“Really?”
“Yup. Home address and all.” She grabs her phone. “I’ll ask her.”
TWENTY-SIX
The house is silent. Rachel and Miguel are off playing tennis, and I’m alone, stewing in my thoughts. I walk into the bathroom, searching for some Tylenol to quell the ache in my head.
Yumi lied to me.
Right to my face.
I open the medicine cabinet and stare at the packed shelves. An archaeologist could reconstruct the Costa family from the contents—Ninjago bandages, yellowing with age, an expired tube of sunscreen, a caked bottle of calamine lotion, an old neti pot from the days when I thought that might be the trick to fixing Zach’s sinus problems. I find the Tylenol behind an almost empty tube of arnica cream. My brain is raging, on fire, on overdrive. Why would Yumi tell me Rachel was part of the break-ins if she wasn’t? What possible reason would she have?
I pop two pills in my mouth, then fill my cupped hands with water and swallow.
It’s a question I’d like to put to Yumi personally, but she’snot answering my texts or calls. This happens sometimes—Yumi going radio silent. Her illness means she gets tired easily, takes long naps during the day, and doesn’t check her phone for long stretches of time.
It doesn’t mean she’s avoiding me.
In the mudroom I throw on some sneakers and head out into the afternoon heat, heading toward the Allards’. I stop at the utility pole outside their house and bend down to pick up the torn flyer lying in the gutter. The paper is damp, one corner soaked through, the image of the girl starting to blur. For almost a year, I’ve walked past these flyers without truly seeing them. Just another sad story in a world full of tragedy. But now, everything has changed.
Now I feel like I know Autumn, at least a little, thanks to Finn.
The girl’s face stares back at me—heavy bangs framing wide, hopeful eyes, her smile so bright it makes it impossible to believe she’s gone. Finn’s friend. His best friend.
DO YOU KNOW WHO KILLED ME?
The bold letters seem to throb on the paper.
My name is Autumn Hemmings and I was a nanny for the Price family right here in Eastbrook.
I devour the rest quickly—the brutal facts of the crime, the desperate plea for help, the contact information for the police. I can picture Finn, shoulders hunched against rain and snow and blistering sun, replacing these flyers season afterseason, his fingers raw from stapling, his heart heavier with each passing day.
The Allard house looms before me, perfect and imposing, a modern farmhouse with crisp black trim and potted geraniums that never seem to turn brown in the heat. I take a deep breath and press the doorbell, hearing its melodic chime echo inside.
When Daniel answers, his smile takes a moment too long to reach his lips. “Caren, what a nice surprise! Come in.”
I step into their foyer, instantly aware of how out of place I feel. No scattered shoes near the stairs, no evidence of life’s beautiful chaos. Picture ready, as if they were holding an open house. My eyes land on a large brown suitcase in the dining room, tiny tan logos covering it. Louis Vuitton, naturally. No black rolling bags for the Allards.
Daniel catches my wandering gaze. “First of many,” he says with a faux grimace. “Jo’s bringing half the house to Provence this year.”
“How long are you planning to stay?”
Something dark flickers across his eyes, gone so quickly I almost miss it. “We’ll see,” he says in a modulated voice. “Did you need to see her? She’s upstairs. I can get her for you.”
I nod and wander into the kitchen while I wait, my fingers drumming nervously against my thigh. Muffinhead waddles over and sniffs my legs.
“Do you smell Kugel?” I ask him.
Satisfied, he wanders off to a bed in the corner and settles in. The kitchen is like a magazine showcase, gleaming surfaces and high-end appliances that look barely used.
On the marble countertop sits a beautiful ice-blue leathernotebook, the color of a frozen alpine lake. Gold letters—JL—are embossed on the cover. My curiosity piqued, I pick it up, surprised by its weight and the supple feel of expensive leather. Not a notebook after all, but a passport holder. Inside are two passports, one American with its navy blue cover, one burgundy French.
“Isn’t it lovely?” a voice asks from behind me.
Startled, I let the passport holder slip from my fingers. I turn to see Jo in the doorway, a vision in a black linen sleeveless dress that accentuates her impossible thinness. Her tanned arms, no larger than a teenager’s, are adorned with delicate gold bracelets that clink softly when she moves. Not a wrinkle in sight, not a hint of the anxiety I feel coursing through my own body.
“Very pretty,” I manage.