. . .” She was staring out the window with the torn screen, but her eyes seemed unfocused. “Anyway, it’s best to leave that at work. It’s really the only way.”
“I know, I just, with the texts you mentioned sharing, I thought maybe it helped to talk about it . . .”
“My job . . . it’s not what I expected. I don’t know what I expected, really, but I need to shut it off at the end of the day.”
“I get it,” I said. I thought of Sydney and the bottle of wine, the promise of Law & Order reruns waiting for her at home. Me with my glass of wine. We all had our routines.
Elyse crossed to the fridge, pulled out the milk and butter, kept talking as she moved around in my kitchen. “I was in a really bad car accident when I was seventeen. So much of my memory of the recovery was just . . . pain. The nurses kept me sane, kept me positive and focused. They’re who I remember, those same faces, day after day. I just wanted to be one of those people.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said, my voice softer. I was always surprised by the things I didn’t know about other people, like I was the only one with an unknown past. I’d never been good with sharing, nervous about the past creeping in, giving too much of myself away—so people rarely shared in response. It had kept me guarded, closed off.
I wanted to tell her something now, to cross that divide. Something about last night that I didn’t have to keep hidden—
She stepped back from the stove abruptly, eyes fixed straight ahead. “Liv, someone’s out there.”
I stood, the chair scratching against the floor. “The police?”
“Definitely not. Some old guy in flannel.”
“Oh,” I said, my heart rate slowing. “It’s just my neighbor, Rick.” Elyse must’ve heard me talk about him in the past, but they’d never met.
I opened the back door, Elyse just over my shoulder. Rick was walking through the trees just beyond the edge of the yard, but he didn’t seem like he was heading this way. There wasn’t any place else he could be going, really, not without his truck.
“Rick?” I called.
He changed direction, ambling toward me, and when he came closer, he was normal Rick, in his flannel and work boots—a comforting sight, even now. “Glad to see you’re back home. I had to get out and clear my head.” He peered over his shoulder, like he was checking for someone, then lowered his voice. “They said it’s fine if I come and go as long as I keep off the marked area, but every time I step out front, I feel like I’m being watched.”
I nodded. After my night with Detective Rigby, I understood. I had felt like every word and action was being filed away and assessed. I thought then of the gun under Rick’s sink. The electrical tape. The things he had hidden away. Also: the light on at his house, the bed that was still made when I showed up. All the things the police could’ve found or noticed.
But he had gone to check on the body. He had made sure my hands were clean before the detective showed up. I felt partially guilty—I was the one who had pulled Rick into the nightmare, who had gone straight to him instead of to the police.
“I just got home. This is my friend Elyse.”
“Hi there,” he said, taking one step back. “I see you’re in good hands, then. You just holler if you need anything.”
“Thanks, you know I will.”
He turned back but stopped halfway. “Everything go okay with Nina?”
“Nina?” Elyse cut in. “Wasn’t that the detective?”
I knew Rick had given a statement, just as I had—and I wanted to ask. Wanted to make sure they matched up, wanted to know whether there was anything else the police had mentioned to Rick. But not with Elyse here. Not with the police just on the other side of the walls.
“Yes,” I said, answering them both. “It was fine. She brought me to the hospital for my knee.” I gestured down. “I needed stitches.”
“Oh, good. Good,” Rick said. “I know her family. She was always a good kid.” Then he turned away.
None of us were kids anymore, but I wondered if Rick could only see us that way, so far removed from his own past. “Call if you need anything, Rick,” I said to his back.
I