Back in our bedroom, I shake Will awake. I won’t tell Will about Imogen because there’s nothing really to say. For all I know, she was up using the bathroom. She got hot and opened her window. These are not crimes, though other questions nag at the back of my mind.
Why didn’t I hear a toilet flush?
Why didn’t I notice the chill from the bedroom the first time I passed by?
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Will asks, half-asleep.
As he rubs at his eyes, I say, “I think there’s something in the backyard.”
“Like what?” he asks, clearing his throat, his eyes drowsy and his voice heavy with sleep.
I wait a beat before I tell him. “I don’t know,” I say, leaning into him as I say it. “Maybe a person.”
“A person?” Will asks, sitting quickly upright, and I tell him about what just happened, how there was something—or someone—in the backyard that spooked the dogs. My voice is tremulous when I speak. Will notices. “Did you see a person?” he asks, but I tell him no, that I didn’t see anything at all. That I only knew something was there. A gut instinct.
Will says compassionately, his hand reassuringly stroking mine, “You’re really shaken up about it, aren’t you?”
He wraps both hands around mine, feeling the way they tremble in his. I tell him that I am. I think that he’s going to get out of bed and go see for himself if there’s someone in our backyard. But instead he makes me second-guess myself. It isn’t intentional and he isn’t trying to patronize me. Rather, he’s the voice of reason as he asks, “But what about a coyote? A raccoon or a skunk? Are you sure it wasn’t just some animals that got the dogs worked up?”
It sounds so simple, so obvious as he says it. I wonder if he’s right. It would explain why the dogs were so upset. Perhaps they sniffed out some wildlife roaming around our backyard. They’re hunters. Naturally they would have wanted to get at whatever was there. It’s the far more logical thing to believe than that there was a killer traipsing through our backyard. What would a killer want with us?
I shrug in the darkness. “Maybe,” I say, feeling foolish, but not entirely so. There was a murder just across the street from us last night and the murderer hasn’t been found. It’s not so irrational to believe he’s still nearby.
Will tells me obligingly, “We could mention it to Officer Berg anyway in the morning. Ask him to look into it. If nothing else, ask if coyotes are a problem around here. It would be good to know anyway, to make sure we keep an eye on the dogs.”
I feel grateful he humors me. But I tell him no. “I’m sure you’re right,” I say, crawling back into bed beside him, knowing I still won’t sleep. “It probably was a coyote. I’m sorry I woke you. Go back to bed,” I say, and he does, wrapping a heavy arm around me, protecting me from whatever lies on the other side of our door.
I come to when Will says my name. I must have spaced out.
He’s there beside me, giving me a look. A Will look, fraught with worry. “Where’d you go?” he asks, as I look around, get my bearings. A sudden headache has nearly gotten the best of me, making me feel swimmy inside.
I tell him, “I don’t know,” not remembering what we were talking about before I spaced out.
I look down to see that a button on my shirt has come undone, revealing the black of my bra beneath. I button back up, apologize to him for zoning out in the middle of our conversation. “I’m just tired,” I say, rubbing at my eyes, taking in the sight of Will before me, the kitchen around me.
“You look tired,” Will agrees, and I feel the agitation brim inside. I glance past Will and into the backyard, expecting to see something out of place. Signs of a trespasser in our yard last night. There’s nothing, but still, I prickle anyway, remember what it felt like as I stood in the darkness, pleading for the dogs to come.
The boys are at the table, eating the last of their breakfast. Will stands at the counter, filling a mug that he passes to me. I welcome the coffee into my hands and take a big gulp.
“I didn’t sleep well,” I say, not wanting to admit the truth, that I didn’t sleep at all.
“Want to talk about it?” he asks, though it doesn’t seem like something that needs to be said. This is something he should know. A woman was murdered in her home across the street from us two nights ago.
My eyes breeze past Tate at the table, and I tell him no because this isn’t a conversation Tate should hear. For as long as we can, I’d like to keep his childhood innocence alive.
“Do you have time for breakfast?” Will asks.
“Not today,” I say, looking at the clock, seeing that it’s even later than I thought it was. I need to get going. I begin gathering things, my bag and my coat, to go. Will’s bag waits for him beside the table, and I wonder if he stuck his true crime novel inside the bag, the book with the photograph of Erin hidden inside. I don’t have the courage to tell Will I know about the photograph.
I kiss Tate goodbye. I snatch the earbuds from Otto’s ears to tell him to hurry.
I drive to the ferry. Otto and I don’t say much on the way there. We used to be closer than we are, but time and circumstance have pulled us apart. How many teenage boys, I ask myself, trying not to take it personally, are close with their mother? Few, if any. But Otto is a sensitive boy, different than the rest.
He leaves the car with only a quick goodbye for me. I watch as he crosses the metal grate bridge and boards the ferry with the other early-morning commuters. His heavy backpack is slung across his back. I don’t see Imogen anywhere.
It’s seven twenty in the morning. Outside, it’s raining. A mob of multicolored umbrellas makes its way down the street that leads to the ferry. Two boys about Otto’s age claw their way on board behind him, bypassing Otto in the entranceway, laughing. They’re laughing at some inside joke, I assure myself, not at him, but my stomach churns just the same, and I think how lonely it must be in Otto’s world, an outcast without any friends.
There’s plenty of seating inside the ferry where it’s warm and dry, but Otto climbs all the way up to the upper deck, standing in the rain without an umbrella. I watch as deckhands raise the gangplank and untie the boat before it ventures off into the foggy sea, stealing Otto from me.
Only then do I see Officer Berg staring at me.
He stands on the other side of the street just outside his Crown Victoria, leaned up against the passenger’s side door. In his hands are coffee and a cinnamon roll, just a stone’s throw away from the stereotypical doughnut cops are notorious for eating, though slightly more refined. As he waves at me, I get the sense that he’s been watching me the entire time, watching as I watch Otto leave.
He tips his hat at me. I wave at him through the car window.
What I usually do at this point in my drive is make a U-turn and go back up the hill the same way I came down. But I can’t do that with the officer watching. And it doesn’t matter anyway because Officer Berg has abandoned his post and is walking across the street and toward me. He motions with the crank of a hand for me to open my window. I press the button and the window drops down. Beads of rain welcome themselves inside my car, gathering along the interior of the door. Officer Berg doesn’t carry an umbrella. Rather, the hood of a rain jacket is thrust over his head. He doesn’t appear to be bothered by the rain.
He jams the last bite of his cinnamon roll into his mouth, chases it down with a swig of coffee and says, “Morning, Dr. Foust.” He has a kind face for a police officer, lacking the usual flintiness that I think of when I think of the