I don’t go near the printer.
Not yet.That’s where the note was left.
Too easy.I’ll save it for last.
I glance down at the trashcan beside the desk.It’s empty.Too empty.Belinda doesn’t keep a pristine wastebasket.She’s eleven.Phyllis only empties it once a week, and she’s been off the last few days.Yet the bag is clean, the seam still crisp.
Someone emptied it, and I know damned well it wasn’t Belinda.
I move to her vanity.Lip gloss—the only makeup Raven and Vinnie let her wear—in several colors.A detangler brush with blond hairs curled in the bristles.I hold the brush to the light.Tiny flecks of silver glitter cling near the handle.I can’t help a smile.I got her the shimmery hair mist last week.
Still, nothing that screams clues.
I move to her closet.Her clothes hang by color—Raven’s system, not Belinda’s.Two hangers are bare.The gap is wrong.Shirts are pushed to either side like someone yanked something down in a hurry.
I go to the bed.Belinda makes it neatly but not like this.She tucks the top blanket under the footboard but leaves the corners slightly rounded.Now the corners are sharp hospital triangles.Military corners.
The pillow sits resolutely—too perfectly placed.I kneel and look along the edge for stray glitter or stray hair.One blond strand is caught at the bottom left corner.It’s long enough to be hers.I leave it exactly where it lies and then check under the pillow.
Nothing.No journal.No folded poems.I replace the pillow.
Desk drawers.The top one slides smooth.Pencils sharpened to dangerous points.A rubber eraser shaped like a cat.A small stack of note cards we practiced her spelling lessons with.I fan the cards, looking at them.
Felicitous.
Oboe.
Normalcy.
My chest tightens.
The next drawer catches halfway.Strange.I wiggle until it frees and stops again, blocked by something rolled under the track.I reach back and feel the edge of a piece of paper.I ease it forward.It’s a page torn from a spiral notebook and folded into quarters.Someone shoved it back too far and it slipped behind the track.
I unfold the paper carefully.
It’s a list, handwritten in block capital letters.
TOOTHBRUSH
UNDERWEAR
FLASHLITEFLASHLIGHT
MONEY (PIN?)
SNACKS
PHONE
A shiver skates under my skin.Belinda doesn’t write in block letters.She writes in messy cursive that tilts to the right.The word “flashlight” is misspelled at first—flashlite—and then written again over the top.Belinda wouldn’t misspell “flashlight.”She does great at spelling.That’s why she uses flashcards.
How did the cops not find this?
I should put it in a zippered bag.Or should I return it to where I found it?
It could mean nothing.Hell, it could have been here before Belinda even got here.Who used this room before her?It’s the house Vinnie grew up in.It could have been Savannah’s room.Or their brother Michael, who passed away.
I finally decide to leave it on the desk and tell the cops about it.
