“I had heard she moved to California after that poor girl was killed,” Kenya says.
Finn had heard the same thing somewhere, but he hit nothing but dead ends when trying to find the woman.
“I mean, I don’t blame her one bit,” Kenya says. “I couldn’t spend another night there.”
“Turns out she’s still in the DC area,” Bonnie says.
A rush of adrenaline floods his system, making his fingertips tingle. He’s searched for almost a year for Tori Price. He has always believed that she knows more about what happened that night than the police report let on, but she seemed to have disappeared when she moved. It was strange how she simplyvanished. When he came back from Autumn’s funeral in North Carolina, the house was empty, aFOR RENTsign out front. He even went so far as to contact the mental-health services group she worked for in downtown Bethesda to see if he could schedule an appointment with her, but they said she had left the practice. And here she is, living close enough that she’s shopping at the plant store only a few minutes’ walk from where he works at the library. The thought gives him chills.
“Hello! Earth to Finn. Your move, hon.” He looks up to see Bonnie staring across the table at him, eyes wide behind her glasses, peering at him like he is an insect under a microscope.
“Oh, sorry.” He tosses out a tile, his hand trembling slightly. “Soap. Or is it white dragon?”
“Either,” Paula says. “So did you say hi to her? At the plant store?”
“Funny, I started to,” Bonnie says as she pulls a tile. “We were practically neighbors. But she wasn’t very friendly even then, and she hasn’t gotten any friendlier. Five crak.” She tosses the tile into the center of the table. “She walked right by me. But I recognized her little boy. Milo.”
“No, his name is Leo.” The words come out of Finn’s mouth before he can stop himself.
All three women stop their play and look at him.
“Well, someone has a good memory,” Kenya says. He turns to look at her and is caught off guard by the steely look in her eye. “How did you know that little boy’s name?”
“Sometimes they came to the library.” Finn feels his face grow warm under her gaze. “Where I work.”
“Anyway,” Paula says. “Poor woman, she must have been terrified. Can you imagine? A murder in your own house?”
“So scary,” Kenya says. “And so random.”
“Maybe,” Bonnie says in a teasing tone that gets Finn’s attention. He looks up at her sharply, suddenly certain that he’s not the only one in this room with ulterior motives. Her eyes are twinkling, and she has the faintest smile on her thin lips, which makes his skin crawl.
“What do you mean ‘maybe’?” Kenya asks. “It was a robbery.”
“You didn’t hear it from me,” Bonnie says in a loud whisper that carries easily across the table. “But the nanny was having an affair.”
Finn catches his breath, a surge of white-hot anger rising in him. His hands grip the glass of sparkling water as he brings it to his lips. Autumn was not seeing anyone. He was sure of it. He would have known.
“You can’t have an affair if you’re single,” Kenya says. “That’s called a relationship.”
“What if it’s with a married man?” Bonnie asks, her eyes gleaming with malicious satisfaction.
Finn chokes on the water and grabs a cocktail napkin, the liquid burning his throat. Paula smacks him on the back. “You okay, Finn?”
He nods, even though he feels like he might start coughing again, his mind racing.
“Maybe we should change the topic,” Kenya says. “Anyone have any summer travel plans?”
Paula nods vigorously. “I’m seeing an old friend in July on the Cape—”
“Why do you think she was having an affair?” Finn interrupts, unable to stop himself, his voice strained. He tosses outa six dot that he needs to win. He doesn’t care about the game anymore. He doesn’t want to win. He wants to know what Bonnie is hiding behind her smug smile.
“I’ll tell you why, as soon as I call that six dot,” Bonnie says, picking up the tile Finn just discarded and laying out three six dots on the top of her rack. She beams, clearly pleased to be the center of attention again. “You know Yumi Klein? Over on Baltimore?”
“The one with cancer?” Paula asks.
“Autoimmune disease,” Kenya says, sitting up straighter. “What does Yumi have to do with this?”
Finn perks up too. One of his side hustles is visiting the farmers market for Yumi, who is very particular about her produce. The street she lives on T-bones Earlston and Allan Road, and from the vantage point of her elevated screened-in porch, she has a view of all the backyards. He’s always wondered if she saw something of note the night Autumn was killed, but hasn’t found a way to ask her.
