by David Bell
A flood of notifications inundated me. It took me a moment to remember, but then I knew why. The photo I’d posted that morning of Amanda bathing Henry. I’d captured them together with the sun coming in through the window in the kitchen, and then posted the photo with a comment about how lucky I was.
Which felt even more true now.
And I also saw Jennifer’s friend request. I hadn’t accepted it. Obviously. But I hadn’t denied it either. Something about saying no to her when she was dead felt strangely disrespectful.
But as I sat there in my house, my mind changed. With everything else going on, I desperately wanted to seize control of something.
This was a small thing. And easy.
So I rejected the request.
One push of a button and I felt some relief spread through me.
Ordinarily I’d go through and respond to every comment on my photo, most of which were agreeing with me or saying how beautiful Amanda and Henry were. But I put that off for another time, even though it felt unnatural to ignore those comments.
The neighborhood Facebook group—called the Heights Watch Group, after the name of our area—had existed before we moved there. In the group, anyone who lived in the Heights could post questions about repair people, comments about the weather, or announcements about events and activities like yard sales, parades, lemonade stands, et cetera. The group also proved to be an effective way for my neighbors to share information and complaints about scams, break-ins, and suspicious people on our streets.
Just the week before, someone had pulled up in a white van and let out a bunch of kids who fanned through the neighborhood to sell magazine subscriptions, supposedly to help the kids pay their way through college in another state. Why college students from another state would show up where we lived, selling magazine subscriptions during the semester to fund their studies, I wouldn’t guess. But word quickly spread as neighbors posted about the kids, and someone even Googled the name of the company they said they worked for and shared information about how the entire thing was a scam.
Too often word spread in the group about anyone in the neighborhood who looked suspicious. All it took was for one young guy to walk down the street in a hoodie or with a baseball cap pulled low, and someone would jump on to warn us all that a “prowler” was in the area and we should all lock our doors.
I wondered if Jennifer’s neighborhood had a similar group—one that was at that very moment sharing a description of me wandering around in the vicinity of her house late at night in my basketball clothes.
Nevertheless, the group provided useful, if occasionally hysterical and unreliable, information about the goings-on on the nearby streets. So I logged on to see if anyone else had experienced someone in their yard earlier in the evening.
I hoped to see something. I hoped someone else’s yard had been invaded by an unknown guy who’d squished around in the soft mud beneath their windows. Maybe someone had seen a woman who looked like Dawn Steiner. But no one had reported anything more than a dog that had been incessantly barking early in the morning for two weeks straight.
So I posted about someone being in our backyard. I told the group that Amanda thought she’d heard someone in the backyard and maybe trying the door around eleven o’clock. Had anyone else seen or heard anything weird?
It surprised me how many people were still up at that hour. Did nobody else have anything to do after eleven thirty at night? Sleep? Watch TV? Have sex? Or was everyone like me, attached to their devices, fearing that they might miss something?
I quickly received a few replies to my post. One mentioned the barking dog again. One mentioned a fire hydrant near the park that leaked water day and night.
And then there was a comment that actually seemed relevant.
I didn’t know the guy who replied, but he gave the name of his street, which was three blocks away from us. He said they had seen a man in their backyard shortly before Amanda thought she heard the person at the door to our house. He described the man in a nondescript way. Medium height. Brown hair. Dark clothes. Nothing helpful.
But it allowed me a small measure of relief. Maybe this was the same person who had been in our backyard. And so maybe it wasn’t connected to Jennifer’s death at all, and Amanda and Henry had been safe. At least from the killer.
Or maybe the person who had killed Jennifer had come to our house . . . and just happened to pass through another yard a few blocks away.
I knew the more I thought about it, the crazier I would drive myself. So I closed the laptop lid and turned to Jennifer’s phone, hoping for answers there.
Before I picked it up, my own phone buzzed.
Blake?
I was indulging in a juvenile wish. It wouldn’t be him. I assumed it was another notification from social media, someone else with something to say about the photo I posted.
I thought of ignoring it, but like Pavlov’s dog, I jumped when it buzzed.
When I saw the notification, I jumped again.
Almost out of my skin.
Jennifer Bates has sent you a friend request.
My breath quickened, like a summer storm rising. The hand that held the phone quivered like a seismograph.
“No. No, no, no . . . not possible.”
That was when I heard the back door rattling.
Just like Amanda described it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“No, no, no.”
I told myself I must have been hearing things.
My office sat too far from the back door for me to really know if someone was trying to get in.
Maybe it was the wind. Or a neighbor dragging his garbage cans down the driveway.
But who would have been doing that so close to midnight?
And it wasn’t windy enough to make that much noise.
But the noise coupled with the new friend request brought me back to my mind-set inside Jennifer’s bedroom.
Was someone hunting me?
I rolled away from the desk and used my fingers to pry open the blinds. But the angle prevented me from seeing the back door. I picked up my phone, ready to call the police.
