Chapter Twenty-Three
TWENTY-THREE
I watch a police officer string a garland of yellow tape that reads CAUTION across the front door of the house, the plastic rippling gently in the welcome breeze.
It’s official now—the house is a crime scene and I am the victim.
I feel woozy and weak. I don’t know what I expected when Finn walked me over here earlier, but not this.
Not my blood on the basement floor.
I stand in the shade of a maple tree while Kugel pants rhythmically at my feet, his warm body pressed against my ankle, anchoring me to reality. Around me uniformed officers hustle about their business, but I am stilled by the shock of what’s happening.
Finn returns to my side.
“I called work and said I would be late.”
“Thanks,” I say.
His steady presence beside me feels like the only solid thing in a world suddenly gone fluid and uncertain.
At first, I encouraged him to leave and get to work on time, but now I am grateful he is here with me as Officer Jankowski approaches.
I don’t relish talking to him again. He didn’t believe me the first time, and I don’t hold out hope he’ll be more sensitive now.
I tell him the whole story, how Finn and I were walking and we decided to stop by the house to see if anything jogged my memory. How I headed to the basement, almost on instinct, and that it came to me that I had been there. How we found a pool of dried blood on the carpet.
“So just to be clear,” Jankowski says, his pen hovering above his small notebook, crow’s-feet deepening around his eyes as he squints against the sunlight. “You all of a sudden remembered you had been inside this house, and you took it upon yourself to break in?”
“We didn’t break in,” I say. “The door was open.” I shoot Finn a sidelong glance.
This is a lie, and I feel bad telling it.
But I don’t want to get Finn in trouble for using the Allards’ code without their permission.
“I take full responsibility. Jo Allard, the owner, is a friend of mine. I’m sure she won’t care. ”
“We have someone on the phone with the Allards right now, actually. So we’ll see.”
I plaster on a smile. I am praying that Jo won’t want to make a fuss. “They’ll tell you, we’re old friends.”
“So you take it upon yourself to enter this house and look around. A house you say you don’t remember entering on Saturday night, but now you claim to remember leaving Sunday morning.”
“That’s right. I don’t remember how I got here, that part is all blank. But I remember waking up, feeling confused, and stumbling out into the light.” Sunday morning’s details are coming back to me now, where once it was just a void in my memory.
“Is there anyone else in these recovered memories?” he asks. “Or are you all alone?”
I wince at the word recovered, as if it makes them somehow less legitimate, as if I’ve fabricated them rather than excavated them from the fog in my mind.
“No, there’s no one else in the memories. I was by myself,” I say. “But I want to make clear, if I didn’t the last time we spoke, that I wasn’t hungover. I know what being hungover feels like.”
“Okay.” His puffy face remains impassive, but I catch the subtle hint of doubt in his tone.
“I was drugged. That’s why I fell and blacked out.”
His eyebrows shoot up, skepticism etched into the doughy flesh of his forehead. “You didn’t mention this theory of yours on Sunday.” There’s an edge to his voice now, a hint of open suspicion that makes my stomach clench.
“Well, I did mention the tox screen. I know I did.” I try to keep the frustration out of my voice. I won’t get anywhere aggravating him. “I’ve been thinking about, how did I end up in the basement? And all that blood? Someone must have taken me there.”
“Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” Jankowski says. “We don’t know that’s your blood. We’ll ask the Allards if we can take a sample of the carpet, but until we run the tests, we can’t be sure. Did you get the results from the tox screen back yet?”
I shake my head. “They said it would take a while. How long will it take to get the blood from the carpet tested to see if it’s a match to mine?”
He blows out a long breath. “Could be a while. A month?”
“A month? I have to wait a month to find out?”
“Could be longer. Wheels of justice turn slowly and all that, but be patient.” He shuts his notebook with a decisive snap. “We’ll get the results eventually. If you remember anything else in the meantime, call us.”
He turns back to the house. That’s it. Ten minutes of his time, and he’s filed me away. I feel dismissed, small, hysterical. With nothing else to do here, Finn and I turn to go, walking toward my house on familiar streets.
“That was so anticlimactic,” he says, kicking at a stone on the sidewalk. “I didn’t expect it to be like on TV, where they pull up with some special gadget and test the carpet right there. But still, a month or longer?”
“I just hope the Allards don’t give us any trouble for going into the house. I need them to say yes and let the police test the carpet. It feels like the first real piece of evidence that something bad happened Saturday night.”
He nods. “I know how you feel. They took some DNA from the night Autumn was killed, and they just came back with the results a little while ago. And that was almost a year ago.”
“A year? That’s crazy. What did the results say?” I ask softly.
“They don’t really say anything. It’s more a profile that you can match suspects to. If they ever arrest any suspects.” Bitterness creeps into his voice. “Which I’m starting to wonder about.”
“And you still don’t think it was a robbery?”
He shakes his head, jaw tightening. “We were on a FaceTime call that night. I heard the doorbell ring. She was upstairs in Tori’s room, and she looked out the window and said, ‘One of the neighbors is at the door.’ She answered the front door, and she was shot.”
“I’m sorry. That’s so intense.” My words fail the moment. I can’t imagine being on the phone with a loved one seconds before they were killed. “A neighbor, huh? I wonder who it was.”
“You and me both.”
“You still talk to the detective on the case?” We turn onto my street, my house coming into view.
“Sometimes we touch base. He’s a decent guy. Tries to keep me updated in the most general way.”
We stop in front of my house. It’s such a pretty house—brick Colonial with black trim and a blue door.
I loved it the moment Miguel and I first saw it.
Zach was a baby, and I was pregnant with Rachel.
This was going to be our forever home, in a safe neighborhood, with excellent schools. We were set.
Now everything feels upside down. What kind of mother doesn’t know her daughter was breaking and entering? I’ve blown the only job lead I’ve had in a year. And someone in my own neighborhood drugged me and stuck me in a basement.
A small white butterfly lands on a purple phlox that Paula gave me last year.
Normally seeing butterflies gives me hope, and I try to see it as a reminder that the natural world goes on no matter what problems we humans face.
“Your landlady gave me those.” I point at the flowers.
“She’s always giving away plants. But you probably know that. ”
He smiles sadly. “Yeah. She’s very generous.”
“I’m really sorry I made you late for work, but I appreciate your being there today,” I say. “Whatever happens, it feels good to have remembered at least one part of my story.”
“Happy to do it.” He narrows his eyes. “Whose party did you say you were at when this happened?”
“The Allards. Daniel and Jo. They actually own that house—”
“Oh, I know.” His tone is clipped, causing me to look up sharply.
“That property shares the hedge that Yumi saw some guy go through.”
He nods. “Exactly. A neighbor.”
I know exactly what he’s wondering when he says that word.
“I wonder if they were home the Saturday that Yumi saw someone go through the hedge,” I say. “I mean, their whole back wall is practically glass. Maybe they saw something.”
“I have to admit that I looked for a paper calendar in their house but didn’t find one.”
“Most people are totally digital now.” I twist the leash around my hand, mind racing with possibilities. “But I think I know a way to check.” I straighten up, an idea forming as I speak. “Jo puts everything on Instagram. I could go back and look. I swear she doesn’t go a day without posting.”
We agree to touch base later, and I watch him walk away, his silhouette receding down the street. A tiny spark of hope flickers in me, not just because my memories have started to come back, but because of Finn. At a time in my life when I am saying goodbye to so many things, I relish saying hello.
Besides, Finn is the only person I know who seems to really believe me.