“Been keeping tabs, huh?”
“There’s no other employees.”
“Yeah, there are. Just not while you’re here.”
They turned onto a residential street, where the houses were stuccoed, painted in pastel colors. A few reminded Jack of something one might see in a small European village, with dark trim and shutters on the windows. Ivy slithered up trellises, engulfing Juliet balconies in brilliant foliage. Though small, the yards were proud and maintained. Willows wept, grass was cut, shrubs were trimmed, fences freshly painted.
They passed this street and turned onto another. Here, the pastel paints had faded in the salty air. Fences were broken, warped. Lawns were overgrown, their grasses creeping over sidewalks and into the street. Dandelions sprouted between cracks in the cement.
Boris pulled in front of a white house with a single car garage, easing onto the narrow driveway. Jack observed the double doors at the front of the house and wondered which side belonged to Boris. Silent and dutiful, Jack followed him to the door closest to the garage and waited for him to unlock it.
“Crime rates are high, huh?” he asked, because his head ached and he couldn’t think of anything else to say. It was the sort of thing his father might have said when he came to visit Jack in the city, far from the suburban paradise he so often boasted about.
Jack hated it then and he hated it now, even as the words spilled from his mouth.
“Something like that,” mumbled Boris, twisting the key in the lock.
The door creaked open. From somewhere in the depths of the house came a high-pitched yap.
“That’s Florian,” said Boris, shoving the door open with his shoulder. “He’s old as dirt and he has no teeth, but he’ll gum you to death. Be careful.”
Sure enough, a tiny white poodle came staggering around the corner, eyes milky, nose twitching, pink gums bared in a snarl.
“Hey, Florian,” said Jack in his nicest voice. The one that appeased even Rainy after a stressful vet appointment. “Hi, buddy.”
An unconvinced woof echoed across the entryway.
“Yeah, yeah,” Boris grumbled, dipping to lift a snarling Florian, who flailed in his beefy arms like an enraged cotton ball. “Let’s go outside, you old bag of bones.”
They disappeared around the corner, leaving Jack alone in the living room. Boxes were stacked floor to ceiling against one wall, and the couch was well and truly soiled, but the floors were spotless. The pictures hanging were free of dust, the coffee table clear of clutter. The wallpaper was peeling, and the carpet on the stairs was stained and coming loose, but overall, it was better than Jack expected. Based on the state of the car, he’d expected to find himself in a cross between a frat house and a hoarder’s den.
The television was locked away behind heavy wooden cabinet doors, but the bottom shelves were open. Jack squatted down to examine the brand of the speakers, then the receiver and dusty old record player.
A door slammed. Florian’s barking faded. Boris reappeared. “Shower’s this way,” he said, directing Jack to the bathroom. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”
And then he was gone, creaking his way down into the basement.
Jack started the shower, then moved to stare at himself in the mirror. Dirt streaked across his face, his neck. Mud was caked in his hair, on the side of his ear. His suit was torn and rumpled, to say nothing of his shoes, which were not made for hiking and reflected it.
There was a wildness in his eyes; red-rimmed, with the pupils so big that his irises were only a thin grey circle.
Jack disrobed while the water heated. Noted the scratches on his abdomen, the five o’clock shadow on his jaw.
Lean, black-haired, and pale as the mist crawling up Boris’s front lawn, Jack was nothing special. His face was a little tooyouthful to be taken seriously, even though he was nearing thirty.
It struck him that he should look so much worse than this. Days of nothing but gas station food and free lobby coffee ought to have led to weight loss, acne, greasy hair, circles beneath his eyes. Considering the circumstances, he looked spectacular.
In the shower, Jack scrubbed under his nails with a bar of yellow soap. There wasn’t any shampoo, so he used the soap to lather his hair.
The water going down the drain was tinted brown.Grave dirt everywhere, he thought, and winced.
After three passes with the bar of soap, the water finally ran clear. Jack scoured himself again for good measure, wishing he could rinse away the blister on his hand, and the sensation of cold, stiff skin beneath his fingertips, the sight of the dead woman.
He would never be clean again. Never be freed from this absolute hell.
They shouldn’t have meddled. His regret stretched fathoms deep, already a scar.
A knock came at the door. “I left you some clothes!” Boris shouted, barely audible over the running water.
