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Roddy Harris, PhD in biology, renowned nutritionist, aka Mr. Meat, walks on.

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Uncle Henry used to say Holly would be early for everything, and it’s true. She makes it halfway through the evening news, David Muir spieling on about Covid, Covid, and more Covid, and then she can wait no longer. She leaves her apartment and drives across town with the evening light, still strong, slanting in through her windshield and making her squint even with the sun visor down. She cuts through the campus and hears something happening on the quad—words she can’t make out blaring through a mic or a bullhorn—and assumes it’s a BLM rally.

She cruises down the long curving street past the Victorians on one side and the park on the other, obeying the 25 MPH speed limit and being careful not to slow as she passes the Harris home. But she gives it a good look. No sign of life, which doesn’t mean anything. They may have gone out to dinner, but given the country’s current situation—Covid, Covid, and more Covid—Holly doubts it. They’re probably watching television or eating in, maybe both at the same time. She can’t see if the garage has two bays because of that damn sloping driveway, but she can see its roof, and it certainly looks big enough for two vehicles.

She also scopes out the house next door, the one with the FOR SALE sign out front and a lawn that needs watering. Real estate agent should take care of that, Holly thinks, and wonders if the agent might by chance be George Rafferty. The sign doesn’t say. It’s not the agent or the lawn she’s interested in, anyway. It’s the privacy hedge running the length of the vacant property. All the way past the Harris garage.

Holly continues down the hill and pulls in at the curb a little way up from the playground. There’s a parking lot there (the very one from which Jorge Castro was taken, in fact), and there are plenty of empty spaces, but she wants to smoke while she waits and she doesn’t want little kids watching her indulge her nasty habit. She opens her door, swings her legs out, and lights up.

Twenty past seven. She takes her phone out of her pocket, thinks about calling Isabelle Jaynes, and puts it away again. She needs to see if that van is in the Harrises’ garage. If it isn’t, Holly will tell Penny she’s against going to the police—no proof, only a few circumstantial path-crossings that could be dismissed by the Harrises (or their lawyer) as coincidence—but if there’s even a faint chance that Bonnie is still alive, Penny will almost certainly opt for the cops. That will tip off the Harrises that they’ve been pegged, and they will pass that news on to whoever they’re protecting. That person, that predator, will then likely disappear.

The van. If the van is there, all will be well.

Most of the little kids have left the playground now. A trio of teenagers, two boys and a girl, are goofing on the little roundabout, the boys pushing, the girl riding with her arms lifted and her hair flying back. Holly supposes they will be joined by others. Whatever is happening at the college on the hill holds no interest for townie boys and girls.

She checks her watch again. 7:30. She can’t wait too long if she wants to get a good picture of the van, always supposing there is one, but there’s still too much daylight. Holly decides to wait until quarter of eight. Let the shadows draw a little longer. But it’s hard. Waiting has never been her forte, and surely if she’s careful, she could—

No. Wait. Bill’s voice.

The teenagers at the roundabout are joined by a few others and they stroll off into the park. They might be bound for the Thickets. They might even be bound for Drive-In Rock. Holly lights another cigarette and smokes with her door open and her feet on the pavement. She smokes slowly, but even so it’s only seven-forty by the time she finishes. She decides she can wait no longer. She puts the cigarette out in her portable ashtray and puts the tin (currently choked with butts, she really has to stop… or at least cut down) in the center console. She takes out a Columbus Clippers gimme cap and pulls it down on her forehead. She locks her car and starts up the sidewalk toward the empty house next to the Harrises’.

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Provisional clarity returns and Roddy thinks: What if the woman who’s got Em worried knows about the Black girl? He can’t remember the Black girl’s name—possibly Evelyn—but he knows she was a vegan, and troublesome. Did Em say something about Twitter? Someone checking out that Black girl on Twitter?

Leaving the pond behind, he walks slowly along a wide gravel path that comes out near the playground. He sits on a bench to rest his hips before climbing the hill to his house, but also to avoid any interaction with the teenagers who are playing on a merry-go-round meant only for little kids.

Across the street, maybe forty or so yards up from the playground parking lot, a woman is sitting with her car door open, smoking a cigarette. Although she only looks vaguely familiar, there’s nothing vague about the alarm bells that start going off in Roddy’s head. Something’s wrong about her. Very wrong.

He can still clear his mind when he absolutely has to, and he makes that effort now. The woman is sitting with her elbows on her thighs, her head lowered, raising one hand occasionally to take a puff on her cancer stick. When she finishes, she puts it out in a little tin, maybe a Sucrets box, and sits up straight. He thinks he knew even before that, because she’s wearing the same cargo pants she had on when she came to the house, or a pair just like them. But when he sees her face, he’s sure. It’s the elbow-tapper who came asking about Cary Dressler. The woman who is also investigating Bonnie Dahl, although she never said so.

She has suspicions, Emily said.

This may be serious, Emily said.

Roddy thinks she’s right.

He takes his phone out of his pocket and calls home. Across the street, the woman puts on a hat, pulling it down low against the evening sun (or to hide her eyes). She locks her car. It flashes its lights. She walks away. In his hand the phone rings once… twice… three times.

“Come on,” Roddy whispers. “Come on, come on.”

Emily picks up. “If you’re calling to say that now you’re hungry—”

“I’m not.” Across the street, the elbow-tapper is heading up the hill. “That woman is coming, Molly Givens or whatever her name is, and I don’t think she’s coming to ask more questions, or she wouldn’t have parked down the street. I think she’s snoop—”

But Emily is gone.

Roddy puts his phone back into his left front pocket and pats the righthand one, hoping he has what he wants. He usually carries it when he’s walking by himself, sometimes there are dangerous people in the park. It’s there. He gets up from the bench and crosses the street. The woman is walking fast (especially for a smoker) and his bad hips mean he can’t keep up, but it may still be all right as long as she doesn’t look back.

How much does she know? he asks himself. Does she know about the vegan girl, Evelyn or Eleanor or whatever her name was?

If she knows about her as well as Cary and the Dahl girl, it… it…

“It could spoil everything,” he whispers to himself.

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