Chapter 4

Michelle

Perspiration bloomed on the back of my neck as I scrubbed burnt pancake off a griddle with the spatula. Wisps of stray hair frizzled out of my ponytail and curled around the cherry-colored, cordless kitchen phone pressed between my shoulder and ear.

“They didn’t trash the place, did they?” my mother’s voice squawked through the receiver.

“They didn’t touch a thing,” I told her. “It’s eerie. The place is fully furnished. It’s got a brand new television set. Brand new kitchen appliances. Surround sound. But they didn’t take anything!”

“Maybe it wasn’t that kind of a thief,” Mom sniffed. “We had a series of break-ins in my neighborhood when I was a girl. Panty raids. Eventually, they found the culprit. He was the custodian at the high school. Ugh.”

“Mom,” I chastised her naïveté. I rinsed off the griddle and sat it on a towel to drip dry. “If you want used panties, you can just get on Craigslist now.”

“So, you think it’s more likely that someone just walked through your house for the hell of it?”

“I don’t know!” I snapped, stripping off my yellow plastic gloves. I tried to keep a tight lid on my anxiety level most of the time, but my mom could get an almost chemical reaction out of me. She always had to be right. She always got her way. Every conversation was a battle, winding me as tight as a turnkey monkey with cymbals. “The cop next door saw my house open and looked through it for me. No one was here.”

“At least there’s a cop next door,” she allowed. “I can’t stand the thought of my baby in a ghetto.”

I hesitated as I crossed from the kitchen to the living room. “It’s a gated community, Mom. I have a security system. What else am I supposed to do? Get a professional bodyguard?”

A brief, faded flash of Andrew Bogart played through my mind, his gray overalls sagged on his hips, shirtless. Watching my every move. Protecting me.

“Allison has those dogs,” Mom volunteered. “Ask her for a puppy next time.”

“I’m allergic,” I fumed, marching across the living room. I gripped the drapes and tugged them open, enjoying the splash of morning sunlight and the opportunity to yank out my frustration. Mom was always forgetting me, but I bet she knew the names of Allison’s two Doberman Pinchers. “I should go,” I added, partly out of sheer resentment. I tried so hard because of her. I wished Dad were still here. “I need to make some calls for work, anyway.”

“Didn’t you say that the break-in occurred after dark?”

“It was getting dark outside,” I allowed. I moseyed toward the front door. I liked to open it up and let a little fresh air circulate every morning while I swept the hardwood floors.

“Where were you?”

“I had a meeting that ran late.” Mom wasn’t getting anything more out of me than that. If she knew anything about Andrew, she would lose her hair. I was already the poor daughter, the daughter with the thankless job, the daughter who chipped away at her degree for ten years. All I needed was a swarthy boyfriend to complete the peasant package. “And then my car broke down on the side of the road.”

“Again?” Mom sneered. “I keep telling you to get a new car.”

“That isn’t an option right now.” I closed my eyes and wrenched open the front door. The screen was still shut, but birdsong and the smell of cut grass could filter into the house now. “I really do have to go, Mom. I need to make a call for a client, and I can’t let the day get away from me.”

“You would have more money if you had more clients,” Mom slyly interjected into my farewell.

“The clients are appointed by the court,” I reminded her. “I can’t get any more than I have.”

Mom cleared her throat. “You could if you were a private attorney,” she intoned for the millionth time since I had first told her my plan to work as a public defender.

“Mom.” I bulged my eyes at her, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. “This is my job. And it’s working out fine. And you said you were going to be more supportive.”

“All right. All right. Well, if you need a little money—”

“I don’t need any money from you, Mom,” I told her. She didn’t have as much as she liked to pretend she had, either.

“I was actually going to suggest that you ask Daniel.”

My ex?! I fumed, head pounding.

“I’m fine! Thanks!”

“His firm is doing quite well—”

“Love you, too! Bye!”

I hung up the phone, shook out my tight shoulders, and performed a quick breathing exercise to wash my mother’s influence out of my body. I couldn’t believe she’d actually suggested that I borrow money from Daniel.

I called the Pelham County Sheriff’s Department. I was still sitting on hold, waiting to request the May 15th dash-cam footage from Deputy Browntooth, when knuckles rapped on the front door frame. I whirled with a gasp.

Chet peered through the screen at me. “I saw your door open again,” he pointed out, sliding the screen away without asking if he could come in. I supposed that was all right. He had friendly brown eyes and any man with hair so impeccably styled must have cared how people felt about him. He would respect the place. “I had to come check. Thought I might be able to get ‘em if old Ace wasn’t going to tackle me this time!”

