I stand in my apartment with the phone pressed to my ear, listening to dead air. Then I call back. The line rings and rings before going to voicemail. I try the main station number instead.
"I need to speak to Detective Wilshire about case number?—"
"Detective Wilshire is unavailable. Would you like to leave a message?"
"I've already left messages. This is urgent. Someone left a severed hand at my apartment and?—"
"Ma'am, if you have an emergency, you should call 911."
"It's not an emergency, it's an ongoing investigation, and I need to speak to the detective assigned to?—"
"I'll make sure he gets your message."
Click.
I try twice more over the course of the day. Each time, I'm stonewalled. Detective Wilshire is unavailable. The case is closed. There's nothing more they can tell me. When I finally get through to someone else in the department and ask why a case involving a severed hand would be closed so quickly, the officer on the phone gets uncomfortable.
"Sometimes cases are... resolved through other channels," he says carefully.
"What other channels?"
"I really can't say, ma'am. But if Detective Wilshire says you're not in danger, then you're not in danger."
The way he says it that makes something click into place. I think about the dismissiveness, the vague explanations. The suggestion to just move on and forget it happened.
I wonder if someone made this go away.
Someone with enough power, enough influence, enough reach to make the NYPD close an investigation into a violent crime without explanation.
It might be I.S., whoever he is. He might have done this, and then gotten the case closed.
I sit on my couch with my phone in my hand, staring at nothing, and I wonder what kind of person I've attracted. What kind of monster has decided I'm his.
—
“You needto go out this weekend.”
Claire is standing in the doorway of my office, her hands on her hips. “I know you’ve been taking your work home. I see you in the documents. Have you eaten anything the last two weeks that wasn’t takeout?”
I can't actually remember, although I do know I’ve switched takeout spots. My usual Thai place gives me the creeps, now. "I've been busy with work."
"Bullshit. You've been hiding." She levels a narrow look at me. "Emma and Jess are meeting us at that new bar, that new martini place I was telling you about the other day. You're coming."
"Claire, I really don't think?—"
"I don't care what you think. You're coming. You're going to put on something that makes you feel hot, you're going to drink overpriced cocktails, and you're going to remember what it feels like to be a normal twenty-seven-year-old woman instead of someone who is going to start reciting provenance documents in their sleep.”
"I don't know if I'm up for it."
"That's exactly why you need to do it." Her voice softens. "Mara, I'm worried about you. You've been different since the auction. You won't talk about it, which is fine, but you can't just hide in your apartment forever. Whatever happened, you can't let it control your life like this."
If only she knew. If only I could tell her about the hand, about the card, about the way the police just made it all disappear. But I can't. I can't drag her into this darkness with me. This is too much to put on my assistant, even if a lot of the time she is more my friend than anything else.
And maybe getting out of the house would be a good idea. Maybe I need something to feel normal again.
"Okay," I hear myself say. "Okay, I'll come."
Claire's face lights up. "Really?"
