“It won’t be long. A week max.”
“I’m not going to Mel’s.” Aunt E was in her usual place at the kitchen table, removing the skin from potatoes with a peeler she’d owned for decades.
I nodded. Not sure I wanted her at Mel’s myself. I was in my usual spot too. Erin was still here but smart enough to be hiding in Aunt E’s spare bedroom. “If you don’t want to go to Mel’s, you can go see your sister,” I said.
“I hate my sister.” She was on Long Island, and they got along about as well as Desiree and I these past two years.
“Or do one of those staycations at the shore.”
“I hate water.”
She was acting like a child.
“No one says you have to go in it.”
“What is going on, Lena?”
I didn’t respond.
“This has to do with Desiree, doesn’t it?” she said. “I need to stay here. With you.”
I placed my hand over hers, and she stopped peeling. “Just trust me.”
Her face changed just enough, I knew she remembered that conversation too. After a moment, she nodded. “I’ll call my sister.”
Erin helped me get Aunt E’s luggage from the basement, and I used the opportunity to update her on what Ms. Paterson had said. After all three of us got Aunt E packed, I requested an Uber. Erin eyed the Camry as Aunt E disappeared down the street. “They have to come back,” Erin said.
“Apparently every morning by six a.m.”
“Good. We’ll follow them tomorrow.”
“With? We don’t have a car.” I actually wished she’d gotten her Jaguar back.
“How quickly can you get one?”
The answer was an hour. Mr. Buck came through with his Cadillac.
I didn’t sleep much that night, alternating between staring at my bedroom ceiling and staring out my front window at the Camry. So when my phone alarm went off at 5 a.m., I was ready.
Erin was awake, hoodied, and dressed in enough black to make me think she’d done this before. Her confidence was back in spades. I wasn’t sure if this was Erin or Karma. Whoever it was, she looked at me and smiled. “I made coffee.”
Outside was deserted when we left the house, but I was tempted to wave at Ms. Paterson’s house anyway. She had to be watching. Mr. Buck’s parking karma wasn’t as good as the Camry’s owners. He’d been forced to park the Cadillac up the block for us when he dropped it off, but Erin had insisted that was fine. Good, even. The van would drive right past us, and it’d be easy to follow.
We got in, Erin in the driver’s seat. Me in the back like she was my Uber driver. She said it was better like that, in case they did look in the car. Erin got so quiet I wondered if she’d gone to sleep. I’d only seen that level of calm from the guilty party on The First 48. I just sat back in the leather seat, anxious like I had been on long car rides as a child. I wanted to get there already.
The minutes ticked by so slowly it felt like my live playback speed was 0.25, the only thing moving fast my inhales and exhales. Finally, after a dozen lifetimes, I saw the headlights in the side mirror.
“Get down,” Erin said, awake after all.
It took everything in me to listen when all I wanted to do was stare out the back window. I lay sideways, ear pressed against the leather, as Erin served as narrator. “Someone got out of the van. Into the Camry. Here comes the van.”
A few seconds later, it passed us.
“Hit the lights.”
I already had the Alexa app open. I selected Devices, then Plugs, turning on the one marked Living Room. Erin waited until the van turned right and disappeared from view. Then she started the Caddy and followed.
Tailing someone in real life was nothing like the movies. It wasn’t sexy. It wasn’t fun. And although my heart was pounding, it wasn’t in a good way. Erin was still cool, even turning on the radio and switching it from Mr. Buck’s favored WBLS to Z100. I stayed low but could see enough street signs to know we were heading into Manhattan, the sun slowly chasing us from the east. It was full-on day when we got to Fifth Avenue.
“Where do you think he’s going?” I finally said.
“Hopefully back to the office. Maybe home. It’s still early. I took a pic of his license plate, but that doesn’t mean anything. It’ll help to get an address or building name.”
I knew we reached East Harlem because the streets got more crowded. “I’m gonna get up,” I said, though I didn’t move.
“It’s fine. They’re a few cars ahead.”
I sat upright just as we hit a light. I refused to stare at the van in front of me. I looked out the side window instead. Everything seemed so…normal. People going about their day as oblivious to my shit as I normally was to theirs. A young mother practically dragged her uncooperative toddler down the street. I took in each step, the frustration on her face. The determination. The helplessness. They hadn’t made much progress when the light turned green again.
I zoned out again until Erin spoke. “They’re pulling over.”
The van stopped, and someone got out of the front passenger seat. I wasn’t close enough to see who it was, but I knew anyway. The guy with the mole. He didn’t glance back as he walked quickly into a building.
It was Mel’s co-op.
Twenty-Eight
Erin didn’t stop, just cruised past Mel’s building. She also ignored my tears, the ones I’d managed to hold back for nine days. The ones that now came with the ferocity of a Category 4 hurricane.
Mel.
She must’ve seen him the night of her accident. A flight from Maryland to New York would have been quick. He could’ve flown back for one night and still been smiling for the cameras at graduation the next day. He’d made sure to be seen during the ceremony. An alibi.
It would explain so much. Their falling-out. His willingness to not press the cops. And now this—having people follow me? He’d no-showed our breakfast. I’d assumed it was because he was the same old Mel. But had he been actively avoiding me because he knew I was still looking into what happened?
Could he have done it?
Could Murder Mel Pierce have killed his prized daughter, less than a mile from where he grew up, from where his mother had taken her last breath, from where his stepmother and other child still slept? It was too much to even consider, but it had been almost two weeks and every clue had led me here.
I zoned back in when the engine cut off. We’d somehow made it to Chelsea, to the block where I’d thought Erin lived just a few short days ago—before I realized my father was probably a monster.
“Let’s go,” Erin said, but I didn’t move.
“What are you doing?”
“We can’t go back to your house, and there’s a low-key twenty-four-hour diner next block over.”
“I don’t want food.”
“That’s why I’m getting you liquor. The night manager likes me. He’ll have you drunk AF in no time.”
“It’s, like, seven in the morning.”
Erin opened the car door. “You’ve never been drunk at seven a.m. before? How sad.”
She shut the door and didn’t look back as she walked away. I waited until she was almost at the corner before I finally got out and ran to catch up. Even in the early morning, it was hot, and by the time we got to the diner, my tears were mingled with sweat.