They said they’d be around. So where the hell are they?
Instead I went out of the office and down the hall, stepping quietly over the creaking wood floors, hoping Amanda was well asleep and wouldn’t hear me. Every light remained on on the first floor of the house. What kind of burglar would choose that moment to try to come in the back door? How did I know it was really a burglar?
Could it be Jennifer’s murderer, intending to do me harm? First send the friend request again, and then show up and finish me off. Why? Because I’d seen her body.
Because I was a loose end . . .
When I entered the kitchen, I heard the rattling again. Someone was trying the knob on the back door. My heart thumped, and I walked across the room to where the bat still stood in the corner. I grabbed it, and lifted it with one hand while I swallowed hard.
My throat was dry as the desert. My knees felt weak, like tiny twigs that couldn’t support me.
The knob stopped rattling, and then someone knocked lightly.
What kind of burglar knocked?
I shuffled to the door, the bat raised, and with my left hand, I undid the chain and the dead bolt. I pulled the door open, ready to swing.
And I saw Blake standing there on the patio, blinking like a dazed child in the porch light.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I went right out the door, pulling it shut behind me with my free hand while holding the bat with my other.
Blake backed up as soon as he saw the look on my face.
I reached him before he could get out of my way and shoved him in the chest, sending him stumbling backward until he fell onto the soft grass with a dull thump. I dropped the bat and stood over him. H
e held his hands up defensively, his eyes wide, his mouth turned down in a grimace.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” I asked in a harsh whisper.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
I wanted to pile on top of him and start swinging. I wanted to kick him in the gut while he was down. He and I had never had a fistfight, although many, many times I’d felt like punching him. But I’d never made the kind of contact with him I did that night. Shoving him down. Standing over him.
“Where have you been?” I asked. “I’ve been trying to call you. Sam is looking for you. What did you do to me? Did you set me up? Are you trying to get me arrested? And you’re sending me these absurd Facebook requests.”
My voice rose to a shout, so I cut my words off. I turned and looked up at the house, at our bedroom window. I hoped I hadn’t made so much noise that I’d woken Amanda or Henry. My shoulders heaved as I breathed hard. The pent-up anger and frustration of the whole evening surged through me like a flammable liquid, putting me on the brink of losing control. I took a step back, tried to get a grip on my emotions.
Blake stayed on the ground, his hands up, still begging for mercy. “What’s your problem, Ryan?”
My voice remained harsh in the darkness. “You set me up. You sent me in there, to a dead woman’s house. I could have been caught. I still might get caught. And if I get caught for that, then everything comes out. What were you thinking? Everything you touch turns to shit, Blake.”
Blake’s hands lowered. His face fell, transitioning from fear to shock. “What are you talking about? Who’s dead?”
If I’d had more time to think or if I’d been in a calmer state of mind, I would have hesitated or softened what I said. But given the long night I’d already been through and the amount of blame I placed on Blake’s shoulders, I blurted the information out.
“Jennifer, of course. Jennifer’s dead.”
He stared at me, his face stricken. Then something seemed to drain out of his body, and he grew limp. He fell back into the grass and placed his hand over his eyes as though shielding them from a bright light.
“Jen? Dead?” he asked. “Don’t say things like that. Don’t talk about her like that.”
“You didn’t know? Are you kidding?”
It took him a moment to answer. “I went by there. A little while ago. I saw cops and an ambulance and everything. But it wasn’t her. It’s probably one of the neighbors. The couple next door is elderly. One of them probably fell or had a heart attack or something.”
I tried to be sympathetic, to soften my tone. It wasn’t easy.
“That’s not it. She’s dead, Blake. I saw her body on the bedroom floor when I went in to get the letters. I’m sure somebody killed her. She had blood on her head and in her hair . . . and the room was trashed. And the letters are gone, by the way.”
Again, he remained quiet for a long time. If I’d just come across him without knowing why he was lying in my backyard, I would have thought he had fallen asleep. His chest rose and fell, and his hand still covered his eyes.
But he suddenly lowered his hand and sat up, lifting his torso off the ground. His eyes bored in on mine. “Do you really think I killed her? You really think I’m capable of that? Is your regard for me that low?”
“What else could I think? You lied about seeing her today. Did you do it? Why did you send me there?”
He continued to stare at me, in his eyes a mixture of anger and hurt. He started to shake his head.
“You think you know so much, don’t you? In your house and your perfect life. With your wife and baby and the sunlight always coming through the window just right. Even though it’s all built on a lie.” He continued to shake his head. “Not everybody’s life is like yours. Not everybody’s life looks like a magazine spread all the time. Not everybody cultivates the perfect social media feed.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“What are you even talking about?” I asked. “Somebody’s dead, Blake. Murdered. Your ex . . . whatever she was. Girlfriend? And we’re talking about Instagram filters.”
