“Why wouldn’t I be?”
I start to answer, but when I think about the conversation from her point of view, I sound like an idiot. Instead, I just say, “I love you. Have a good lunch.”
We hang up. If she’s confused about the call, I’m dumbfounded. I take a minute to look closely at the floor. There are no holes in the wood. There have to be holes, right? From where they screwed in the eyebolts when they tied Rachel down? I wonder if maybe I had the angle all wrong. Maybe the picture was taken on the front side of the island. I check it and the entire surrounding area.
No holes.
I go to the car, retrieve the photograph, bring it back inside, and check it carefully. I get on my hands and knees and brush the floor with the heel of my hand, thinking maybe they’d filled the holes with some type of epoxy that appears invisible when dry. But I find nothing. I briefly wonder if Rachel found out about Karen Vogel and decided to stage the whole thing. If so, who bound her and took the photo?
No, that whole line of thought is crazy. Rachel wouldn’t know how to put all this together, and anyway, Rachel isn’t the type. If she knew about Karen, she’d be in my face about it.
It finally hits me:
Then, by extension, I think,
I think about calling Mary and quickly discard the idea. If she answers, what reason could I give for calling? And if she’s dead, why would I want my number among her recent calls in the phone records? I decide to work with what I have: a photograph of a body double, wearing a white bra, with the letters “K” and “V” on the cups.
I go back to my idea that the “K” and “V” are a warning to me. If that’s the case, maybe the bra is hidden somewhere in the house, possibly in the laundry basket or among Rachel’s things. I can’t take the chance that Rachel will come home, find the bra, and confront me with the initials.
I rush to her closet and check through her drawers but come up empty. I look in her laundry basket. Nothing. I run back down the hall to the laundry room.
Then I hear the front doorbell ring.
Chapter 10
I peer out the laundry room window and freeze. Two guys in suits are standing at the front door. I look behind them, to the driveway, and spot a black sedan, one that looks very much like the standard detective cars you see on TV. They ring the bell again and wait twenty seconds. Then, they knock on the door, loudly. I see one of them sweep the windows with his eyes. Before he can see me, I drop to the floor and make my way to the little cubby where we keep the large laundry bag, the one that has different sections for sorting colors and fabrics.
The bag is on a metal frame and has wheels. I roll it out of the cubby and work my way behind it. I reach into the laundry bag and pull out an armful of dirty clothes and cover myself as best I can. If the detectives are honest, I’m safe. If not, if they break in and search the place, I’m caught. A couple minutes pass. More ringing, more knocking, and suddenly, a knock from the back door, ten feet from my hiding place, scares the shit out of me.
“Mr. Case?” a man’s voice says.
“Sam?” It comes at me again. “We need to speak with you. We need to talk about what happened at Seneca Park.”
That said, he circles to the back of the house, where he has to open a gate and climb the patio steps if he wants to knock on the back door. He does. It strikes me that if Rachel had been lying behind the island, he’d be able to see her clearly from the patio door. I hear yet another burst from the doorbell, which tells me the first guy is still on the front porch. They spend five minutes trying to find someone home, and then everything goes silent.
I carefully climb out from under the pile of laundry, and as I do, my arm gets hooked up in the strap from a white bra with the letters “K” and “V” written on the cups in heavy black marker ink. I hang onto it while peering through the window, checking to see if the detective guys have left. They haven’t. They’re at the end of the driveway in their car. They’re probably going to wait there and keep an eye on the place until the cops get here with the warrant. Fortunately for me, I’ve got two driveways. I might be able to outrun them if I work it right. I stay low in the house, avoid the front windows and door, and quietly gather some things, including my cash stash and a 9mm Glock.
I’m ready to attempt a getaway. I check my watch. 12:20 pm. I look out the laundry room window. The car has gone. Maybe they’re hiding further down the road.
There are two ways out of my neighborhood, I just have to pick the right one. I sneak out the door into the garage and open my car door as quietly as possible. I enter, hold my breath, and press the button. The garage door ambles upward noisily, and I have no idea what might be waiting for me on the other side. Finding nothing, I charge down the driveway. I lay it all on the line and take the short route out of the neighborhood, figuring if I can get around them, it’s a quicker shot to the freeway, where I can probably lose them, if not their radio.
Miraculously, it appears that no one is waiting for me.
So far, so good.
I try to shake off the lucky feeling, the one that always leads to disaster. I still have to navigate two miles of road before I get to the freeway, the freeway that takes me to Mary’s house.
As I’m driving, I think about Rachel’s sister, Mary.
As long as I’ve known her, Mary’s been overweight. First time I met her—I’m going back six years now—we’d been talking maybe five minutes when she opened her wallet and carefully removed a clear plastic sheath, out of which she pulled a photo. She glanced at it a few seconds before handing it to me.
“Can you believe this is me?” she said beaming.
At that time, the picture was at least ten years old. It depicted a slim young woman with shoulder-length
