address beside Jane’s name. A glare ripples across Norelli’s face.
“Have they sent you anything before?”
“No. I was saying to— No.”
“It’s a Gmail address,” she points out. I see her exchange a look with Little.
“Yes.” I wrap my arms around myself. “Can’t you track it? Or trace it?”
“Well,” she says, rocking back, “that’s a problem.”
“Why?”
She tilts her head toward her partner. “It’s Gmail,” he says.
“Yes. So?”
“So Gmail hides IP addresses.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means there’s no way to trace a Gmail account,” he continues.
I stare at him.
“For all we know,” Norelli explains, “you could have sent this to yourself.”
I swivel to look at her. Her arms are folded across her chest.
A laugh escapes me. “What?” I say—because what else can be said?
“You could have sent that email from that phone and we wouldn’t be able to prove it.”
“Why—why?” I’m spluttering. Norelli glances down at the soggy robe. I bend over to pick it up, just to do something, just to restore some sense of order.
“This photo looks to me like a little midnight selfie.”
“I’m asleep,” I argue.
“Your eyes are shut.”
“Because I’m asleep.”
“Or because you wanted to look asleep.”
I turn to Little.
“Look at it this way, Dr. Fox,” he says. “We can’t find any sign of anyone in here. It doesn’t look like anything’s missing. Front door looks okay, that looks okay”—he jabs a finger at the side door—“and you said that no one else has a key.”
“No, I said that my tenant could have made a key.” Didn’t I say that? My mind is churning. I shiver again; the air feels drugged with cold.
Norelli points to the ladder. “What’s the story there?”
“Dispute with the tenant,” Little replies before I can speak.
“You ask her about—you know, the husband?” There’s something in her tone I can’t place, some minor chord. She raises an eyebrow.
Then she faces me. “Ms. Fox”—this time I don’t correct her—“I warned you about wasting—”
“I’m not the one wasting time,” I growl. “You are. You are. Someone was in my house, and I’ve given you proof, and you’re standing there telling me that I made it up. Just like last time. I saw someone get stabbed and you didn’t believe me. What do I have to do to get you—”
The portrait.
I spin, find Ethan bolted to the sofa, Punch in his lap. “Come here,” I say. “Bring that drawing.”
“Let’s leave him out of it,” interrupts Norelli, but Ethan is already walking toward me, the cat scooped in one hand, the scrap of paper held in the other. He offers it to me almost ceremoniously, the way you’d present a communion wafer.
“You see this?” I ask, thrusting it in front of Norelli, so that she takes a step back. “Look at the signature,” I add.
Her forehead furrows.
And for the third time today, the doorbell rings.
72
Little looks at me, then walks toward the door and studies the intercom. He pushes the buzzer.
“Who is it?” I ask, but he’s already pulling the door open.
A crisp march of footsteps and Alistair Russell walks in, packed into a cardigan, his face florid with the cold. He seems older than when I last saw him.
His eyes swoop the room, hawklike. They alight on Ethan.
“You’re going home,” he tells his son. Ethan doesn’t move. “Put the cat down and leave.”
“I want you to see this,” I start, swinging the picture toward him, but he ignores me, addresses Little.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he says, looking less than glad. “My wife says she heard this woman scream out the window at my son, and then I saw your car pull up.” On his previous visit, I remember, he’d been polite, even bemused. No more.
Little approaches. “Mr. Russell—”
“She’s been calling my house—did you know that?” Little doesn’t answer. “And my old office. She called my old office.”
So Alex turned me in. “Why were you fired?” I ask, but already he’s charging ahead, furious, leaning into his words.
“She followed my wife yesterday—did she mention that? I don’t suppose she did. Followed her to a coffee shop.”
“We know that, sir.”
“Tried to . . . confront her.” I peek at Ethan. It seems he didn’t tell his father he saw me afterward.
“This is the second time we’ve all been here.” Alistair’s voice has run raw. “First she claims she saw an attack in my house. Now she’s luring my son into her home. This has to stop. Where does it stop?” He looks directly at me. “She’s a menace.”
I stab the picture with my finger. “I know your wife—”