“It’s a mess, Ryan. Everything is a mess. At least for the rest of us. This is what life is. It’s chaotic and messy. Hell, it’s like that for you too. People don’t know about the accident. You can’t neaten that up with the right filter. I’m in a big damn shit show right now.”
“The letters were gone, you idiot,” I said. “Do you understand? The letters, the whole reason I went in there, the things that are going to hang us both out to dry—they’re gone. What are we going to do about that? Do you have a plan for that?”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Did you panic and rush? Maybe you missed them.”
“I looked in the drawer you told me to look in. Someone had been through everything. The place was trashed. Could she have moved them?”
“I don’t know. She’s very organized. She had a place for everything and everything in its place. I just don’t know, Ryan.”
I walked over to him, and he drew back slightly. He eyed me with suspicion, but I made no hostile gestures. I felt like an animal trainer trying to get a scared squirrel to take a treat.
I held out my hand. “Come on. The ground’s soggy.”
“I know. I can feel it.”
He took my hand, and I hoisted him up so we stood face-to-face. “The cops have to be looking for you. They are going to go through everything in that house. They’re going to connect you to her somehow. You had to leave a trail. Do her friends know the two of you were dating?”
“Some did.”
“Then the cops will find out once they start talking to them.”
“Obviously.” He turned to the side and started pacing, running his hand through his hair. He came back to me. “Is she really dead?”
“Yes. Really. I’m sorry, but she is.”
“Oh, God. Oh, God.”
“How do you even know her?” I asked. “She works for that nonprofit, the one that helps former prisoners find jobs. Did you know she was almost a client of ours? We were going to help them with a media campaign.”
“How do you think I met her?” Blake asked.
“I didn’t introduce you.”
“Not directly.” He stopped pacing and looked up at the sky for a moment. The clouds had slid away, revealing pinpricks of stars. “Remember about six months ago you had that fund-raiser at the Pig? What was it for? Pediatric cancer or something?”
“Yes, pediatric cancer. I remember.”
“Do you remember you left early?” he asked.
I did. Henry had been born just a few weeks earlier, and Amanda’s mom had come over while the two of us went to the fund-raiser. But not long after the event started, her mom called, saying she thought Henry had a fever. So we left and went home, and Henry ended up being perfectly fine. We called our pediatrician, who told us what to do, and Henry was asleep in fifteen minutes.
“I remember,” I said.
“Well, Jen was there. Hell, you invited her.”
“I didn’t invite her,” I said. “Maybe someone else at the office did. We have twelve employees at the firm. I don’t know everyone who gets invited somewhere.”
“Whatever it was, she was there. And you were gone. And I showed up, and she and I started talking. Once she found out I knew you, she perked up. I got the feeling . . .” He gave me a sideways look, one corner of his mouth curling up a little. “She asked me a lot of questions about you, to be honest. I was clearly her second choice.”
“Just tell me what happened.”
“Well, she knew how to have a good time. We drank together. We went home together. That’s how it started. She and I shared a cynical sense of humor. It wouldn’t be any good for me to be with someone like that forever, but for a short time while I was broken up
with Sam . . . Yeah, it was a lot of fun. But I always hoped to get back with Sam. I love her. I need her.”
“I’m not arguing with you.”
“What are you saying about Facebook requests? You were raving about something when you were standing over me.”
“When I was in her house, I got a friend request from Jennifer. How the hell did that happen? And then I just got another one while I was sitting inside. Right before you came to the door.”
“How could I send a message from her account? I’m not even on Facebook.”
“Do you have her laptop or another device? The cops will find out.”
“You’re nuts, Ryan. All of this is getting to you and making you unable to think.”
I took a step toward him. “Okay, then let’s clear this all up. Let’s call the police right now. We can tell them everything we know, get it all out in the open, and put this behind us. You can marry Sam, and the cops can deal with this mess.”
For a long time, he studied me. I thought I’d gotten through to him, that my calm, logical plea had busted through his thick skull and reached him. But then he smiled, his mouth crooked.
“Are you crazy, Ryan? Just call the police and tell them everything? And ruin what I have with Sam?”
“Ruin what you have with Sam?” I said. “You mean the job her dad is going to give you?”
Blake looked stung.
“I know. A job from her dad. And your dad out of money. Sam told me. Is that why there’s such a rush to get married this weekend? To lock everything down?”
“That’s really low, Ryan. That’s insulting. We’re friends. Why would you say those things?”
“Why else is all of this happening?”
“I don’t know. And by the way, if you call the police, you know what’s really going to come out? The truth about the accident. How you were driving and not Aaron. They’ll want to know why you were in Jen’s house. Are you going to lie to them about that? Are you going to mention the letters? It could all be out there for the world to see. You’d be facing the legal music, and my relationship with Sam and her family would be damaged. Do you want all that? Do you want to get arrested for vehicular homicide? They can still pop you for that, remember? There’s no Instagram filter that can put a shine on that giant turd.”