‘Hang on, I just heard it again. Something on the front landing.’
‘Human or non-human?’
‘Can’t tell. There it is again.’
‘Then keep your door locked. I’m less than a minute from your place.’
Jayne decided to sit on the floor, her back against the bedroom door. This gave her a clear view of the front door but kept her hidden from all the windows. She kept the phone cradled in her lap but didn’t hear the noise again. When the phone vibrated with another incoming call, she didn’t flinch but she still answered quietly.
Steelie sounded confident. ‘It’s me. I’ve looked around down here but don’t see anything. I’m coming up.’
Jayne got up with relief and went to the front door. She opened it just as Steelie exclaimed, ‘Whoa!’ and there was a sound of footsteps thudding down the stairs.
‘Steelie?!’
Her voice came from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Make some noise up there, Jayne. You’ve got a mother possum on your stairs with her baby. And the baby’s big enough to have a name. I’ll wait in the driveway.’
Jayne started clapping her hands and whistling. Then she walked forward until she could see around the corner. The possums were about halfway down the stairs and the larger one was the size of a small dog. She was leading her cub in an unhurried manner down the stairs. When they reached the bottom, Steelie turned on the flashlight she was holding and mimicked airport ground staff guiding a plane into its berth, raking the light across the lawn and away from the driveway. The possums obediently headed off into the darkness.
Steelie trotted up the stairs. ‘That’s probably who you heard.’ She looked down at the silver plant tubs by the front door. ‘And you got off lightly with the mess. At my place, they get in the dirt, then put their paws in the water I leave out for the birds, wash their hands—’
She broke off and sank down into a crouch by the pots, flicking on her flashlight again. ‘Look at this. There’s something in the soil.’
‘Where?’
‘You’re at the wrong angle. Come this side.’
Jayne walked over and they crouched down to look at one of the tubs. Something was glinting in the beam of light. It looked like the top of a metal plant marker.
‘Has that always been there?’ Steelie asked.
‘I’m not sure.’ She hadn’t looked at the daisy bushes closely when she came home but thought she would have noticed the marker. She’d since forgotten to even call Marie to thank her.
‘Mind if I pull it out?’
‘No, go ahead. It’s the sort of thing my mother would do. She’s responsible for these things.’ Jayne stood up and looked at the roofline of the duplex where a telephone wire seemed to be hanging loosely.
Steelie said, ‘It’s only got a series of dots, like Braille.’
Jayne looked sharply at the metal tag in Steelie’s hand. It was a flat rectangle above a sharpened stake, now studded with soil. A series of dots were etched into the soft metal.
‘You think your mother would have brought this by without knocking on your door to say hi? No way, Jayne, not Marie.’
‘She brought the plants without telling me.’ They stood for a moment in silence. ‘Why don’t I call her?’
She stepped inside while Steelie began poking around in the other plant tubs. While Jayne waited for Marie to answer, she took the book of raffle tickets from the kitchen counter and waved them in front of Steelie, who pocketed them with a nod.
Marie answered after five rings.
‘Well, hello darling! To what do I owe this pleasure?’
‘I wanted to thank you for the daisies and the tubs. Sorry I didn’t do it right away.’
‘Daisies?’
‘Yeah, the ones in the metal washtubs.’
‘By your front door?’
‘Yes.’ Jayne was relieved that her mother remembered them.
‘Well, I’m glad someone replaced those cacti, but it wasn’t me, darling.’
‘Wait. So you didn’t leave a plant marker in them today?’
‘No, but what a cute idea!’
‘It’s not cute if you didn’t do it!’
‘Jayne, what’s going on? You sound . . . frazzled.’
‘Look, did you tell anyone about my cacti?’
‘Why would I tell anyone?’
‘You know, like one of your landscapers? Tell them to replace the cacti for me?’
‘No. What is this? Jayne?’
She didn’t answer because Steelie had come to stand in the doorway and was making a throat-slitting motion, which Jayne took to mean, Get off the phone NOW.
‘I’ll call you later, Mom. Bye.’
She looked at Steelie who now had a finger to her lips and was beckoning to her.
Steelie shined light into the plant tub closest to the house. She had excavated more soil than the possums had and the landing was a mess. The root ball of the daisy bush was exposed and nestled beneath it was a plastic box. Steelie gently tilted the tub to expose its underside. A coated wire snaked out of the central drainage hole and ran under the landing. Steelie used the light to trace the wire along the inner edge of the floorboards until it disappeared into a small hole just under the threshold to her apartment. The hair on the back of Jayne’s neck stood up.
Steelie whispered, ‘Get your purse and whatever else you want. You’re coming to my place and we’ll call for help from there.’
Jayne was filled with an overwhelming desire to get out of there and perhaps never come back. A few minutes later, she was driving behind Steelie, her overnight bag on the bench seat next to her, concentrating on the Wrangler’s tail lights. She couldn’t think; felt frightened out of all proportion and that fact bothered her as much as the situation itself.
Her cell phone rang and Jayne jumped again. She knew it would be half an hour or so before she settled down. It was Steelie on the phone, telling Jayne she was stopping for ‘emergency ice cream’ and confirming that Jayne had the spare key. Steelie pulled into the left turn lane for the Atwater Village Shopping Center, followed by the sedan behind Jayne, who herself indicated a right turn.
Jayne drove slowly through Atwater’s rows of 1920s Spanish houses, each looking compact and picturesque under graceful towering trees. Few had fences, so the streets felt open and inviting. Narrow driveways separated most houses, enough of whose stucco finishes were painted in earthy tones to give away mild gentrification.
She parked in front of the casita, noticing that Steelie had left a light on inside but only sheer shades pulled over the front windows. That wasn’t like Steelie but the effect was nice. The glow emphasized the arches of the tall living room windows while the up-lights among the aloes in the garden picked out the interlocking curves of the clay roof tiles. Jayne’s shoes crunched on the gravel path to the front porch, reminding her of how Marie and Steelie had collaborated to make a water-conscious garden on a budget. She unlocked the door and stepped inside.
Steelie waited for the arrow, feeling a little worried. She was used to Jayne’s fears, which almost bordered on paranoia, but she knew from where they originated. She’d learned it was better to address whatever had frightened Jayne rather than try to talk her out of it. PTSD didn’t work like that.
But this was different. There was something man-made in the plant tubs outside Jayne’s front door. Someone had put it there, and Steelie couldn’t come up with a ready explanation. She made the turn into the shopping center parking lot. Almost immediately, she was blinded by light reflected in her rearview mirror. She put her hand up to cut the glare. The side mirror showed nothing but bright light. Then she heard the too-brief wa-woop of a siren behind her. It seemed to echo on the night air. Odd that she hadn’t noticed a police cruiser before now and she didn’t think she’d rolled through a red light anywhere.