“I don’t have the answer,” I say. “But the stories are only going to get bigger. Both Wallach and Fusillo. And wait until they connect Goodwin—it’s going to be feeding frenzy for the media and the conspiracy theorists.”
“It’s unfair,” she says, pulling her feet up onto the planter to hug her knees to her chest. “There will be ten stories in a row about women being attacked, raped, murdered—but it barely registers in the social consciousness. Those stories blend together, faceless and nameless. But when men are murdered, rich white men in their castles, people are alarmed? Why are they more valuable?”
Her eyes catch the light, glassy with tears.
“Maybe it’s because the public thinks those men are normally untouchable,” I say. “They get away with everything; they makethe rules. So when one winds up dead, it means the rules don’t work—and that scares them. The deaths become surrounded in conspiracy theories of who could have possibly outsmarted such men. Whereas housewives found buried in their yards still somehow face blame for their fates.”
Annalise considers this, and then she leans over to rest her head on my shoulder, her fuzzy hair tickling my neck. “Whoever is killing these investors isn’t just trying to shut them up,” she suggests. “What if they’re trying to start a panic, a big distraction for something yet to come?”
“Like what?” I ask.
“No idea. But I doubt it would be good for us.”
Across the parking lot, Jackson’s blue car comes into view. Annalise points it out and hops down from the planter. “I hope they bought some of those chocolate cupcakes with the cream filling,” Annalise says. She grabs the bag with the sneakers and waves her hand to let them know where we are. As they get closer, I squint my eyes, noticing that Quentin is driving alone.
“Where’s Jackson?” I ask, alarmed. Annalise studies the car and then turns to me, shrugging.
The car pulls up to the curb in front of us. Quentin lowers the driver’s side window, already apologizing.
“I didn’t know,” he says.
“Know what?” I demand. I look past him to the backseat and find only bags of groceries. “Quentin, where is Jackson?”
“He wanted to go alone, Mena,” he says. “I couldn’t talk him out of it.”
My breathing catches, and Annalise swings toward me, her mouth open with shock. “Go where?” I ask. “What are you saying? He’s not coming with us?”
Quentin gnaws on his lip, looking guilty. And in the end, his loyalty lies with Jackson before it lies with me. “When we got in the car earlier,” he says, “Jackie asked me to drop him off at the bus station. He said he was heading out to Denver to talk with that police chief. Trust me, I tried to talk him out of it. But he said he couldn’t let his dad’s body rot one more day, and he didn’t want to tell you that. He didn’t want you to know that he still cared about… his father, you know, being dead and all.”
“Of course, I understand,” I say, wiping a tear as it drips onto to my cheek. “Just because he’d been an investor doesn’t mean I want to just…” I shake my head, crossing my arms around myself. “He could have told me,” I add.
“You’re right,” Quentin agrees. “Believe me, I pointed that out. And I offered to go with him, but I wanted to make sure you all get to the cabin tonight. In fact,” he says, glancing in the rearview mirror, “we need to get you to a safe place. Now.”
Annalise narrows her eyes. “Why?” she asks. “What’s wrong?”
“Well,” he says, motioning the radio, “the news is reporting that Winston Weeks is missing.”
The bag that Annalise is holding slips from her hand to thump on the sidewalk, one white sneaker tumbling out of its box and under the car.
“Missing how?” I ask. “Missing dead or missing run away?”
“Not sure,” Quentin says. “They found his car torched nearthe railway, his house tossed. It’s feeding into the narrative of powerful men being hunted.”
Annalise laughs sharply. When I turn to her, she shrugs. “I bet they’re scared,” she explains. “All those men around the country, scared to walk out their doors. I wonder if they hold keys between their fingers when they cross a parking lot now.”
“Can you please just get in the car?” Quentin asks. “I have two gallons of milk back here because Jackson made me buy five different boxes of cereal since he didn’t know which one Mena wanted.”
Although I’m angry with Jackson for leaving without telling me, the mention of him buying me cereal is so annoyingly sweet. I wouldn’t have gone with him to Denver, but maybe he didn’t want to tell me how much his father’s death bothered him. After all, Demmy Casey was an investor. Jackson probably didn’t want to put me in that situation.
And considering I left him in a hospital bed when I ran off to Connecticut, I’m not really in a place to judge him right now.
Annalise picks up her sneaker from under the car, tosses it into the bag, and jogs around to get in the passenger seat. I climb into the back, surveying the groceries. Nothing fresh, no fruit and no vegetables. But there are, indeed, five kinds of cereal, every one of which I like.
“Your hair looks great, by the way,” Quentin tells me, meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Jackson wanted me to make sure I told you that. And it actually does, so… good job.”
I smile. “Thanks. I just sat there, but I’m glad you like it.”
“No, it’s nice,” he says. “You look like… You look more like you. Whatever that means.”
