“But how did you get his sweatshirt?” Olivia asked.
“Because he’s a damn gentleman.” I sighed. “He gave it to me when I visited him Sunday.”
We’d been standing on the rainy sidewalk outside his precinct, and he’d scolded me for not being properly dressed for the weather because I’d blithely headed out without checking the forecast.
He was the adult who watched the weather and always carried an umbrella. He’d peeled off his own sweatshirt—a rare casual, non-blazer Sunday for Russo—and given it to me rather than have me walk back to the El platform wearing just a spandex halter top and leggings in the cold autumn rain.
The sweatshirt was comically too large on me, the arms swinging well below my fingertips, the waistband hanging mid-thigh. When I’d put it on, Russo just shook his head.That’s a dress on you, he’d said and chuckled.
Olivia’s eyes grew misty. “Aw, that is sosweet! Wasn’t he the one who also said you were so good at tracking down clues that you should’ve been a cop yourself?”
“He’s not saying that now.”This kind of work isn’t for everyone, he’d told me.
She frowned at me as I wiped at the coffee. “Dab! Don’t smear!” she chastised. She knew more about fabric cleaning than I did, probably because she took a class on fabric care, since she’s majoring in hospitality at Lake Sanguis Community College.
I released the towel and let her gently pat the front of the shirt. Then she glanced at the tabletop under my elbow. “I’ve got an answer in our secret compartment,” Olivia told me as she whippedup the counter of the small breakfast nook table, revealing the hidden cubby inside.
When we were kids, we used to hide our Halloween candy stash there, away from Dad. Now I was sad to see the secret compartment filled with a couple of cleaning bottles and a roll of paper towels. She pulled out a small spray bottle of stain remover and spritzed me with it. It was a sad commentary on the fact we were both baby adults now.
DMs popped up in my feed.
Sucks to suck!
Who’s canceled now?
We’ve been trying to reach you. Please call us back.
Ack. That one was from Jared Gatta’s attorney, Peter Neufeld.
“I’m going to be sued,” I announced to Olivia as I showed her the message.
She peered at it. “By Jared? He can’t do that. You didn’t arrest him.”
“No, I only implied he was the main suspect, that’s all. He’s suing the Chicago Police Department. It’s only a matter of time…” Which was why I was currently avoiding all contact with his attorney. I deleted the DM. I should just deactivate my account. My finger hovered over the button when a new DM appeared.
One lemon.
Huh. Odd.
At the Canceled Killer’s first crime scene, near the bathtub, he’d left a single lemon on the green bathroom tiles, and then hecontinued to leave a single lemon with a green leaf attached at every other murder scene.
Nobody knew what they meant, especially not Detective Russo, who’d let that detail slip to me and then made me promise never to include it in any broadcast. No one but the killer, the detectives, and me knew about the single lemon.
I clicked on the message. It belonged to CanceledKill. No profile picture. No public posts. Just a bot with a blank picture, I guessed, probably based in Russia and designed to drain bank accounts.
I remembered how the Canceled Killer used various accounts to taunt his victims. Authorities could never quite pin the user down, as each account was set up through a variety of dummy email accounts and untraceable VPNs.
A hard knock at the Airstream made me jump. Mom didn’t wait two seconds before she swung open the door.
“There are my little babies!” she said, even though I was twenty-seven and Olivia was twenty-four.
Mom never seemed to age, and she looked every bit the regal model she used to be when people knew her as Jenny Leong, when she graced the pages of fashion magazines and perfume ads in the 1990s, before ageism retired her at age thirty. She was born in Hawaii but moved around a lot—California, Arizona, Wisconsin. She had a nowhere/everywhere accent. Today she wore a red cashmere sweater and her signature matte red lipstick that offset her jet-black hair, which cascaded down her back in thick waves. She never went anywhere without a full lip and heels, and she almost always wore red.
“I made muffins!” Mom declared, and both Olivia and I stared at the tray of mostly burnt black balls of banana nut horrible. Mom was fantastic at modeling. Not so good at baking. Though she kepton trying, mostly because she had a supreme kind of confidence that only came from walking the runway at Fashion Week.
I often envied that confidence. Mom never second-guessed herself.
“Oh, uh. Thanks?” Olivia eyed the tray.
