Chapter Thirty-Nine. Riley, Present Day
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
RILEY, PRESENT DAY
Maybe it wasn’t a priority call, or maybe Betty’s house is in such an isolated area no cruisers were nearby. Whatever the reason, the police take forty-five minutes to arrive.
“Here’s the piece that doesn’t fit,” says the young female cop with the name tag that reads C. Antonelli. “You say you arrived home to find this interior door broken. But there’s no sign of forced entry from the outside. And there was nothing in the box to steal.”
She and her partner—a short, muscular guy who doesn’t say much—keep looking around the house. Their training calls for them to notice unusual details, and virtually everything in Betty’s place falls into that category.
“Does anyone else have a key?” Officer Antonelli asks. “A neighbor or family member?”
Betty shakes her head. “There’s only one key to this house, and I had it with me.”
I see the officers exchange looks. It’s another weird detail.
“Is anything missing?” the officer asks. “Jewelry, cash, a laptop?”
Betty and I both checked while waiting for the cops. My engagement ring was right where I left it, zipped into a side pocket of my toiletries bag on top of my dresser. The irony didn’t escape me that my stolen ring could’ve been re-stolen.
“Nothing is missing,” Betty says.
I see the cops exchange another look.
“Ma’am, could I ask you to step outside the house and show me the back entrance again?” Officer Antonelli asks me.
“Sure.” I lead the way through the side yard to the entrance off the kitchen.
But the officer doesn’t want to examine the door. She wants to talk to me alone.
“You say you’ve been working here less than a week. Accidents happen. Maybe you jiggled the handle and it broke?”
I shake my head. “That’s not—”
“I could see not wanting to tell a new boss about something like that,” she continues. “But if you’ve got something to get off your chest, now’s the time.”
“I didn’t break the door handle,” I tell her. “I was with Betty the whole time. Ask her, she’ll tell you.”
“How’s her memory?”
“Very sharp. She wouldn’t have broken the lock and forgotten. Maybe someone climbed in a window.”
“Okay,” she says, as if she believes me. But I can tell she doesn’t.
The officers tell us to call if we discover something missing, then they leave.
Despite the strangeness of the day, I fall asleep quickly.
But in the middle of the night, something pulls me awake.
Typically I’d scroll through reels or listen to a meditation, but without Wi-Fi, I’m stymied.
I finally decide to wander into the living room and borrow a book.
I use my phone’s flashlight so I don’t disturb Betty, whose bedroom door is open.
Old psychology volumes with worn hardcovers are mixed in with classics—Faulkner, Austen, Hemingway, Joyce. I pick a paperback copy of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.
Then my eyes land on the fake atlas. I only got a glimpse of the papers inside before Betty closed the cover. Could they really be worth someone breaking in here?
I slide out the hollow book, wincing as it thumps against the edge of the bookshelf. I ease open the cover, aiming the beam of light inside.
A creak from the direction of Betty’s bedroom startles me. Just the old house settling, I tell myself.
The papers are slightly brittle from age, and the typewritten words have faded to gray. The top page seems to be an intake form. It lists the name Emily Robinson, age eighteen, and London, England, as the place of birth. The date of her arrival at Marquis is October 21, 1964.
Beneath these statistics is a category—Zener cards—and a long list of numbers that begin with: 12, 8, 11, 14, 10 …
A handwritten note in small, straight letters accompanies the scores: Exceptional.
The next notations are categorized beneath the heading Ganzfeld Experiments/Telepathy. I scan the results: Sun=lemon. Checkerboard=marbles. Blue=water. Monkey=animal in tree.
The final notation on the page is circled in ink. It says:
Girl 1 for Phase Two.