Foster peeled off her blazer, unbuttoned her blouse at the neck, and padded over to the bowl of colorful marbles on her dining room table. She plucked out a blue-green one and dropped it into a tall ceramic vase about the height of an average four-year-old. It was halfway full. Only then did she exhale; only then did she allow herself to stand down. Padding into the kitchen, she grabbed a cold bottle of water from the fridge. The dog barking outside she knew would go on for at least a few more hours before her neighbor next door finally let him in for the night. No concern for the neighbors, of course, who had to endure the incessant yips and barks and growls until then. Add to that the banger cars that roared up and down the block at all hours, their noisy engines revving and rap music thumping out of huge speakers at earsplitting decibels. There was no such thing as a quiet night in this neighborhood, but this was where she had to be. Besides, what would she do with a quiet night except fight against it? Foster’s mind worked overtime when the world was too quiet and still. Ghosts visited in the night when time refused to budge, the hands on the clock unwilling to bring the relief of a welcome sunrise.
There wasn’t much to the place. It was a two-bedroom house purchased after the divorce, after there was nothing left but her. The place wasn’t anything, really, except for a roof and four walls and things she didn’t care about or even half notice. Shelter. Bare necessity. A house, not a home. But it was here, and from her living room window, it had a view of the maple tree out front.
She took her bottle of water to the living room and sat in the easy chair facing the window, the lights out, waiting for the revving engines, listening to the dog bark. There would be the sound of gunshots later, random, followed close behind by the sound of police sirens and ambulances. She’d had the other things: home, peace. At one time, she’d thought she would always have them, but then there had been a thief and a gun, then a funeral and a parting, and now this.
She had work, which kept her from . . . what? It was funny, she thought, how the mind worked or wouldn’t. Interesting what it held fast to and what it chose to let go. She could almost forget how low she’d gotten, how little she’d cared if the sun rose or set, if she breathed or stopped breathing. Why should she breathe when Reggie couldn’t? How did she get to wake up and walk and eat and be when her son, her baby, was buried six feet under earth in a box, in his Easter suit, with his autographed ball of the ’68 Cubs and his favorite Bulls jersey lying next to him? Number 23. It was a cosmic joke, a curse, a nightmare. A mother wasn’t meant to survive her children. But she had work, and she’d rediscovered a pocket of resilience. And then it rained one morning eight weeks ago, and her partner, her friend, was gone.
Sometimes life had no mercy.
The tree outside was almost bare now, a carpet of autumn leaves at its feet. Foster watched as a slight breeze blew more and more of them away from the branches to land on the ground in all their crimson, golden glory. Why would the killer bury Peggy Birch under leaves? Did it mean something, or was it simply a quick way to try to conceal her? If so, he hadn’t done such a good job of it. Her foot was visible, and he’d left her close to the pedestrian path. Was it significant that Birch was hidden, yet not hidden well? And now that Foster had a quiet moment to think about it, where had all the leaves come from?
She got up and walked into the kitchen to pop a frozen dinner into the microwave and await the dings. When she heard the familiar mewling at her back door, she poured a bowl of milk and walked it back as she’d done countless times. She knew she would find the raggedy tabby there when she opened the door. He’d latched on to her the first day she’d moved in four years ago. There were no tags around his neck, no collar. Just a stray, feral, unattached to anyone, like herself. She’d named him Lost, and it seemed to fit.
“You never miss dinnertime, do you?” she said, squatting down to place the bowl on the porch.
Lost didn’t stop for conversation—never did; that wasn’t what he came for. She watched as he lapped up the milk, ignoring her. This wasn’t a love match. Their relationship, such as it was, was based purely on mutual need. Lost needed food to stay alive and knew it could be found at her door. She needed someone to care for, even if it only took the form of a bowl of milk and scraps given to a cat that came and went as he saw fit.
“Lost,” Foster muttered, watching the cat lap away. “I don’t think you are, though, are you? You know exactly where you are.” The microwave dinged. Foster stood watching the cat finish. When he did, she leaned down and picked up the bowl and watched as he trotted away. “Bye, then,” she said.
She ate her dinner at the small kitchen table with her notes and a few photos she’d taken on her phone of the Birch crime scene. Once they’d found her backpack floating in the river, the divers from the marine unit had been called out, but they hadn’t found her phone or anything that might have been her clothing. Peggy’s roommate said that she never went anywhere without her laptop, but divers hadn’t found one of those in the river either. Not a robbery. Her wallet had been in the bag with money in it—not much, but a thief would steal a nickel if given the chance. Rape? The autopsy would tell. She wondered how the Birches were doing, especially Peggy’s mother. She thought about the Ainsleys too. The Birches had lost everything. The Ainsleys had everything to lose.
Foster startled at the sound of her doorbell. She didn’t know her neighbors and didn’t often get visitors, especially not after the sun went down. It was almost seven thirty. This wasn’t a neighborhood where people took evening strolls or where you freely opened your door at night. For a moment she didn’t move, hoping whoever it was would go away, but then the bell rang a second time. She slid her gun out of her holster, tucked it into the back of her waistband, and went to the door. She was relieved when she squinted through the peephole to find her brother, Felix, standing there. But relief quickly turned to suspicion, and her guard went up, knowing his presence meant she’d have to be normal. It was a thing to know you were a worry to those who cared about you. There was guilt attached to it. Yet no amount of assurance that she could give seemed to satisfy Felix or her mother that she was okay, that she was fine.
She opened the door and smiled brightly. “You’re out late.” He followed her into the kitchen, where her plastic meal had gone cold in its microwavable tray. She slipped her gun back into its holster, then slid the weapon down the table away from Felix, who she knew didn’t like guns. “You usually call first. Hungry?”
Felix hadn’t missed the slip or the slide but let both go without comment. Instead, he shook his head, eyed her poor excuse for dinner, and made a face. “You seriously have to start eating better.”
“Want something to drink, then?” She glanced down at the car keys in his hand. “Water?”
He walked over to the fridge and grabbed a bottled water, then turned to study the plastic tray her pathetic dinner was in, then her. He was graying rapidly, Foster noticed, like their father had. Felix looked a lot like him now: warm dark skin, thin nose, full lips, middle age settling in. She saw him take a quick scan of the house and knew it saddened him. There was very little furniture—a small sofa, a chair, a coffee table, a lamp. Not a single thing hung on the walls. He’d said it before countless times, that the place felt cold, lifeless, a stopgap, as though she didn’t intend to stay long, as if she deliberately kept her home this way so that it would take her less than a minute to break everything down and go. “How you doing?”