Page 42

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I wait in the car for over an hour.

At some point, I get hungry. I skipped breakfast, and all I had for lunch was a bag of chips from the convenience store next to the car rental place. At the end of the first hour, I remember the baggie of cookies from Krista. I had wanted to save them, but my stomach grows insistent enough that I decide to eat a few of them. As the taste of cinnamon spreads through my mouth, I get a lump in my throat. I hope they’re not the last cookies she ever makes for me.

The thought almost makes me choke.

Over the course of the hour, I check my phone multiple times to see if Krista has returned my text. She hasn’t. I have to believe there’s no chance that those fingers could be hers. The timeline is too tight. Krista is just fine. Except…

That shade of nail polish is so similar to what I saw on her this morning. At least I’m pretty sure it is. Every time I think about it, my stomach clenches.

Why won’t she answer my text?

It’s close to five when a Chevrolet pulls into the driveway of the yellow house. I duck down in the car, watching a woman in her sixties with dark blond hair climb out of the vehicle and walk to the front door. That must be Whitney’s mother. She looks a little like her.

I wait another few minutes. I don’t want to pounce on her the second she walks in. I’ll give her a chance to take off her shoes and relax a bit. Then I’ll go knock on the door once she’s settled. I eat another cookie.

Once she’s had ten minutes in the house, I climb out of the car. Just like before, I stride down the path to the front door, this time knowing that somebody will answer. I just hope she doesn’t tell me something I don’t want to hear.

I ring the doorbell, and there is a scuffling of feet behind the door. I haven’t quite decided what to say to Whitney’s mother. I have a few cover stories in the back of my head, but all of them sound weak. If she recognizes that I’m bullshitting her, she will slam the door in my face, and that will be the end of it.

When the door opens, a woman who I presume is Mrs. Cross stands in the doorway. Up close, she looks less like Whitney than I thought—I guess Whitney looks more like her father. I had gauged her age to be in her sixties from afar, but now that I’m close up, I can see the spiderwebbing of wrinkles around her eyes and a haunted look that reminds me of what I see when I look in a mirror.

That’s the moment I decide to tell her the truth.

“Mrs. Cross?” I say.

She gives me a wary look. “Yes…”

“My name is Blake Porter,” I say. “And…the thing is, five months ago, I took in a tenant named Whitney Cross. And I…”

For a moment, I can’t go on, thinking about all the terrible things that have happened since Whitney moved into my beloved home. The rotting food in the kitchen. Krista leaving me. The murder of Mr. Zimmerly. And now those disembodied fingers belonging to God knows who. ( Please not Krista. ) It’s overwhelming. And while driving here seemed like the answer at the time, now I’m not sure anymore.

What if this doesn’t fix anything?

Mrs. Cross looks up at my face, and she seems to see the same thing in me that I saw in her. She reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder, and all I can think is, This woman gets it.

“Come in, Mr. Porter,” she says. “We need to talk.”