Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Quick conclusions are the enemy of my work. I can't jump to any.

I need to talk to Marco. He'll listen to me discuss the complexities of this case and reassure me I'm going to find answers. My mind is swirling with dizzying possibilities. Every person I've met who is connected to this case seems to be hiding something.

I reach for my phone, then withdraw my hand.

This past year has been a slow slicing of the ties that once bound Marco and me; a series of painful snips.

Marco is moving into a future that puts me on the sidelines of his life. I need to let him.

I force myself to go to a place where I'll be alone with my racing thoughts. I drive to my house near Friendship Heights, easing into a tight spot on the street. I climb the front steps and unlock the door and walk in, standing in the emptiness.

When Marco and I separated, everyone told me to get a dog.

I listed reasons why I couldn't. I work too much. I like to travel. It wouldn't be fair to the animal.

The only bad thing about dogs is that they leave us much too soon.

I had a dog when I was four. He was gone three years later.

I know what a therapist would say. The one I used to go to said it more than once: You can't protect yourself against loss, Stella. It's part of living a full life.

I went to see her a few times after Marco and I separated.

The therapist was about my age, and she had a welcoming smile. She introduced herself as Dr. Chelsea Schneiders, but told me to call her Chelsea. Her office was in her home, and there were a few dog toys in her front yard.

Maybe that's why I told her about Bingo.

Or maybe it's because Bingo is my very first memory.

My dad brought him home on Christmas Eve and somehow kept him hidden and quiet until the next morning. My old memories are fragmented, as long-ago memories tend to be, but I remember his floppy ears and comically long tail and the red bow tied around his neck. He was small, and his gray fur felt wiry instead of soft, but I loved to pet him. At night he slept curled in the crook behind my knees.

After Dad died, it was just me and Mom and Bingo in the house.

Then Mom began to drink. She lost her job. She lost our house.

The first apartment we moved into allowed dogs. Bingo hated it there. It smelled strange, and there were no kids my age.

Did Bingo hate the apartment, or did you, Stella? Chelsea asked.

We both did.

But we should have appreciated the apartment. It was the last good place we lived because it was the last place we were together.

Mom started hanging out with the couple in the next apartment over. When I got home from school and couldn't find her, I knew to look there. That apartment was always filled with people and music and smoke and sour-smelling bottles. Visitors came and went at all hours.

Mom started acting funny. She slept a lot. Laughed too much. Zoned out when I was talking to her. Stopped showering as often. Sometimes she scoured our apartment, scrubbing the insides of cabinets and moving out the stove to clean behind it. Other times she let trash pile up in the kitchen and dirty dishes fill the sink and counters.

She cried often, too, stroking my hair and telling me she was sorry, that she'd get it together and we'd have a house again with a yard for Bingo. But it was hard to believe her. She had aged two decades seem ingly overnight. My mom had been so pretty, with glossy dark hair and pink cheeks. Now the skin looked tightly stretched over her bones. Her clothes hung on her.

One afternoon, Mom fell asleep on the couch and she looked cold, so I covered her with a blanket.

When she woke up, she looked at me and blinked; then her whole face collapsed. She stared down at rings she wore—my father's gold wedding band, loose on her left fourth finger but held in place by her smaller, matching band. "My dream was so real. I thought he'd come back," she sobbed. "I miss him so much, Stella."

One evening she didn't come home at all. Bingo and I huddled together in bed, flinching at the strange noises a building makes at night.

The next afternoon my mother was back, smelling unclean, wearing only one of her flip-flops. I heard her ranting to the neighbors about being held in a jail cell.

Things get a little blurry for me then.

We often repress periods in our life that are too painful to acknowledge, Chelsea told me. What can you remember about that time?

Mom got even skinnier. Our phone was cut off. The landlord came by, and Mom said we had to hide and pretend we weren't home.

Then Mom told me we were leaving that apartment and going to a new place. She'd get her head on straight. We'd have a fresh start.

Shortly after she said this, I came home from school to discover Bingo was gone. Mom told me our new place didn't allow pets, so she'd given him back to the rescue group where my dad had gotten him. I believed her. My mother had a kind heart. She'd never do anything bad to an animal; in that way, she was like my father, who'd lost his life trying to avoid killing a deer. "I thought it would be easier if you weren't here to see Bingo go," Mom told me.

You never got to say goodbye to your dog, Chelsea had said gently. Just like you never got to say goodbye to your father. Or your mother.

You're right, I'd snapped, feeling a flash of anger. What am I supposed to do with that? I can't change it. No one can change the past.

I'd sobbed for the next fifteen minutes on her couch while Chelsea looked at me steadily and occasionally offered me tissues. Now you're starting to do the hard work, she told me.

At those words, I walked out her door and never went back.

My house is small, but I've done everything I can to make it feel pretty and cozy. It's filled with layers of light from lamps and sconces and ceiling fixtures. I invested in well-built, comfortable pieces of furniture, and although the art on my walls isn't expensive, it's colorful and intriguing.

I keep clutter to a minimum. I make my bed as soon as I get up, and I can't stand to have dirty dishes in the sink. I'm a neat freak; I guess it's a by-product of my early upbringing.

Another one of my personal rules: I keep music playing at all times, even when I sleep.

I can't bear to be alone in the quiet.

As I walk into the living room, though, I realize my house is absolutely silent. I check the stereo and press a few buttons, and the familiar acoustic rock from my favorite station fills the room.

An electrical glitch, or perhaps my neighborhood briefly lost power.

I reach for the volume and turn it down a few notches, keeping it lower than usual. Then I sink down onto my big gray couch and unzip my ankle boots.

I need to sit in my unease, and let my troubling thoughts try to untangle themselves.

Every time I close my eyes, I see Rose.

Rose is losing everything, just as I did. Her voice is gone. Her family as she knew it has split into fragments. She left her school. Soon she'll lose her house.

Those are the tangible things.

She has also lost her joy. Her sense of safety has vanished.

I drop my head into my hands, massaging my forehead.

Why doesn't Beth allow glass in the house?

And why is Rose secretly collecting sharp things?

I need to get into Rose's bedroom, alone. I have to see the title of the book she was concealing.

And I need to know if she has the box cutter.

The more time I spend with Rose, the less I understand her.

I'm still on my couch, my feet propped up on my coffee table, when my cell phone dings with a text from an unfamiliar number. Attached is a video.

The message is brief: It's Pete. Tina sent me this a few days before they killed her.