by Mary Kubica
A door opens behind me. It’s immediate and swift. There was never the warning of footsteps.
I spin around with the keys still in my hand. I don’t have time to put them back.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” the secretary says as she drops back down into her seat. There’s a stack of papers in her hands now, and I’m grateful for this, because it’s the papers she’s looking at, not me.
I step quickly away from the coatrack. I fold the keys into my fist.
“Where were we?” she asks, and I remind her. I leave her a name and a number and ask that the superintendent call me when she has time. Neither the name nor the number belongs to me.
“Thanks for all your help,” I say, turning to leave.
It isn’t with forethought that I let myself into the Jeep. The thought didn’t cross my mind until I was standing beside the car with the keys in my hand. But it would be ludicrous not to act on this. Because what this is is destiny. A series of events outside of my control.
I unlock the driver’s door; I get into the car.
I search quickly, looking for nothing in particular, but rather insight into the woman’s life. She listens to country music, stockpiles McDonald’s napkins, reads Good Housekeeping magazine. The latest copy is there on the passenger’s seat, mixed up in a pile of mail.
To my great disappointment, there’s no evidence of a murderer here.
I put the keys into the ignition. I start the car.
There’s a navigation panel on the dashboard. I press the menu button and, when it prompts me to, I direct the system to Home.
Not my home, but Courtney Baines’s home.
And just like that I have an address on Brackett Street, less than three miles away.
I have no choice but to go.
MOUSE
What Mouse came to learn about Fake Mom was that there were two sides to her, like a coin.
When Mouse’s father was around, Fake Mom took an hour in the morning to get dressed, to curl her hair. She wore a pretty hot-pink lipstick and perfume. She made breakfast for Mouse and her father before he went to work. Fake Mom didn’t make cereal like Mouse was used to eating, but something else like pancakes, crepes, eggs Benedict. Mouse had never had crepes or eggs Benedict before. The only breakfast her father ever made her was cereal.
When Mouse’s father was around, Fake Mom spoke with a voice that was soft, sweet and warm. She called Mouse things like Sweetie and Darling and Doll.
You want powdered sugar on your crepes, Doll? Fake Mom would ask, holding the shaker of it in her hand, ready to douse the crepes with a heap of delicious powdered sugar, the kind that melted in Mouse’s mouth. Mouse would shake her head, though she really did want that powdered sugar. But even at six years old, Mouse knew that nice things came with a price sometimes, one she didn’t want to pay. She started missing her father’s cold cereal, because that never came with a price, only milk and a spoon.
When Mouse’s father was around, Fake Mom was kind. But Mouse’s father wasn’t always around. He had the kind of job where he traveled a lot. When he left on one of his business trips, he was gone for days.
Until that first time he left her with Fake Mom, Mouse had never been alone with her for long. Mouse didn’t want to be left alone with her. But she didn’t tell her father this because she knew how much her father loved Fake Mom. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
Instead she held on to his arm as he said his goodbyes. She thought that if she held on real tight, he wouldn’t go. Or if he did, that he’d bring her with him. She was small. She could fit in his suitcase. She wouldn’t make a peep.
But he didn’t do either.
I’ll be back in a few days, her father promised her. He didn’t tell her exactly how many was a few. He pulled his arm gently away, kissed Mouse on the forehead before he left.
You and I are going to get along just fine, Fake Mom said, stroking Mouse’s brown hair with her hand. Mouse stood in the doorway, trying not to cry as Fake Mom’s tacky hand tugged on her hairs from her head. She didn’t think Fake Mom meant to pull her hair, but maybe she did. And either way, it made Mouse wince. She took a step forward, trying to stop her father before he could leave.
Fake Mom’s hand went to Mouse’s shoulder and she squeezed real tight, not letting go.
That, Mouse knew, she meant to do.
Mouse carefully raised her eyes to Fake Mom, not sure what she would find when she did. Slanted eyes, an angry stare. That was what she thought she’d see. It was neither, but rather a frightening smile, the kind that made her insides hurt. If you know what’s good for you, you will stop where you are and say goodbye to your father, Fake Mom ordered. Mouse complied.
