“We should leave the stuff here, how we found it. It’s a crime scene now.” She slid the paperwork and the photos back into the manila envelope and carefully put it back on the ground. Then she picked up Socktopus, hugging him to her chest once more before setting him next to the envelope.
They locked up the unit and went back to the car. Ethan hit the highway, driving carefully but fast. The desert spread out on either side of them, disappearing into darkness just a few feet from the road. Emma clutched the key to the storage unit in her hand.
Hell yeah! I shouted silently, wishing I could slap my sister five. Garrett was finally, finally going down.
28
A MESSAGE FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE
Emma pushed through the wrought-iron gate leading to the Banerjees’ backyard, Ethan right behind her. The house was completely dark, the windows gaping like empty eye sockets. The only light was the moon catching on the surface of the pool, vague and shimmering. The sight made her queasy. It was easy to imagine Nisha, facedown, her long hair billowing around her head.
“I hate it back here,” she whispered. Ethan nodded. He slid his fingers through hers and squeezed.
Two enormous French doors connected the patio to the kitchen. To the left, an alarm panel glowed softly red. Emma approached it cautiously, her nerves humming. She couldn’t risk making a mistake. If the alarm went off, Dr. Banerjee would change the code again, and who knew what he’d change it to. For a moment her fingers hovered over the numbers, about to punch in 0907. Then she thought of Garrett, and how he’d already broken in.
“Dr. Banerjee changed the code,” she whispered. “Of course. He would have, after finding Garrett in his house. There’s no way it’s Mrs. Banerjee’s birthday anymore.”
Ethan’s face fell. “You’re right. We can’t . . .” But he trailed off as she spun back to the panel. Before she could second-guess herself, Emma typed in a new number: 0420. Nisha’s birthday. For a moment, nothing happened. She held her breath, bracing herself for the blare of alarms cutting through the silent night, ready to run as fast as she could back to Ethan’s house.
But then, after what felt like forever, the light turned green. She heard a soft click inside the door. They were in.
She turned to face Ethan, a triumphant grin spreading over her face. His jaw hung slack, his head whipping from the panel to her and back again. “How did you know the right code?”
She shrugged. “A hunch.”
Ethan swallowed hard. “Jesus, Emma, you could have set the alarm off.”
“A girl’s got to get lucky sometimes. Even me.” She opened the door silently and stepped inside, her eyes adjusting to the deeper gloom of the kitchen.
The room had been scrubbed top to bottom since she’d last seen it. A strong smell of Pine-Sol lingered on the air, and the bronze fixtures winked in the scanty light. Next to the door, a bowl sat on the floor, overflowing with cat kibble.
I followed Emma’s gaze around the room, remembering the parties and tennis dinners I’d attended at Nisha’s house, standing around the kitchen island with my friends, eating carrot sticks and gossiping. Now the house was silent and empty, like the very walls were in mourning.
A small sphere of light appeared out of the blue. Emma spun around to see Ethan, holding a pocket Maglite out in front of him. It was attached to his key ring. He handed it to her. “We should keep the lights off,” he whispered. “We don’t want anyone to see us from the street. I’ll check the living room and Dr. Banerjee’s office. You take her bedroom. Meet back here in five minutes?”
“Okay,” Emma said, leaning up to kiss his cheek. Then she turned and slipped into the hall, sending the flashlight’s beam ahead of her.
Motes of dust swirled in the pale light. The pictures along the hall seemed to leer at her, grotesque in the dark. She flinched as she stepped on a squeaky floorboard, the low squeal sounding as loud as an alarm in the thick silence. What if Garrett chose this moment to rebreak into the house? What if he arrived only to find that she and Ethan had beat him to the punch? She shuddered at the thought of what he might do.
At Nisha’s bedroom door she paused. Even though she’d already searched this room once, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the evidence was here. She knew from her years as a foster kid that the only safe hiding place was somewhere personal, close to you.
Her heart thudding against her ribs, Emma paused in the doorway, sending the orb of light slowly over Nisha’s things but carefully avoiding the window. Everything was just as it had been the last time she visited. Crystalline vials of perfume sat on top of Nisha’s dresser, next to a small collection of tennis trophies. The creased spines of books faced out from the shelf, neat and alphabetized, and the bedspread was smooth and unruffled. Next to the Compaq laptop on the desk lay a DVD case for the BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries—Nisha must have been watching it before she died.
Nothing seemed out of place. Emma hit her fists against her thighs in frustration, her nails digging into her palms. Nisha had found something important—and it was still here. Emma could feel it in her gut. But where would she have hidden something that important?
The thought came to her slowly, like a lens coming gradually into focus. Emma had hidden plenty of things herself—she’d spent her childhood protecting her scant treasures from nosy foster parents and kleptomaniacal roommates. She inhaled sharply. It seemed too much of a long shot, too simple an answer. But it was worth a try. Creeping on the balls of her feet, she pushed the door to Nisha’s bathroom open. A small night-light flashed on from the outlet by the mirror. She knelt down by the cabinet and started opening drawers.
There, in the gloom beneath the sink, was an enormous, Costco-sized carton of Tampax.
She froze, almost afraid to move. Afraid her last decent hope would be quashed. Boxes of tampons had been her go-to hiding place for years. But Nisha couldn’t possibly have had the same secret spot . . . could she?