“Good night, Andy. Don’t do anything stupid.” Before driving away, she gave me a look saying she knew a lot more than I was telling her. I waved and nodded.
Of course I wouldn’t do anything stupid.
I was going to do something very stupid.
My stomach became a tempest the moment I walked through my door and decided I was going ahead with the idea I’d formed earlier in the evening.
Was I going to make Kel’s nice dinner suddenly reappear? No. Nope. No way. Waste of food, waste of time, of energy. I was okay.
Instead of hurling, I spent a little time cleaning up the first draft of my novel. Really I focused on the last 20 percent. It was rough, but good. Maybe the best I’d written in a long time. When I was done, I emailed the manuscript to my agent. She’d be thrilled to see something new from me. I hoped. I did everything in a kind of semi-removed fugue. Because my mind wasn’t on my characters or creating a list of comp books my agent could utilize while she read my words.
It was replaying a conversation I’d had with a New York City detective years ago. I’d been researching my second novel, a follow-up to my first using some of the same characters, and needed more insight into the daily life of a real detective. Sergeant Michael O’Rourke had allowed me to follow him around for the better part of a week, accompanying him on certain assignments, all the while talking out the side of his mouth in a Brooklyn accent.
Two things, he’d said, holding up his fingers to enunciate. Two things to always keep in mind when trying to solve a crime. One, ain’t no straight line in a case. You get a toehold and go from there, and the path always winds around, and if you’re lucky, you stay on the trail long enough to put a close on it. Two, details. Some shit people pass by without noticing can be the most important part of the case. Blow it wide open. Pointer finger—No straight line. Middle finger—Details.
What advantage did I have over the police? I knew things they didn’t. I might recognize a detail they wouldn’t. That’s why I was going to break into Rachel’s house.
I hiccupped into the back of my hand, willing the food to stay put.
Earlier I’d scanned the neighborhood for cops or any type of surveillance, but of course, there was the rub. Surveillance wasn’t supposed to be obvious. If someone was watching Rachel’s house, I probably wouldn’t be able to make them. Then I thought of Detective Spanner and his sneer. His overconfidence. And I wondered if he’d even bother to have someone posted at the house. Maybe in his head, the deal was done. Burglary gone wrong. Dead man in the morgue. Wife and kids missing. Nothing to see here, folks. Everyone go home.
I paced by the windows with the lights off. Streetlamps showered the Loop in yellow pools. No one was out walking their dogs or jogging. It was quiet. I needed to get ready.
Black pants that didn’t fit right since I’d bought them years ago and didn’t wear black pants anymore. Black sweatshirt I yanked off a few seconds after putting it on since it had reflective stripes on the back. Instead I donned a black T-shirt and found a dark baseball hat in the closet. I caught my reflection in the hall mirror and paused.
Was I really doing this?
Was this going to help me find Rachel and the boys?
Was I going to get caught?
Yes.
Maybe.
Probably.
At a quarter after one in the morning, I quit drinking coffee and pocketed the tiny penlight I’d removed from my key chain. Out the back door and into the woods behind my house. I wasn’t taking any chances by going out the front.
Circling around two other residences, I finally came out partway up the hill to the church, where there weren’t any streetlights. The Loop was noiseless at this time of night, and every single breath and footstep I took sounded like a hurricane and falling trees. A dozen times I froze and knelt in the dewed grass, waiting and listening. No floodlights splashed over me, no dogs barked, nothing moved.
At the back of Rachel’s yard, I waited, looking at the blackened windows and shadowed walls. A sharp-eared shape of a fox sat on the back porch next to the door. Not a real fox—a ceramic one with beady eyes and a badly painted tail. A kid’s project, probably Asher’s. This was what I was looking for.
Latex gloves out and on? Check. Neighborhood still quiet and serene? Check. Heart climbing the hell out of my chest like it’s on a shuddering ladder? Check.
Go.
Across the backyard and up the stairs, sliding to a stop near the door. Still quiet, still good. When I tipped the ceramic fox to the side, I was devastated and relieved all in the same half second. The spare key wasn’t there. Rachel had told me offhandedly one day they kept the spare under the fox in case the boys came home early or she wasn’t able to pick them up. It wasn’t there now, so they’d either moved it or an officer had followed their intuition and found it, taking it with them in case someone like me came along and—