Your fingers were not the first to unfold the note. Your eyes were not the first to read it.
Others, my dear, are onto you.
From:Vivian Lawrence
To:Rachel Stein
Dear Rachel,
I am so sorry I have not been in touch. I’m sure you have been worried. As you know I had that head injury, and I have been recovering. I decided I needed to get out of town for the time being so I am in Florida. I will be in touch. But I do need to speak to Xavier. Have you heard from him?
Love,
Vivian
Taylor
Jerry and Taylor begin hauling out the trash. They work in silence, lugging both the cardboard boxes from the parlor as well as the series of kitchen trash bags someone has lined up along the back hall. It seems Jerry just wanted a moment alone with her, after all—it’s not some power play. She’s clearly getting jaded and paranoid, thinking the worst of everyone.
Eventually, he asks, “Did ya hear anything from your landlord about the antiques store?”
“No, not yet. Did you drop off the books yesterday?”
“Yeah. I said I would, so yeah, I did.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“When are ya gonna hear from your landlord?”
“I don’t know.”
He grunts, displeasure written across his face.
“Why the rush? I mean, it’s old stuff.”
“That old stuff could be worth a lotta money. People pay a lot for antiques.” He doubles the number of heavy trash bags he’s carrying, now two with each fist. He holds them out like they’re sets of weights. Taylor follows with more cardboard boxes.
As Jerry steps through the back entrance, one of the bags breaks open, its contents spewing out.
“Shit.” He rushes to collect the spilled contents, jamming them back through the hole in the bag.
Taylor sets down her boxes to help. It’s mostly food scraps: meat, vegetables, some pastry-like dessert, but also soaked paper towels, coffee grinds, and a couple of egg cartons. Gross. Also—is the Knox above recycling?
Suddenly, she comes across a discarded medication box labeled “amantadine.” She turns it over in her hands, her nurse-brain automatically kicking in to identify the drug: It’s used in Parkinson’s disease.
Jerry hastily snatches the box out of her hands, quickly depositing it in the trash as if she wasn’t meant to see it. “I got this. You can go grab the other bags.”
“Okay.” Fine with her; she’d rather not have to touch this stuff with her bare hands.
When they finally set down the last trash bag on the pavement, the private garbage company has arrived. Taylor and Jerry watch as two men toss the bags into the truck’s cavity, the machine loudly grinding. It’s only then that it fully hits her that the Knox doesn’t set out trash on garbage day, like everyone else does on the street. No—apparently they use a private company that comes at their beck and call to dispose of whatever they need. Very on point for a secret society.
Jerry’s eyes flicker to the Knox’s outdoor camera attached to the door, and then he squares his back to it. He motions Taylor to come close. “Look, the reason why I keep asking ya about the antiques store is I could use the money,” he admits to her surprise.
“But why? The Knox pays well, right?”
“It does. But that’s only if ya work here.”
“Are you planning to leave?”
