Chapter 65
There are footsteps above, dull and low, much lighter than Ben’s. She hears them on the stairs next, then Maya appears in the family room, her laptop tucked beneath her right arm, and the relief that floods into Kate’s chest—at last, she can breathe.
When the police dropped Kate off at her house on Tuesday evening, there was a silvery electric coupe parked at the curb and a figure sitting on the front porch, something dark and boxy beside her, which might have been a suitcase, but Kate couldn’t quite tell.
As Kate pushed the car door open, the figure rose, stepping into the glow offered by the light fixture affixed to the bricks between the garage doors, the one Kate and Ben never turned off.
It was Maya. She must have known, a deep and improbable sense that only a close friend could possess, that Kate needed her, more so than she needed anyone else.
“You okay?” asked one of the officers, staring at Maya curiously, hand hovering at the height of his weapon, and Kate realized that she was crying.
“I’m fine,” she said, rushing across her driveway. “You can go.”
Maya folded Kate into her arms, and Kate tried to remember when she’d last seen her.
Maybe not since the small gathering she and Ben had hosted shortly after they’d moved into the suburban house that loomed beyond their embrace.
It had been far too long, particularly considering how close they’d once been—sharing an apartment their last two years of college.
Although, by her senior year, Kate was spending more nights at Ben’s place than at hers and Maya’s.
But Ben was gone, and in that moment, her friend’s arms pressed tightly against her own, for the first time since she found her husband’s body, Kate understood that perhaps she was going to find a way to be okay.
Maya settles onto the sofa beside Kate. She grips the edge of her computer but doesn’t lift the screen yet. “You won’t speak to the police again,” Maya says, watching Kate through narrowed eyes. “Not without me present.”
“Yes.” Kate rolls the edge of a throw blanket between her fingers. “You’ve mentioned that,” she adds. Because Maya has, ever since she arrived. Ever since she recognized Kate and Ben’s house on the news and her calls and texts went unanswered.
“I understand that, Kate. And I will keep reminding you every two minutes or so, just in case. It scares me that you went there with them last night.”
“You mentioned that, too. But I didn’t do anything wrong, so—”
“Innocent people get arrested all the time. They confess to things they didn’t do.”
“I know.”
Maya’s brows are arched, lips pressed tightly, as though there’s much more she wants to say, but she’s not letting herself.
She slides across the cushion, closer to Kate, her warmth, her scent, already filling the house.
Kate is so relieved she’s here, that she came without Kate asking, without Kate even realizing how badly she needed her.
Kate texted her mother, after ignoring so many of her calls.
My friend is staying with me for now. I don’t have space for you.
Not exactly true—there was plenty of physical space in the house—but it seemed to silence her. For now.
“You need to get out of here,” Maya says. “I think we should leave in the morning, okay? You’ll come stay with me.”
It sounded like an invitation, a suggestion, but Kate knows better.
“I don’t know if I’m allowed,” she says, still pinching the edge of the blanket.
“It’s Baltimore, not Nepal. They can get in their car and find you if they need to.”
“Hmm,” Kate murmurs. She swallows, guilt swelling within her, thinking that Maya might want Kate to come stay with her for other reasons, too.
Last night, she told Kate that Emery had ended things and moved out three weeks ago.
A two-year relationship suddenly dissolved, and Kate hadn’t even known.
She’s been so out of touch, so singularly focused.
That was what Ben had said on Saturday afternoon.
She feels sick about it, his inconvenient lack of wrongness.
“And we need to talk about whether we can trust them,” Maya says, ignoring Kate’s prevarication.
“Who?”
“Can we trust that the police are really trying to figure out who did this? Or are they just trying to gather evidence against you?”
“I really don’t know.”
Maya sighs, then opens her computer. “This guy across the street. What’s his name?”
“Which one?”
“Fair enough.”
“Owen Irvin,” says Kate. “The other man is Henry. I don’t know his last name.”
She watches as Maya opens a map, finds the addresses of the houses across the street from Kate’s, then types those into the state’s real property database. In less than a minute, they have a last name for Henry: Lawson.
Maya searches for Owen first, skimming the same articles Kate had found on Monday; then she turns to Henry.
Her social media searches don’t yield any results, but she finds a LinkedIn profile, a green band beneath his photo indicating that he’s looking for work.
Kate tilts her head back, lets herself enjoy the feeling of someone she can trust taking control, taking care of her.
That morning, Maya awakened before Kate.
With her friend just on the other side of her bedroom wall, Kate finally slept.
Maya made coffee, preparing a mug for Kate exactly the way she liked it, the way Ben used to make it for her, and ordered french toast with berries and whipped cream that had melted by the time the food was delivered, but its sticky sweetness lingered, and Maya looked on sternly until Kate had finished everything.
“He added an end date to his most recent employment, and it was eight months ago,” Maya says, turning to Kate. “That’s weird, right?”
“Maybe he’s been working on a novel.”
Maya rolls her eyes, fingertips skimming the mouse pad.
“I’m serious. He does like books. He stole mine.”
“Or maybe something happened there. That’s why he left.”
When she closes her eyes, Kate sees Henry—standing in the street, those drinks in his hand, seemingly so friendly yet so threatening. She sees him in the frame of her closet door. The front door was open, he said. But it wasn’t.
“I bet it did,” she says.
Maya has already located the company website and is scrolling through the profiles of every staff member. “There’s only one young-ish woman who works here,” she says. “Janelle Granger. We could send her a message through your LinkedIn.”
“What—I mean, what help would that be?”
“If we can find something else on him, that we can share with the police, we can get them to stop looking at you. You know you didn’t do this.”
This. Kate nods.
“And that means that someone else did. Wake up, Kate.”
The harshness stings, yet Kate knows it’s what she needs.
