“Shhh,” I say, putting a finger to my lips, wrapping my lips around the sound. I hold still, like if I don’t move, no one will see me. We’re in the back of the house, where the front windows don’t reach, but that doesn’t mean we’re completely unexposed.
My first thought is that if we wait it out long enough, whoever is at the door will go away. But then the knock comes again. “Someone’s here,” Lily whispers, really hearing for the first time and registering what the sound is. Her eyes widen. Lily is visibly shaken by the knock at the door. Innocent people don’t usually worry about things like this, but Lily and I aren’t exactly innocent. “Who do you think it is?” she whispers.
“I don’t know.”
“What should we do?”
I reach for the TV remote and drop the volume. “Just give it a minute. They’ll leave,” I say, but as I do, the pounding knock comes again for a third time, followed by the chime of the doorbell. Whoever is at the door isn’t going to leave by choice.
“What if they don’t?”
I say to Lily, “Stay here. I’ll go see who it is. It’s probably nothing.”
I leave the kitchen. I walk through the foyer to the front door, thinking of all the possibilities: a neighbor; some kid selling candy to raise money for his baseball team; a package that needs to be signed for. I turn on the foyer light so that it’s not so dark when I open the door.
I pull the door open to find a police officer standing on the stoop. I draw in a deep breath, trying to be nonreactive but, at the same time, telling myself that even innocent people feel nervous from a police officer coming to their door. A police officer at the front door is rarely good news. It either means you’re in trouble or that someone has died.
The officer is tall. He’s formidable. I’m tall, too, but this man is wide, which I’m not. His chest is broad, filling out his uniform and my front doorframe. His face is long.
“Are you Christian Scott?” he asks, my eyes still taking time to adjust to the foyer light.
“Yeah,” I say, raking a hand through my hair, “Yeah, I am. I’m Christian Scott. Is everything okay? Has something happened?”
My mind is all over the place. Someone saw Lily and me move Jake’s car. Someone knows that I’m the one who broke into Jake and Nina’s house, or that I was back there again Monday night to return the key. I was in and out quickly that time. As far as I know, it was without incident. But I could be wrong. Someone could have seen me. Someone could have known that I was there.
“Is your wife home, Mr. Scott?” he asks, now angling his head to see past me and into our house. I turn around. Lily isn’t there, standing behind me. She’s in the kitchen, where it’s still dark. I can just barely make out the sound of the basketball game on the TV from here. “I was hoping to talk to both of you at the same time.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Sure. Let me just go get her.”
I invite the officer into the house. I don’t know that I want him coming in, standing in the foyer alone, trawling the house while I go to get Lily, but it would look suspicious not to, as if I have something to hide.
“Sure,” he says, coming into the house and closing the door behind himself. “Take your time.”
Lily is at the table when I come back in for her. Her face has gone pale, her limp hair hanging into her eyes. She’s been sitting there, listening the whole time. I go to her and she reaches out for my hand. “What does he want?” she whispers. The tension in her voice, her eyes, is palpable.
I whisper back, “I don’t know.”
Lily and I stare at each other for a second, the fear in my eyes matching the fear in hers.
“What are we going to do, Christian?” she asks.
“Take a deep breath,” I say, pulling her into me, feeling her heart beat against me. “Come out when you’re ready. It will be fine. I’ll take care of this.”
When I come back out into the foyer, the officer is still standing by the door. His arms are crossed. My eyes go to the handcuffs and the firearm on his belt before rising to his. “She’s on her way,” I say. “She’ll be right here. Can I ask what this is about, Officer? Did something happen?”
“I need to ask you and your wife a few questions about Jake Hayes.”
My stomach turns to a rock.
“Jake?” I say, a question, as if trying to place who he is. My face does that thing where it looks like I’m trying to look inward, to think, to physically pull something out of my memory.
“Yes, Jake Hayes. His wife is Nina Hayes,” the officer says.
“Oh yes, of course. Jake,” I say as if my brain just made the connection. My eyebrows come together, my forehead tightening. I ask, “Is everything okay? Is he okay?”
Lily appears in the space behind me. I don’t hear her coming, but I see the officer’s eyes go to her, his stance change, and I gaze back over my shoulder to find her looking pale but better than she did a few minutes ago. She comes around the corner, her footsteps delicate and light, her feet bare. She’s wearing tight leggings and a baggy T-shirt of mine that slips from a shoulder, revealing the strap of her black bra.
“Lily,” I say, stepping aside, making room for her beside me as I slide an arm around her waist, “the officer wants to ask us some questions about Jake Hayes.” I’m grateful when Lily’s face goes blank and she goes along with what I’m trying to do. “Nina’s husband,” I explain, as if we only know him peripherally because of Nina, as if he hasn’t been the only thing on our minds these last few days.
“Right,” she says, “Jake.” The concern that manifests on Lily’s face resembles mine. “I work with his wife, Nina Hayes,” she tells the officer, whose intensity has seemingly diminished since Lily came into the room. Lily has that effect on people. “Nina told me that he hasn’t come home in a few days.” Lily gazes up at me. “I can’t remember if I told you that,” she says.
I say, “You did. It’s awful.” My eyes go back to the police officer’s. “What brings you here, Officer? Has something else happened?”
“I’m speaking to people close to the Hayeses, and trying to see if we can’t locate Dr. Hayes.”
I start to relax because I realize that the officer is only looking into Jake’s disappearance. He doesn’t know anything more than that he’s gone, than that he hasn’t come home. He has no clue of Lily's and my involvement or, if he does, he’s not letting on yet.
“When is the last time you saw Dr. Hayes?” he asks.
I think back. I look at Lily. “It’s been what?” I ask her. “Six months or more? We had dinner together,” I say, looking back to the officer, “but that was sometime last spring, I think.”
Lily says, “April, yes. We were celebrating Nina’s birthday.” I had forgotten that it was Nina’s birthday, but Lily is right, it was. We met for dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse, the night Jake showed up in his new car and took me for a ride. It had been Lily’s idea for us to all get together to celebrate. Nina chose the restaurant. Lily made the reservations.