They watched as her father’s car pulled out of the drive. They stood in the doorway as the car rounded a bend down the street. It disappeared somewhere Mouse couldn’t see. Only then did Fake Mom’s grip on Mouse’s shoulder lessen slightly.
As soon as he was gone from sight, Fake Mom turned mean.
In the blink of an eye, that soft, sweet, warm voice went cold.
Fake Mom turned away from the door. She slammed it closed with the bottom of her foot. She hollered at Mouse to stop looking for her father, that her father was gone.
He isn’t coming back, not anytime soon. You better just deal with it, she said, before telling her to get away from the door.
Fake Mom’s eyes moved around the room, looking for some transgression she could get angry about. Any transgression. She found it in Mr. Bear, Mouse’s beloved brown bear who sat perched in the corner of the sofa, positioned with the remote control under his tiny furry hand. Mr. Bear was watching TV, just the same as he did every day, all the same shows that Mouse liked to watch.
But Fake Mom didn’t want the bear to watch TV. She didn’t want the bear anywhere she could see him. She snatched it from the corner of the sofa by a single arm, telling Mouse that she needed to put her stupid toys away before she threw them in the trash. She shook the living daylights out of the bear before hurling him to the ground.
Mouse looked at her beloved bear lying on the ground. He looked to Mouse like he was asleep, or maybe he was dead on account of Fake Mom shaking him so much. Even Mouse knew you weren’t supposed to do that to a living thing.
Mouse knew she should shut her mouth. She knew she should do as told. But she couldn’t stop herself. Without meaning for them to, words came out. Mr. Bear isn’t stupid, she yelled as she reached for her bear, clutching him to her chest, consoling him. Mouse ran her own hand over the stuffed animal’s downy fur and cooed into his ear, Shhh. It’s okay, Mr. Bear.
Don’t you talk back to me, Fake Mom said. Your father isn’t here now, and so you listen to me. I’m in charge. You pick up after yourself when I’m here, you little rodent, she said. Do you hear me, Mouse? she asked right before she started to laugh.
Mouse, she called her mockingly this time. She said how much she hated mice, how they’re pests. She told Mouse that they carry feces around on their feet, that they spread germs, that they make people sick. She asked, How’d you get a nickname like that, you dirty little rodent?
But Mouse didn’t know, and so Mouse didn’t say. That made Fake Mom angry.
Do you hear me? she asked, getting down into Mouse’s face. Mouse wasn’t a tall girl. She was small, only about three and a half feet tall. She barely reached Fake Mom’s waist, right where she tucked those pretty shirts into the waistband of her jeans. You answer me when I ask you a question, Fake Mom said, pointing a finger at Mouse’s nose, so close that she swatted her. Whether she meant to hit her or not, Mouse didn’t know, or maybe it was one of those things that happens accidentally on purpose. But it didn’t matter because either way it hurt. It hurt her nose and it hurt her feelings.
I don’t know why Daddy calls me that, she said honestly. He just does.
Are you being sassy with me, you little rodent? Don’t you ever be sassy with me, Fake Mom said, grabbing Mouse by the wrist. She shook her like she had the bear, until Mouse’s head and wrist hurt. Mouse tried to tug her arm away, but it only made Fake Mom hold tighter, long fingernails digging into the skin.
When she finally did let go, Mouse saw the red impression of Fake Mom’s hand there on hers. There were crescent-shaped indentations in her skin from Fake Mom’s fingernails.
Her eyes welled with tears because it hurt, both her head and her hand, but even more, her heart. It made her sad when Fake Mom shook her like that, and also scared. No one had ever talked to or touched Mouse like that, and Mouse didn’t like it. It made a drop of pee sneak out from her insides and slide down a leg where it got absorbed in the fabric of her pants.
