“I’m serious, Jack. I have training. You don’t.”
“It’s fine,” I said, cracking eggs onto a hot skillet. “The cases people ask me to track are years old. That’s why the cops have given up on them. Nothing bad’s going to happen.”
“Then why did the police show up at your door?” Evelyn asked.
“We’ve been over this.”
She hopped off the stool and joined me at the stove. I kept my gaze on the eggs. A moment too long, and they would be overcooked.
“I’m not trying to tell you what to do,” Evelyn said carefully. “I admire your dedication to this stuff, but I’m afraid the motivation behind it is coming from the wrong place. What happened to your mom—”
“I didn’t come here to talk about what happened to my mom,” I replied, more sharply than I intended. Evelyn lifted an eyebrow. “Sorry,” I added. “But I’m here to take care of you. That’s all.”
Evelyn took me by the shoulders and turned me away from the eggs. Even with one arm down, she was hard to resist. “I’m playing hardball here,” she said. “Tell me you didn’t agree to come because the anniversary of your mother’s death—”
“Murder,” I corrected. “My mother was murdered.”
Almost ten years ago, on my eighteenth birthday, my mother had been walking home through the park despite rumors of a dangerous killer on the loose near Windsor. Her body was discovered the next day, mutilated with what the police believed to be a box cutter. The killer was never found, and my mother’s murder went unsolved.
“Fine,” Evelyn consented. “Tell me you didn’t come because the anniversary of your mother’s murder is coming up, and you want to take another crack at the killer.”
She wouldn’t let me go until I answered. “No, all right? I came here because you asked me to. I feel like I’m being set up. The eggs!”
They hadn’t burned, but overcooked eggs were no less disgusting than burned ones in my book. I groaned and made to flip them into the garbage, but Evelyn slid a plate beneath the spatula and caught them out of thin air.
“I’ll eat those,” she said. “Runny ones make me gag.”
I served her a piece of toast, to which I added the last dregs of fruit preserves from the bottom of a glass jar, and then poured coffee from a moka pot for both of us. After frying my own eggs, I sat next to Evelyn at the island.
“I wasn’t thinking about my mom,” I muttered. “At least not until you mentioned it. I’d forgotten about the anniversary.”
Evelyn chewed slowly and kept quiet. She knew me well enough to know I’d only take one moment to open up to her. If the moment was interrupted, I’d lose my nerve.
“As for my investigations,” I went on, “the people who come to me are at the end of their rope. They’ve gone through all other avenues, including real investigators. I’m the last resort, and I’m the only one willing to dig deep enough to get answers for them.”
“All of your clients think their cases are copycat murders?”
“Most of them. They know it’s where I specialize.”
“But you’ve never solved a case.”
I sopped up my runny egg with a dry piece of toast. “I’ve gotten close. Sometimes, that’s all anyone needs for a bit of closure.”
Evelyn read between the lines. “You lie to them.”
“It’s not a lie if all the evidence points in the right direction.”
Her breakfast had already disappeared. I’d forgotten how much and fast she ate compared to me. “Far be it from me to tell you how to make money,” she said, “but one day, someone’s not going to be satisfied with ‘close enough.’”
“I’ll confront that day when it comes.”
“What about your dad?” Evelyn asked. “Does he know what you’re doing? Does he know you’re here?”
“I haven’t spoken to him in five years.”
“Still?”
I nodded. “As far as I know, he lives in DC with his new wife and her two kids. It’s like he doesn’t care that Mom’s gone. He got himself a whole new family.”
Evelyn patted my hand. “Sweets, he couldn’t mourn her forever. He moved on. So should you.”
“I have,” I insisted. My gaze wandered to the window again. Somewhere, past all the buildings and smokestacks, was the park where my mother had been killed. Her murderer, for all I knew, still wandered the streets. “I have.”
3
The jet lag caught up with me that afternoon, so after a glorious shower to rinse the plane smell off me, I fell asleep in the black satin sheets of Evelyn’s bed. Hours later, the soft drizzle of rain against the windows drew me out of my slumber. The early morning had faded into a gray afternoon, with all color drained from the city. Evelyn sat in a leather armchair, tea in one hand and a book balanced against her shoulder brace. The shadows from the raindrops drew patterns across her pale face as she crossed one leg over the other, bumping the book out of place. She swore quietly and tried to readjust, but the tea spilled, and the book refused to stand on its own again.
“I got it,” I said, rolling off the bed to help. I pulled the side table closer to Evelyn’s side for her to place her tea, so she could hold the book.
“Thanks. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“Probably better than I did.” I yawned and stretched, ligaments popping back into place. Mounted into the far wall was a metal pull-up bar. With a running jump, I grabbed hold of it and hung limply. My spine elongated as I gently rotated my trunk. The stretch did wonders for my back. “Couldn’t sleep all day, you know?”
“Do a pull-up,” Evelyn challenged.
Lips pressed together, I pressed my shoulder blades down as Evelyn had once taught me and pulled with all my might. I got about halfway up before my muscles shamed me into dropping from the bar. I shook out my arms.
“I’m more of a yogi,” I
