FIFTY-THREE

FIFTY-THREE

I LAUGH WHEN I hear the name. Actually laugh. Kyle is obviously not joking, but I laugh anyway. "That's … absurd," I say.

Kyle, still at my car window, holding up traffic on 3rd Street, is having none of it. "I'm done with your crap, Marce, I swear to God I am."

" My crap? I think I'd know if I were married to Silas Renfrow."

"My point exactly," he says. "You were his lawyer. You knew him. You're one of the only people who saw his face. He could deny it to anyone else, but you were the one person who would know. So why are you playing this game?"

I blink hard, feeling a jolt. Something sinks inside me.

"What?" Kyle says. "What? Talk to me, Marcie —"

"I didn't," I say. "I … never saw his face." I look at Kyle. "He wouldn't let anyone see his face. Not even his lawyers. We spoke through a solid wall. I saw his eyes. Like, through a peephole. That was it."

I bring a hand to my face. No. It's absurd. Preposterous, right?

Then why is my entire body shaking all of a sudden?

"Silas Renfrow didn't die in that detention center, did he, Marcie?"

Attorney-client attorney-client attorney-client —

"I never — never knew for sure," I manage. "I had my doubts."

"Camille Striker," he says.

"What — who?"

"You don't know that name? Camille Striker?"

I shake my head. "No."

Kyle looks me over, battling with himself, trying to decide whom to trust. "What did you think of that note left on your wall?"

"Note? What note?"

"The note on your foyer — someone broke into your home last Friday."

"What?" I almost jump out of my seat. "What are you talking about?"

"You don't know that? David got the call from the alarm company. He didn't —" Kyle's eyes rise, his expression changing. "He didn't tell you."

"No, he didn't tell me. What happened at my house?"

He pulls out his phone. "Nothing was stolen. Nothing was broken. Truth be told, David couldn't get us out of there fast enough."

I don't understand. I don't understand what is happening—

"You said they left a note."

"Yeah, they spray-painted a note on your foyer wall." Kyle holds up his phone. "One of the officers snapped a picture." He hands me his phone.

There it is, in red spray paint across the wall of my foyer, just below the Picasso print:

I know who you are

"Oh, my God," I whisper.

"You really didn't — you didn't know," says Kyle.

"I have to go. I have to go right now." I put the car in gear and drive to the school.