Page 13

CHAPTER 13

RHONDA WAITED, HER ARMS folded over her Opeth T-shirt. The sunlight from the windows overlooking the manicured yard made her round cheeks glow.

“We’re going to take down Troy Hansen,” Baby said, trying to put her thoughts in order. Excitement was fluttering in her chest. “We’re going to be the ones to get him. Not just for killing Daisy, who is clearly lying around here somewhere decomposing, but for killing all those other victims too. The movie rights are going to sell for millions.” Baby grinned at Rhonda.

Her older sister looked unimpressed, verging on disgusted. “Where’s your smoking gun?”

“We’re standing in it. Look around you,” Baby said. “This place screams Sleeping with the Enemy . The labeled Tupperware. The soulless knickknacks. The hotel art. The whole house looks like a Zoom background.”

“Baby,” Rhonda said. “You need to play your own devil’s advocate here, okay? Yes, the house looks like an IKEA showroom. So what? Maybe Daisy likes it that way. You wanna analyze the decor and use it to accuse Troy of murder, you can go right outside with all the other wannabe TikTok sleuths. The hedges look pretty tidy. Maybe Daisy’s buried under them. You wanna go check?”

“Rhonda — ”

“Look, Baby, I want a partner on this case. What I want from you is criminal investigation, Baby. Not thirty-year-old movie references. Not clichés and prejudices.”

“He didn’t even try to call or text her, Rhonda!”

“I know this may be hard for you to believe,” Rhonda said slowly, “but once upon a time, people didn’t call and text each other every six seconds. You could be dating someone and go a whole week without speaking to them. Husbands and wives didn’t know each other’s exact geographical location down to the square foot all the time.”

“Okay.” Baby backed away. “Now you’re talking to me like I’m an idiot.”

“I’m trying to get you to think laterally,” Rhonda said. “We’ve got to exhaust all possibilities to determine that Troy didn’t do this.”

“Why?”

“Because no one else is going to,” Rhonda said.

“Oh, don’t give me that ‘Innocent until proven guilty’ bullshit, Rhonda.”

“It’s not bullshit, Baby. It’s the basis for our entire justice system.”

“Well, you go ahead and exhaust yourself. Report back to me when you’ve finished wasting your time,” Baby snapped.

Before Baby could turn away, Rhonda grabbed her arm. “If you’re gonna storm off, can you at least do me a favor?” She slipped a small, cold metal disk into Baby’s hand. A GPS tracker. “Tag Troy’s car, and don’t let the cops see you do it.”

Baby stepped out onto the Hansens’ porch and watched the shadows of the drones cross over her without looking up at them. She kept her head bowed, went to Troy Hansen’s blue truck, and leaned against it, then took out her phone and pretended to read a text. Rhonda’s dismissal of her excitement over the Troy Hansen case had made the muscles of her neck tighten with fury. For months, she and her sister had been chasing insurance fraudsters, cheating boyfriends, and missing pets. Now they were deep inside a real mystery, and all Rhonda wanted to do was plod around searching for alternatives to the plain reality that Troy had killed his wife — and probably several other people.

Baby sighed, then opened and scrolled through TikTok. The third video that came up on her For You Page was of a young man with a buzz cut, and Baby felt a pang of surprise as she realized that he was standing in front of footage of herself and Rhonda arriving at the Hansen house less than an hour ago. She unmuted it.

“All right, guys, this just in. My man at the DMV ran the plates of the car that just pulled into the Hansen driveway, and it seems a Ms. Rhonda Bird is at the house today. She runs a private detective agency in Koreatown. Seems to unofficially employ her younger half sister, Barbara, who we can see on the left there. Barbara is also known as popular fashion and travel influencer Baby Bird, but she’s gone quiet, probably training to become full partner in the agency once she’s old enough to get her license. But, look, this is a crazy, crazy development in the case, everyone. Have these women been hired by Daisy’s parents? Or by Troy himself? What do the cops think? Comment your theories and I’ll be back when I have more.”

The video ended. Baby scrolled through a few more videos, Duets, and blind reactions to the one she’d just watched. Then she went over to Craigslist and checked her messages again. There was a new one waiting.

I’ll be here. Come any time!

Baby squeezed the GPS tag Rhonda had given her, looked at the Hansen house. She could see Rhonda and Troy through the windows. Baby was literally on the outside of the investigation looking in.

“Fuck it,” Baby said. She bent slightly like she was scratching her hip, tucked the tag under the wheel hub of Troy’s car, and listened for the click as the magnet locked on. Then she walked down the driveway and into the street toward the police checkpoint as she called an Uber. She put her home address in as a quick stop on her two-part journey.

Where she was going, she’d need to bring a gun.