by Mary Kubica
I need to find out who killed Morgan.
I use my commute time wisely, searching my phone for infor-
mation on Jeffrey Baines’s ex, Courtney, who lives somewhere
on the other side of the Atlantic. I don’t know this for fact, but
it’s easy enough to assume. She doesn’t live on the island with us.
And I watched the other day, after the memorial service, as she
and her red Jeep boarded the ferry and disappeared out to sea.
I type “Courtney Baines” into the web browser. Finding her
is almost too easy because, I come to find out, she’s the super-
intendent of the local school district. Her name pops up nearly
everywhere. It’s all very professional, nothing personal. Superin-
tendent Baines approving salary increases for teachers and staff;
Superintendent Baines expressing concern over a string of re-
cent school violence.
I find an address of the administrative building and type it
into my map app. It’s an eight-minute drive from the ferry ter-
minal. I’ll arrive by 8:36 a.m.
The ferry steers into the terminal and docks. I jog down the
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steps, from the upper deck and to my car. I start the car and,
when given the go-ahead, I pull from the ferry.
I head out onto the street and follow my directions toward
the school district’s administrative building. The city is nothing
compared to Chicago. The population is less than a hundred
thousand; not one building surpasses fifteen stories tall. But it’s a city nonetheless.
Located in the heart of downtown, the administrative build-
ing shows its age. I drive into the lot, search for a place to park.
I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know what I’m going
to say to Superintendent Baines when we meet.
I make a plan quickly as I weave through the parking lot. I’m
a concerned parent. My child is being bullied. It’s not so hard
to believe.
I step through the first row of cars. As I do, I spot Courtney
Baines’s Jeep, the same red Jeep I watched pull from the Meth-
odist church. I go to it, look around to be sure that I’m alone
before reaching a hand up to tug on the car’s handle. It’s locked,
of course. No one with any common sense would leave their
car unlocked. I cup my hands around my eyes and peer inside,
seeing nothing unusual.
I make my way into the administrative building. Once in-
side, a secretary greets me.
“Good morning,” she says, and, “What can we do for you?”
speaking in the first person plural, though there is no we here.
She’s the only one in the room.
When I tell her I’d like to speak to the superintendent, she
asks, “Do you have an appointment, ma’am?”
I don’t of course, and so I say, “This will only take a second.”
She looks at me, asks, “So you don’t have an appointment
then?”
I tell her no.
“I’m so sorry, but the superintendent’s schedule is completely
booked today. If you’d like to make an appointment for tomor-
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row, we can get you in.” She glances at the computer screen,
tells me when the superintendent will be free.
But I don’t want to see the superintendent tomorrow. I’m here
now. I want to speak with her today.
“I can’t do it tomorrow,” I tell this secretary, making up some
sob story about my sick mother and how she’ll be going in for
chemotherapy tomorrow. “If I could just speak with her for
three minutes, tops,” I say, not sure what I think I’ll accomplish
in three minutes—or what I think I’ll accomplish at all. I just
want to speak with the woman. To get a sense of the kind of
person she is. Is she the kind of woman who could kill another?
That’s what I want to know. Would three minutes tell me this?
It doesn’t matter. She shakes her head empathetically, says
again how sorry she is but the superintendent’s schedule is com-
pletely booked for the day.
“I can take your phone number,” she suggests. She reaches for
paper and a pen to jot my information down. But before I can
give it to her, a woman’s voice—one that’s surly and astute—
comes through an intercom, beckoning the secretary.
I know this voice. These days, I hear it nearly every time I
close my eyes.
I’m not sorry for what I did.
The secretary pushes her chair back and stands. Before she
goes, she tells me she’ll be right back. She leaves and I’m alone.
My first thought is to go. To just leave. There’s no chance I’m
getting past the secretary without resorting to desperate mea-
sures. Times aren’t desperate, not yet. I make my way toward
the door. On the wall behind me is a coat hanger, a cast iron
frame with matching pegs. A black and white houndstooth coat
hangs from it.
I recognize the coat. It belongs to Courtney Baines. It’s the
same coat she wore the day she slipped out of Morgan’s memo-
rial service and hurried to her car.
I take a deep breath. I listen for the sounds of voices, of foot-
steps. It’s quiet and so I go to the coat. Without thinking, I run
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my fingers along the wool. I sink my hands into the pockets.
Immediately my hand clasps down on something: Courtney
Baines’s keys.
I stare at the keys in my hand. Five silver keys on a leather
keychain.
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, stock-
piles 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 mur-
derer here.
I put the keys into the ignition. I start the car.
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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.
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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, Dol ? 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
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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’s
what she thought she’d see. It was neither, but rather a frighten-
ing smile, the kind that made her insides hurt. If you know what’s 9780778369110_RHC_txt(ENT_ID=269160).indd 224
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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 look-
ing 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 hurl-ing 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.
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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 cal s 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
indentions in her skin from Fake Mom’s fingernails.
Her eyes welled with tears because it hurt, both her head and
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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’s 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