Norma set a heaping plate in front of me and took a seat. She perched on the edge of her chair. “Did you find anything?”
“Finlay did. She noticed a strange car driving down our street on the night of the spray-painting. The same car came back the night of the egging. Turns out it belongs to that boy who lost all his tuition money at our poker games. His parents were pissed. That’s who we were meeting with at the sorority house this morning. But don’t worry, everything’s handled. They got their money back, and they agreed to let it go. I don’t think their son’s going to be a problem anymore.”
Norma frowned. “That’s strange.”
“What’s strange?” Vero asked.
“I was certain the vandal was a woman.”
“So was I,” Vero said, “but Emory pretty much admitted that he egged the house and spray-painted the garage—”
“But the handwriting on the notes we found in our mailbox and on our car seemed so… feminine. The way the loops curled up at the ends and theT’s were crossed with a wavy line. And they were all written in cursive. Most young people don’t even learn that kind of handwriting in school anymore. I would have assumed it was someone older.”
Javi raised an eyebrow. “You said this kid’s parents were angry. Maybe his mother wrote the notes.”
I shook my head. “I wondered the same thing, but I saw his mother sign some forms during our meeting, and her handwriting didn’t match any of the letters I saw.”
Then again, neither had Emory’s.
Norma had a point. Something about all these clues didn’t add up.
“Emory didn’t deny egging the house or spray-painting the garage door, but he specifically said he had nothing to do with the broken window,” I reminded Vero. “And come to think of it, when I checked the Ring footage on Sophia’s phone, I didn’t see his Volkswagen drive by the night the rock came through it.” I hadn’t seen Sophia leave for her run either.
“Maybe he parked someplace else and snuck through the woods so no one would notice him. It was the back window,” she pointed out. “And it was earlier in the night. Maybe he was afraid someone would see him.”
“Maybe,” I said as the pieces began to click. “But the very first letters ever sent to you were mailed to Ramón’s address last fall,”I reminded her. “Whoever sent them knew you were hiding in Virginia, and they sent those letters to your cousin’s garage because they assumed you were there with him. But if the Willinghams—or anyone else from the university—had managed to find you and knew where you were all that time, why didn’t they notify law enforcement months ago? The only reason the police found you was because of Cam, when he reported his missing car. Maybe the person who wrote those letters wasn’t harassing you about the stolen money. What if they were accusing you and Ramón of taking something else?” I framed the question as delicately as I could, certain my hunch was right. “Do you have a copy of the note you showed me the day I arrived?” I asked Norma.
She rose from her chair to retrieve the note she had shown me. She unfolded it and set it in the middle of the table, where we could all see it.
How dare you keep what doesn’t belong to you.
The table fell quiet as everyone’s focus shifted toward Javi. He was staring at the handwriting with a dark, hollow expression. As if he recognized the looping script but couldn’t accept that it was real.
“The night you first got here,” Gloria said to him quietly. “That was the night your mother came to our house. She wanted you to go home with her.”
“After Regina left, we all went inside and had dinner together,” Norma said gently, putting her hand on his. “That was the night the window was broken.”
I still remembered what Javi’s mother had said, and the haunted look in his eyes when she said it.You can come and see if I still have room for you when Ramón’s family gets tired of you and decides to give you back.
As if he were chattel. Something to be borrowed and returned.
The implication that Ramón’s family had taken her son, stolen his time and attention away from her, had been so clear in hindsight. And now so was the motive. She was jealous of Vero’s family. Resentful of the fact that Norma and Gloria had practically raised her own child—that Javi had followed Vero to Maryland without looking back and hadn’t bothered to tell his own mother when he’d finally come home.
After the window shattered, Ramón and Javi had run outside to find the perpetrator. Wendell told them the only person he’d seen was Sophia, out for a late evening run. But Wendell’s eyesight was poor. Maybe the long-haired brunette woman he’d seen running hadn’t been Sophia at all.
“When Vero and I went upstairs that night,” I said softly, “a ladder had been left on the patio, and Vero’s window was shut, though she was sure she’d left it open. The shoelace that was used to tie the note to the rock was taken from a pair of sneakers in Vero’s closet.” Norma put a hand to her heart, and Gloria gasped. Javi’s shoulders tensed. “We suspected someone may have been snooping in the house, that they had been listening to our conversation during dinner.”
Javi shook his head. “I know what you’re thinking, but it doesn’t make any sense. Why would my mother break into your house and vandalize your window?” he asked Gloria. “She doesn’t care enough about me to do something like that. She never has.”
The conversation was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. It was loud and urgent, persistent even after Gloria called out, “I’m coming!” She looked relieved as she got up to open it, as if she had been dreading having to answer Javi’s question.
As if summoned by the collective power of our suspicious thoughts, Javi’s mother barreled through the door.
“Where’s Javi?” She pushed Gloria aside, her eyes wild as theyfrantically searched the house. She charged straight to her son, dropping down on her knee beside him, her hands gingerly examining his injuries. “Oh, Javier, my sweet boy! Are you okay? I saw Wendell in the post office. He said you’d been hurt. That your leg was broken.”
Javi recoiled from her as she reached for the bruise on his cheek. “I’m fine.”
“He said you fell.”
