“All right. Be careful out there, baby.”
“You be careful too,” Finn says. “Love you.”
“Love you more.”
As he soaps up Rosie, the guilt about deceiving his mom begins to make him feel queasy. She would have a full-blown panic attack that no amount of Xanax would help if she had any clue that he is actively investigating Autumn’s death. Itwas everything he could do to convince her it was safe to stay in Bethesda after Autumn was murdered. In her mind, Washington, DC, and its leafy suburbs are crawling with bloodthirsty criminals. She even threatened to drive up here and get him.
Finn rinses off Rosie, whose wet hair makes her look like an alien cat, her pink skin shining through. The dog finally breaks free of his grip and escapes the confines of the bath. Shivering in the center of the bathroom, Rosie shakes, spraying water everywhere.
Finn towels her off and then, using another towel, cleans the bathroom as best he can.
He takes a trembling Rosie into the living room and deposits her on the dog bed by a large-leafed plant that’s almost as tall as he is. Traumatized by the whole event, she curls up and begins grooming herself.
“You’ll be okay,” Finn says as he takes the towels to the small laundry room off the kitchen. He decides to leave them in the washing machine, worried that if he washes them, they might get moldy if no one is home to put them in the dryer until much later.
When he goes back to the living room to check on Rosie one more time, he is struck anew at how pristine this house is. The sofas are cream velvet, the rug a faded pattern of gold and soft yellow. The quiet luxury on display in the Williamses’ living room is eerily similar to the Allards’ and the other Eastbrook houses he’s been inside. Here, the only notable difference is that the beautiful people inside the gold-framed photos on the mantel, dressed impeccably and celebrating life’s milestones, are African American. That and the large colorful painting above thefireplace of two young Black men on a beach hoisting two girls on their shoulders. He squints at the signature: Amy Sherald. A quick check on his phone tells him this is the same artist who painted Michelle Obama’s portrait that hangs in the Smithsonian.
And that her paintings run in the thousands, some even into the millions.
Behind him something pings, the familiar sound of a text notification on an iPhone. Finn spins around, momentarily panicked that someone else is in the room. But it’s empty—just him and Rosie.
When he hears the ping again, he realizes it must be coming from a nearby device. It takes him a few seconds of digging in the sofa to locate an iPad stuck between the deep cushions.
The incoming message is from Miguel Costa.
Got it and dropped it off. We’re all good.
He frowns. Miguel Costa. That was the man he met last Sunday when he helped his wife, Caren, get home. The strange memory of watching that woman walk out the front door of that house, disoriented, and then slip and fall in the mud comes back to him. He’s thought of her more than once since then. Something about the whole scene still feels off, and he has been meaning to circle back to her and make sure she is all right.
Another message appears, this one not from Miguel.
No problems with C?
She doesn’t suspect a thing.
Finn stares at the text conversation, the skin on the back of his neck tingling.Doesn’t suspect a thing.Kenya or her husband, Shawn, or someone else who lives here, must be texting Miguel from their cell phone, which is linked to the iPad.
He uses his own phone to take a photo of the conversation. “C” probably refers to Caren, but what is the “it” that was dropped off? And what didn’t she suspect?
It could be something perfectly innocuous, he tells himself. It could be Caren’s birthday and they’re discussing a cake or balloons.
But somehow he doubts it.
Seconds after he takes the photo, the entire conversation vanishes. Gone into the ether. Whoever was texting with Miguel deleted it. He looks at the iPad. It’s as if the conversation never took place.
I wasn’t supposed to see that.
A thought pops into his head. Kenya and Shawn both know he is in their house. Maybe they forgot that the iPad was left on the sofa, until they started texting. As the screen fades to black, Finn can’t help but feel that the disappearance of the conversation is some kind of message directed at him.
No, not a message.
A warning.
SEVENTEEN
By the time I am dressed and out the door with Kugel, it’s almost noon. On the way to Yumi’s, I pause in front of the house where I slipped in the mud, hoping something jogs my memory. The sun is out in full force, and the slippery patch I was lying in Sunday morning is now baked dry.
Behind me, a woman in her thirties passes by, pushing a stroller as a toddler dawdles behind her, distracted by every flower, every bug, every lawn ornament he sees.
