No luck. Maybe it was in a box of winter clothes in the sunroom at the back of the house. The sunroom, designated as my future painting studio, was crammed with boxes I hadn’t gotten to yet. I grabbed my robe off the bed and padded down the narrow hallway, stopping abruptly at the sunroom. The door was wide open.
I felt a familiar trickle of dread.
My easel wasn’t where I stacked it three weeks ago, folded and leaning in the corner near the blue plastic tub that held all of my art supplies.
It was now erected in the center of the room, facing toward the door, boxes pushed aside to make way. A sheaf of art paper was clipped in place, the top one blank. A tube of paint was set out along the easel’s edge, the cap off.
I hadn’t painted in two years and I never left the cap off a tube of paint. After yesterday, I wasn’t stupid enough to think that Mike had set this up as a gesture of encouragement.
And why would the crime scene tech or cops mess with stuff that was packed? Well, said the third person in my head, they probably wouldn’t.
My eyes searched.
A cigar, half-smoked, lay on the floor by the leg of the easel.
Dust danced in the light that streamed through the wall of dirty windows. Or was it smoke? I don’t know how I traveled those few feet, but my hand reached up and ripped off the first page, and the second and the third and the fourth and the fifth, faster and faster and faster, a blur of frenetic motion.
Because I knew there was another message.
I was inside the mind of my tormentor, like he was inside mine.
It was neatly taped to the last sheet of paper. A snapshot of Mike and me.
Exiting the restaurant after dinner with Harry and Letty.
Mike’s expression, angry.
My expression, undetermined.
That’s because a perfect red thumbprint, every ridge discernible, obliterated my face.
19
The crime scene tech blamed the cops, the cops blamed the crime scene tech, and a furious Mike blamed himself, but everyone agreed that I shouldn’t worry, the easel had been set up at the same time by the same intruder who drew the message in the mirror. The stalker hadn’t re-entered the house. The police had simply missed the sign of an upright easel as being significant yesterday. They were positive the thumbprint was red paint from the open tube, not blood, which didn’t comfort me in the least.
One of the female cops, Justine something, her face scrubbed shiny, her blue uniform so tight and starched that I wondered whether it was rubbing her skin raw, told me the thumbprint was a good sign. He could be identified. Her voice mentally patted me on the head.
“Really?” I asked sarcastically. “I think it’s a sign that he doesn’t give a flip anymore. That he has an endgame. That he’s not in the system. So do you really think that’s a good thing, Justine?”
Even the guys operating on my living room with drills and hammers stopped their noise long enough to watch Mike drag his hormonal wife into the kitchen.
Three men from the alarm company had arrived minutes after Mike screeched up to our curb with his siren wailing. They climbed out of their van and took note of the cop cars, apparently unruffled by an emergency in progress. From a distance, the trio appeared identicaclass="underline" soldier-cropped hair, pale skin, army boots, and dark green jumpsuits that showed off Y physiques. They had strolled into my house like a bunch of Timothy McVeighs, a marketing image likely dreamed up by a right-wing Texas entrepreneur. The company played on both patriotism and fear, claiming it used only experienced war veterans as employees.
Right now, for me, that was working fine.
God bless Texas, and come right in.
I sat at the kitchen table across from Mike, who was as uptight as I’d ever seen him. I was hungry but I felt like throwing up. My head already hurt like hell but I had a desire to bang it against those yellow daisies as hard as I could.
One of the blond clones had just finished attaching several high-tech warts, some kind of motion sensors, to the 98-year-old ceiling. The head clone briefly had explained all the perks of this new security system to me while I sat on the couch and nodded numbly, but the only thing I really remembered was, “A house fly won’t be able to get by it when we’re done,” which made me imagine laser beams shooting from the ceiling like a giant bug zapper.
Mike’s finger explored the nicked lip of his coffee cup. The cup was a memento from a night at Wicked on Broadway. The chip was courtesy of our movers. He stood up, moved to the sink, dumped the dregs, and tossed the cup in the trash under the sink. I’d decided two days ago when I unpacked the mug that it was worth keeping because we’d had amazing, (almost) fully clothed sex against a tree in the park on the way home that night.
“I’m done in this room.” The clone nodded curtly to me as he carried the ladder out the back door.
Mike pulled a skillet from under the sink, tossed in a good chunk of butter from the refrigerator, and set the burner on low.
“What are you making?” It didn’t take more than the sight of melting butter to distract me. “Don’t you need to get back to work? To Caroline?”
“Grilled cheese.”
“I want two,” I said. “No, three. On whole wheat. No, white.”
“Plastic cheese or real?”
“The good stuff.”
“I repeat, plastic or real?”
“Well, maybe a little of each.”
I pushed myself away from the table to retrieve a few accoutrements: sweet pickle chips, a bag of Ruffles, and carrot sticks, today’s small concession to health.
“What’s happening to us, Mike?” I shut the refrigerator door with my foot. “There is an alarm company booby-trapping our bedroom right now. Who is doing this to me? Why now?” My voice was shaking, teetering in hysterical range.
“I think it’s tied up with Caroline’s case,” Mike answered bluntly. “I just don’t know how yet. Still, I’m pretty sure it’s not a person from your past, but someone in the present who’s using it against you. Or more likely, against me.” He avoided my eyes as he flipped a sandwich onto my plate. “Emily, have you ever thought that you want it to be someone connected to… your rapist? That the baby is a catalyst for all this emotion? That you are trying to finally confront it?”
“That’s ridiculous.” Inside, I wasn’t sure at all.
“Let’s go over this again. How many people knew about the rape?”
“Who really knows? My parents. Pierce. His roommate was there.” Mike lifted his eyebrows at this new piece of information but didn’t say anything. “None of those are possibilities. Three are dead. The roommate was a wimpy guy who had his own problems with Pierce. I don’t think he’d want to hurt me.”
“Who else?”
“Well, my roommate. But she was so good to me… afterward. She has no reason to scare me. I haven’t talked to her in years. She’s a marketing executive in Minnesota, I think. Then there’s the cop who took the report that night, obviously. The police never actually interrogated me and I was known only as ‘one of the ex-girlfriends’ in a couple of front-page stories in the Newark and New York newspapers. Rape was never mentioned as a possible motive for his murder. Only jealousy.”
Mike placed the rest of the grilled cheese sandwiches on a plate between us and dropped into a chair. I had deliberately pulled a newspaper clipping out of the file tucked in my purse and left it near the saltshaker. Before I left Caroline’s, I’d put every original file I’d stolen in its alphabetical place in the circle. Every file but my own.