“Look!” My mother pointed out the window. A crowd gathered in the grassy fold of a small park, watching a young woman balancing in place on a unicycle. A rod perched on her head, a plate spinning on top. Next to her, a man on a stepladder added a second rod and then lowered another plate. He gave it a spin, setting it in motion. My mother turned to me, her face wide and glowing. “Can you even imagine?”
I dropped them back at the hotel before their party.
“What will you do tonight?” my mother asked.
“Just dinner and sleep. I have a morning appointment at the archives,” I lied, “and then I fly home.”
“I don’t know how you do these quick trips. You must be exhausted.”
“Dad, don’t forget to take photos. I want to see Mom in that dress.”
Back at my hotel, I ordered up food. My flight was early; I would just get up and go. I packed and showered and then sat awake in bed, playing through the conversation from the department store with my mother. Had we ever spoken so truthfully with each other? AboutCassie, or anything? And then I was thinking about the last time I’d seen Cassie, and what might have changed if I’d told my mother about it. Then, or now. That night in December when Tyler and I talked about Cassie—it wasn’t true that I never saw her again. The next spring, almost a year had passed since she disappeared. I woke up in the middle of a night. There was a noise in the hall. When I went to see, a light shone from Cassie’s room. I thought maybe it was my mother but when I craned to look, it was Cassie. An ash-gray apparition, gaunt in the yellow glow of her bedside lamp. She tore through her bureau with a manic energy, searching for something. Her shoulder blades like dislocated wings, almost slicing through the worn-thin fabric of her T-shirt. My heart was pounding and I hurried back to my room, springing on the balls of my feet, desperate to make no sound. I lay still in the dark, clenching my body, straining to listen until I heard the front door open and close. In the morning, there was no sign that she’d been there. I told myself—as I kept it from my parents, my mother tortured by unknowing—that I’d imagined the entire thing and Cassie had never come back. I hadn’t thought of that night in years.
I grabbed my phone from the bedside table. I opened the browser, searching—and then found it. It was Saturday night, no one would be there. I dialed the number. The voice mail came on and then a beep.
“Hi, Susan,” I said. “This is Mark. I’d like to meet with you. To talk about this complaint against Safie. It’s important. I can explain everything.”
CHAPTER 16
I had learned a lot over the years working on my book. Those stories had shown me the banal underside of murder, so that gruesome and unimaginable acts could be held close and understood. The research had prepped me to love Tyler no matter what he had done. (And, of course, the reverse was also true: My love for Tyler meant I would accept whatever he brought me.) I knew inside and out the machinations of these men’s acts, including the ways they had hidden their deeds. The moment we left my apartment and returned to the dorms, and each step since, I calculated against what my research had shown me. The fake text from Tyler to Addison, how we moved Addison’s body, what we told the police. I had been taught how to do this by those I’d studied. And we had done well, covering our tracks. An odd thing to take pride in, I suppose.
I understood one more crucial thing. I had hidden this from Tyler and did my best to hide it from myself. It was a necessary obfuscation that allowed me to keep going, to get through the days without losing my mind to second-guessing and paranoia. I pocketed it away but it was there all along, pressing duly, then sharp against my side. This knowledge I possessed but did not want: I knew that we would, in all likelihood, be caught.
I flew back in the morning and when I walked up to my building, the cops were there. Detective Laurence was on his phone. Next to him stood a shorter man stuffed into a blue suit. He lookedfamiliar, probably from the station. In any case, he recognized me and said something to get Laurence’s attention.
Well, I thought, there goes any chance for tenure.
Laurence spoke some last words into his phone and put it away. “Dr. Lausson,” he said. “Good to see you again. This is my colleague, Detective Mike Hoffer.”
“Nice building,” Hoffer said. “My cousin used to live here.”
“That idiot cousin? What’s his name?”
“Not Patrick. Anne, on my mother’s side.”
“Go figure,” Laurence said. His eyes lingered on my overnight bag. “Have a good trip?”
The two of them stood thickly planted in place, smug and certain of themselves and their belonging to the moral order of the universe.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
“We were hoping you might come over to the station to talk.”
I tried to stay calm, and spoke slowly. “Alright. My car is in back. I can meet you there.”
“If you don’t mind,” Laurence said, “we’ll give you a ride.”
“Oh.” My heart jumped, my breath caught, my throat went dry. Was I under arrest?
Laurence smiled, maybe guessing at my thought, maybe satisfied with himself at putting it there. “It’s just to talk.” He pointed at a gray sedan parked at the curb. “Shall we?”
I got into the back seat. We pulled away, my face turned to the window. The building I’d lived in for almost two years—Hoffer was right, it was beautiful, how had I never noticed?—shrank and disappeared from view.
They brought me to an over-lit room: faded linoleum floors, yellowed walls slapped with cheap, shiny paint.
“Go ahead and grab a seat.” Laurence pointed to one side of a metal table and sat opposite. There was a low cabinet against the wall and Hoffer hopped on top, as if he were just hanging out, curious to watch what might unfold. Laurence picked up a small device from the table and turned it on. He gave his name and badge number, the precinct and date. He referred to me as the interview subject and asked me to state my name. I did.
“I’ll be recording this. That’s okay with you?”