Fake Mom laughed when she saw Mouse’s little quivering lip, the tears pooling in her eyes. She asked, What are you going to do? Cry like a little baby? Well, isn’t that just dandy, she said. A sassy little crybaby. How’s that for an oxymoron, she laughed, and though Mouse knew many things, she didn’t know that word oxymoron, but she knew what moron meant because she heard kids call one another that at school. So that was what Mouse thought, that Fake Mom had called her a moron, which wouldn’t have even been the meanest thing she did that day.
Fake Mom told Mouse to go somewhere where she couldn’t see her, because she was sick of looking at her sassy, crybaby face.
And don’t you come back until I tell you you can come back, she said.
Mouse carried her bear sadly up to her bedroom and gently closed the door. She laid Mr. Bear on the bed and hummed a lullaby into his ear. Then she lay down beside him and cried.
Mouse knew even then that she wouldn’t tell her father what Fake Mom had said and done. She wouldn’t even tell her real mom. It wasn’t like her to be a tattletale, but more so, she knew how much her father loved Fake Mom. She could see it in his eyes every time he looked at her. Mouse didn’t want his feelings to be hurt. Because he would be sad if he knew what Fake Mom had done, even sadder than Mouse felt. Mouse was an empathetic little girl. She didn’t ever want to make anyone sad. Especially her father.
SADIE
I commit the address to memory. I get in my own car and drive to Courtney’s home. I parallel park on the street, sliding easily between two cars. I step from my car. I bring Courtney’s keys with me.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t do something like this. But my back is to a wall.
I knock before attempting to let myself inside. No one comes to the door.
I finger the keys in my hands. It could be any one of them. I try the first key. It doesn’t fit.
I glance over my shoulder, seeing a woman and her dog near the end of the park where it meets with the street. The woman is bent at the waist, cleaning the dog’s mess from the snow with a plastic bag; she doesn’t see me.
I fiddle with the second key. This one fits. The knob turns and the door opens, and I find myself standing in the doorway of Courtney Baines’s home. I step inside; I close the door. The interior of the house is charming. It bursts with character: arched doorways, wall niches and wooden built-ins. But it’s also neglected and unloved. There isn’t much in the way of things. The house is unkempt. Stacks of mail are strewn across the sofa, two empty coffee cups on the wooden floor. A basket of unfolded laundry waits at the base of the stairs. Kids’ toys wither in the corner of the room; they haven’t been played with in a while.
But there are photographs. They hang from the wall slightly askew, a layer of dust coating the top ledge of them.
I go to the pictures, nearly run my hands through the dust. But then, in the nick of time, I think of fingerprints, of evidence, and pull quickly back. I search my coat pockets for a pair of winter gloves and slip them on.
The photographs are of Jeffrey, Courtney and their little girl. This strikes me as odd. If Will and I had gone through with a divorce in the aftermath of his affair, I would have rid my home of photographs of him, so I wouldn’t be reminded of him every day.
Not only does Courtney keep family photographs in her home, but there are wedding photographs, too. Romantic scenes of Jeffrey and her kissing. I wonder what this means. If she still has feelings for him. Is she in denial about his affair, the divorce, his remarriage? Does she think there’s a chance they might get back together again, or is she only pining for the love they once had?
I wander the halls, looking in bedrooms, in bathrooms, in the kitchen. The home is three narrow floors tall, each room as Spartan as the next. In the child’s bedroom, the bed is covered with woodland creatures, deer and squirrels and such. There’s a rug on the floor.
Another room is an office with a desk inside. I go to the desk, pull the drawers out at random. I’m not looking for anything in particular. But there are things I see, like felt-tip pens and reams of paper and a box of stationery.
I return downstairs. I open and close the refrigerator door. I peel back a curtain and look outside to be sure no one is coming.
How long do I have until Courtney realizes that her keys are missing?
I sit lightly on the sofa, paying attention not to disturb the careful order of things. I thumb through the mail, keeping it in the same order that it is, in case there’s some method to the madness that I can’t see. It’s bills and junk mail mostly. But there are other things, too, like legal petitions. State of Maine is typed across the envelopes, and that’s what makes me peel the flaps back, slide the documents out with my gloved hands.
