Mostly it’s just a lot of yelling. Aiden at Garrity—“I told you we saw a body in the woods, Todd, and you’re still not taking this seriously!”—and Garrity at Aiden—“Give me a body if you want me to investigate a murder! We’re working on what we can! We had a report of stolen chickens from Rocco Astor. This is obviously some kind of prank!”
I do not do well with screaming.I can handle snide, sarcastic, argumentative, and downright rude. But something about screaming makes me want to curl up into a little ball.
You know what else makes me want to curl up into a little ball?
Dead poultry on my doorstep.
Who even does that? Is this a mafia movie? Are we threatening the local gangs? What kind of person steals a chicken and then leaves it nice and bloodied and broken on another person’s front porch?
Most of me is outraged about any number of things—the poor dead chicken, the welcome mat that’s now ruined, theaudacity. But there is a little part of me that’s wondering, over and over again on a loop, if we provoked someone enough for them to want to send a message.
There was no note left with it, but there’s not much to misinterpret about a bloody dead animal.
It’s a warning.
I finally sit up, unrolling myself from where I’m curled in the fetal position on my bed. I push myself up just far enough to peek out the window. The yelling has died down, which is good, but it also makes it so I don’t know what’s going on out there anymore.
As it turns out, Aiden and Garrity are still talking, but another party has joined the chat: Rocco Astor, lookingrough.He’s rubbing his hands over his head without stopping, making his already messy hair look messier. I can’t see all the minute details of his face from up here, but I can tell that he’s wearing some sort of frown, and his body language is agitated—he can’t seem to stop moving, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.
And maybe he just needs to pee.
But maybe…maybe he suspects the same ridiculous thing that I do: that his brother somehow stole one of his chickens and dumped it on our doorstep to get us to stop digging around.
It’s insane. It just seems absolutelyinsanethat anyone, much less Lionel Astor, would do something like that. Aiden and I are hardly a threat. We’re not doing that much digging. We don’t have law enforcement on our sides. We don’t have unlimited resources, or even manylimitedones.
So why is someone out there scared of us?
I narrow my eyes on the trio of men standing in their little clump, talking seriously. I need them to speak up so I can eavesdrop.
No, that’s not right—eavesdropping only happens when you’re not supposed to hear something. I have every right to hear that conversation. I just would prefer to listen from the comfort of my bed, where I can hide from any shouting or attention that comes my way.
And unbidden to my mind comes a memory that I’d much rather leave in the past—my mother, stumbling drunk around our gravel driveway at ten at night, screaming at the top of her lungs about the neighbors reporting her to the HOA for an unkempt yard and improperly disposed of garbage. I was fifteen, and I came home late from an evening at the library to find her there, the neighbors all out on their porches and in their yards, watching with scandalized faces.
I had never been so humiliated in my life. She turned her yelling on me when I hurried to take her inside, coaxing and wheedling and outright begging until finally she relented and shuffled back in, closing the door behind us with so much force that the windows rattled.
When I peeked out the window, though, the neighbors were still watching. It always felt like everyone was watching. So I let the curtain drop and helped my mom get into bed,removing her shoes and making sure she had a trash can in case she threw up.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” she murmured as I pulled the covers up around her. “I just got so angry.”
“I know,” I said.
“Did you have a good study session?” The words came out garbled.
I swallowed back my tears. “Yes.”
“Find yourself some dinner.”
“Mm-hmm.” I closed the blinds tightly, turned out the light, and closed the door.
Then I sat in my room and cried, wondering why someone who obviously loved me so much could be such a terrible mother.
When I finally go down tothe driveway, I’ve splashed my face with water and held a cold compress over my eyes for a few minutes so they don’t look swollen. Aiden’s eyes only linger on me a second longer than normal, so I think I’ve pulled it off for the most part. Either way, no one says anything or asks why I seem to have developed a head cold.
“What’s going on?” I say to Rocco, coming to a stop next to Aiden. Garrity has gone, as has the dead chicken, thank goodness.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” Rocco says, turning to me with a severe look on his face. This is the serious version of him, the one I saw when we went to his house that day, asking about his brother. “Whatever you two are poking around in, you need to stop.”
This clearly isn’t the first time he’s told Aiden this, because my roommate doesn’t look surprised; he’sjust rubbing his temples. It’s nice to see him do that because of someone other than me.