“I appreciate that,” I said, unable to disguise the little furrow developing along my brow. I batted down the urge to defend Andrew to this guy—and then I remembered how Andrew had described his relationship with Chet to me. “Asshole” and “dickweed” sprang immediately to mind. “But I do leave my front door open all the time. I love the fresh air.”

“Oh, yeah, I noticed,” Chet assured me. “You’re a real naturalist under all the... wrapping.” His eyes trailed thoughtfully over my olive green slacks and heather gray t-shirt. I didn’t realize that this outfit was too revealing until Chet’s eyes crawled over my curves, and I felt the distinct urge to cover myself or get behind something.

“Sometimes I even leave it open at night,” I informed him sternly. I loved the chirp of the insects and the sense that the outside world was within reach, that I could pass onto the porch and be immersed in the country with one breath.

“Are you hinting at something?” Chet asked, grinning.

“You never checked before. So, why did you check last night?”

Chet opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. “There was always the closed screen,” he answered in a sudden rush. “But this time, the screen was wide open with the door.”

“Huh.” That made even less sense. Why would someone just go into my house like that? Prop open the screen and then not move out any of these bulky, expensive electronics? Were they in the process when Chet interrupted them? Would they be back?

Just then, a deputy returned to the line and distracted me from the conversation with Chet. He told me that the dash-cam footage would be sent on a secure line through the county work server to my work email.

I pressed the button to end the call and my eyes tipped up to Chet, still lingering. In my foyer. Staring at me expectantly. “Well, I’m, uh, glad you’re watching my house so closely, Deputy Brown—”

“Chet,” he corrected me quickly. “Call me Chet.”

“Chet, right,” I repeated, shaking my head. “It’s such a coincidence that you would come over here right now. I just called in a request for some evidence from the night you arrested Andrew—Mr. Bogart.”

“Yeah, Ace,” Chet said. His demeanor shifted into a more macho posture. “Yeah, he’s a good guy. Well, he tries to be, anyway. Sure was sorry that I had to take him in, but I had a job to do that night, too.”

“He told me that you got into a fight about his daughter.”

“No, no, that’s not exactly true,” Chet said. “We technically got into a fight when I mentioned, incidentally, that his ex-girlfriend, Lola, cheated on him when they first got together. Sore spot. He turned into an animal on me. He’s just so jealous, so obsessed with Lola. They’re not together right now, but the poor son of a bitch can’t get over her. It’s just a matter of time.”

Chet kept rambling about this other woman, but the floor folded out from under my feet at his words. Andrew was in love with someone. No girlfriend, he’d said. But what did that really mean?

I fell into a series of new, dark realities.

In one, some poor, unknowing woman waited for him to come home on the night that he brought me to orgasm on his office desk. And I was guilty, too. I hadn’t asked if there was anyone else. I’d just... let him in. Of course there was someone else. Men who looked like Andrew Bogart weren’t just single. Oh, my god, and he was a dad... He was a dad the whole time.

In another scenario, Lola waited for him to come home and tell her about the random customer he’d fucked. She masturbated and then he climbed on top of her and I watched in horror from the corner. I was the unknowing woman here. I was the third player, the fool.

In another, he planted himself into me, then pulled away and wondered why he still felt the sting of longing for Lola. He wandered beneath the full moon and thought only of her and if she texted him at any time, he’d look at me, swallow, and bail.

“—date him, that’s all,” Chet said, and my eyes flicked over to him.

“What?”

“A business relationship is understandable,” Chet repeated. “But I would never date a man like Ace. This isn’t the first time he’s had a run-in with the law—been to jail for theft himself, you know, he’s too good at cracking systems and has no moral compass at all—and he’s got that daughter, too. Connie. Hey, though, that’s none of my business. I just thought I might let you know, since you were here with him last night. I don’t know if you normally bring clients by your house or what.”

“No, I don’t,” I said, cheeks flowering with heat. Chet must have thought I was such a floozy. “My car broke down. It’s a long story.”

“Always is with that kid.” Chet winked at me and suddenly grinned. “I’m gonna get out of your hair, Michelle. It would just break my heart if I didn’t say anything, and then you got hurt because of it. You seem like a nice girl.”

“I am,” I agreed. I braced my hand on the screen door and imperceptibly ushered him forward by crowding his space. “Thanks again, Chet.”

“Any time.” Chet turned and crowded into my space in return. I recoiled subconsciously. He loomed over me, smelling strongly of some laboratory-brewed pheromone concoction, something he must have sprayed liberally all over himself. “Glad I finally had an excuse to introduce myself to you, darling.”

I shuddered as I watched Chet saunter back to his own house. My mother calls me darling all the time. I’ve always hated it.