I was never very good with legalese, but words like child endangerment and immediate physical custody leap out at me. It takes but a minute to realize Jeffrey and Morgan Baines were attempting to gain full custody of his and Courtney’s child.
The thought of someone taking Otto or Tate from me makes me instantly upset. If someone tried to take my children from me, I don’t know what I’d do.
But if I know one thing, it’s that getting between a woman and her child will never end well.
I slide the documents back into their envelopes, but not before first snapping a photo of them on my phone. I put the mail back how it was. I rise from the sofa and slip back out the front door, done with my search for now. I’m not sure if what I found is enough to suspect Courtney of murder. But it is enough to raise questions.
I drop the keys into a zipped compartment in my bag. I’ll dispose of them later.
People lose their keys all the time, don’t they? It’s not such an unusual thing.
I’m halfway to my car parked on the other side of the street when my cell phone rings. I pull it from my bag and answer the call. “Mrs. Foust?” the caller asks. Not everyone knows that I’m a doctor.
“Yes,” I say. “This is she.”
The woman on the other end of the line informs me that she’s calling from the high school. My mind goes instinctively to Otto. I think of our short exchange as we drove to the dock this morning. Something was bothering him but he wouldn’t say what. Was he trying to tell me something?
“I tried calling your husband first,” the woman tells me, “but I got his voice mail.” I look at my watch. Will is in the middle of a lecture. “I wanted to check on Imogen. Her teachers marked her absent today. Did someone forget to call her in?” this woman asks, and—feeling relieved the call isn’t about Otto—I sigh and tell her no, that Imogen must be playing hooky. I won’t bother myself with making up lies for Imogen’s absence.
Her tone isn’t kind. She explains to me that Imogen is required to be in school and that she is quickly closing in on the number of unexcused absences allowed in a school year.
“It’s your responsibility, Mrs. Foust, to make sure Imogen is in school,” she says. A meeting will be scheduled with Will and me, Imogen, teachers and administrators. An intervention of sorts. If that fails, the school will be forced to follow legal protocol.
I e
nd the call and climb into my car. Before I pull out, I send Imogen a text. Where are you? I ask. I don’t expect a reply. And yet one comes. Find me, it reads.
Imogen is playing games with me.
A series of photos comes next. Headstones, a bleak landscape, a bottle of prescription pills. They’re Alice’s old pills, used to manage fibromyalgia pain. An antidepressant that doubles as a nerve blocker. Her name is on the label.
I have to get to Imogen before she does something stupid with them, before she makes a careless decision she can’t take back. I speed away, forcing the legal documents I found in Courtney’s home out of my mind for now. Finding Morgan’s killer will have to wait.
MOUSE
Fake Mom didn’t give Mouse any dinner that night, but Mouse heard her down in the kitchen, making something for herself. She smelled the scent of it coming up to the second floor through the floor vents, slipping under the crack of Mouse’s bedroom door. Mouse didn’t know what it was, but the smell of it got her tummy rumbling in a good way. She wanted to eat. But she couldn’t because Fake Mom never offered to share.
By bedtime, Mouse was hungry. But she knew better than to ask about dinner because Fake Mom told her explicitly that she did not want to see her until she said it was okay. And Fake Mom never said it was okay.
As the sun set and the sky went dark, Mouse tried to ignore the hunger pangs. She heard Fake Mom moving about downstairs for a long time after she had finished eating, doing the dishes, watching TV.
But then the house got quiet.
A door closed, and Fake Mom, Mouse thought, had gone to bed.
Mouse pulled her own door open an inch. She stood just behind the door, holding her breath, making sure that the house stayed quiet. That Fake Mom hadn’t only gone in the bedroom to come right back out again. That Fake Mom wasn’t trying to trick her into coming down.
Mouse knew she should go to sleep. She tried going to sleep. She wanted to go to sleep.