Maya’s fingers fly across the keyboard. “Here, I’ll use my LinkedIn. I’ll just send her a message. I’m telling her that Henry is my client’s neighbor and we have reason to believe he’s dangerous. We’re reaching out to people who might know him to see if they’ve had a similar experience.”
“Eight months is a long time,” Kate says. “Maybe there was an incident with someone who’s no longer working there. Someone who left when he did.”
“True. I’m not sure how I can narrow down the people who recently left that company. I could find former employees on here, but it would be pretty tedious to go through their employment end dates.”
But only minutes later, Janelle has written back, as though she could sense their urgency, their need. Kate leans against Maya for a clearer view of the screen, the tidy, shrunken text.
Hi. I actually think I was the replacement hire, so I didn’t overlap with him.
But something did happen. I heard it was awful.
And that was why he left. But since I wasn’t even there, I really don’t feel comfortable telling you about it.
Why don’t you reach out to Lacey Albright?
She would know and it’s her story to tell. Sorry.
Kate has barely finished reading the message before Maya is closing her inbox, searching for Lacey’s page, and sending her a similar note.
“I wish Janelle would just tell us,” says Kate. “She clearly knows. It doesn’t matter if she wasn’t working there at the time.”
“Maybe she will if I tell her it’s related to a police investigation. Or maybe she’ll agree to meet us for coffee. If we can get a meeting with her, we might be able to convince her to talk.”
Maya sighs impatiently, then opens her work email, and Kate watches the number of unread messages tick upward in real time, feeling her guilt swell again.
“Do you need to go back to your office?” Kate asks.
“I can take a few days off. It’s not a big deal.” But she’s opened a reply window and is typing furiously. Kate lets her eyes fall closed, until Maya gasps. “Lacey wrote back.”
Kate sits up again, blood humming in her ears as she cranes her neck toward the screen.
I can’t discuss him with you. Please don’t contact me about this again.
“Well,” says Maya. “That’s not nothing, is it?”
“No,” says Kate softly. “Not at all.” They both stare at the words; silence thrums, intrigue rising.
“She said she can’t, not that she doesn’t want to.” Maya is staring above the top of her screen, at the empty wall, at nothing.
“Does that matter?”
“I think so. I’m going to ask her if she has a lawyer. I’ll tell her this is related to an active police investigation. And then we’ll talk to the police and tell them what we’ve found.”
The police—the thought of voluntarily bringing herself close to them makes Kate squirm. But they’re already hovering, suspicious, even when she can’t see them. That they’ve been quiet, out of sight, since Kate got home from the station doesn’t mean that they’ve cleared her.
“Tell them what we’ve found,” Kate echoes. “Which is what, exactly? All we know is that he had to leave his prior employment for some reason. That’s a far cry from, from…” She stops.
“From murder,” says Maya.
“And why Ben? Why my husband?”
Maya is staring ahead of her again, face blank. “I don’t know.”
Kate feels hopelessness descending anew. But then Maya is typing frantically, the clench of her jaw, her grit drawing Kate upward. “But we are going to find out.”
Later, the sky darkening as they’re still waiting to see if Janelle or Lacey will reply again, Maya is rinsing their take-out containers and muttering that they really do need to stop eating out.
Kate moves around the house, checking that every window and door is locked.
She’s catching on, she thinks. She’s being more careful; she’s starting to look out for herself again.
The shock is wearing thin, the fear beginning to scream, too loud to be ignored. Nor should she try to ignore it.
Maya is right. She’s not safe here. She must go. Soon, she’ll pack a bag, and in the morning, she’ll follow Maya to her condo downtown. Farther from Owen Irvin, farther from Henry Lawson. Farther from this place where Ben’s absence is too piercing a howl.
She can’t remember checking the door on their screened porch, so she goes out there to ensure it’s locked.
She averts her eyes from the patio below, but what’s not there is too glaring to avoid.
The outdoor sofa is bare, wicker exposed, blood-soaked cushions gone.
Ben’s blood scrubbed from the stones. Like he was never there at all.
Once she’s certain that everything is locked, Kate finds Maya upstairs, sitting cross-legged on the bed in the guest room, her computer resting on the comforter.
“Still nothing more from Janelle or Lacey,” she says. “We’ll give them a little more time. Maybe they have to sleep on it.” She tips her head toward her laptop. “I’m just going to catch up on a few work things. You okay?”
Kate nods, although she’s not sure if she is. “I’m going to bed.”
“Already?” Maya asks.
Kate nods again and tries for a smile. But it feels wrong, and before she turns her back on Maya, she observes her friend’s creased face, the furrow of her brows, her concern blatant, like a blinking neon sign.
Kate goes into her bedroom. She tries not to look at Ben’s pillow in their unmade bed, his nightstand, the boat shoes resting on the floor in front of his dresser.
In the bathroom, Kate reaches for her toothbrush, bracing herself for the sight of Ben’s in the cup beside hers.
But Kate’s is the only one there. Ben’s is gone, and Kate’s hand shakes as she flips cabinets open, tugs drawers, searching.
She tries to remember whether it was there this morning, whether she had even brushed her teeth, but her thoughts are mush.
She considers rushing down the hall, telling Maya. But telling her what? Ben’s toothbrush is missing? Why would someone take a toothbrush?
It wasn’t just a toothbrush, though, was it? It was the photos. It was her book. It was her husband.
And it was her keys. A means to silently enter her home—the significance of this suddenly squeezing her throat. Wake up, Maya had said.
Kate stares at the cup as though it might speak to her. As though it might explain what’s going on. But Kate already knows. She just doesn’t know what, exactly, he wants. Or how far he’ll go to get it.
“Maya!” she yells, her terror bare. “Maya!”
And she hears footsteps, light and panicked, as Maya runs.