numb.
I linger on the edge of my driveway, waiting for a policeman to escort me to the back of a cruiser when a scream slices through the chaos of crackling radios and babbling speculations.
It’s a high-pitched, panicked shriek, and every neck in sight turns toward the wailing.