Page 12 of Wrong Mail

Kane studies me across the miles, and I keep my face still. Whatever he sees, he decides to accept. Our time is nearly up and, I think, he wants to believe me almost as much as I want to be believed.

"Good," he says. "Same time next week. Call me before that if the nights get bad."

"I will."

The screen goes dark, leaving my reflection in the black glass, wet-haired and unreadable. Beyond the laptop, small and out of focus at the far end of the kitchen, the envelope sits exactly where I left it.

I get up and go to it.

Chapter Four

Cassandra Jenkins hasn't called me in four months, and she's never once called just to say hello.

Her name sits on the screen and the phone buzzes itself in a slow circle on the counter. I let it go three rings while I decide who I want to be.

It’s barely four. The afternoon has gone white and heavy, the light off the lake coming through the kitchen windows bright enough to make me squint. There’s a glass of wine at my elbow. I’ve refilled it once already. I’m choosing not to think about that. Luna is asleep against my foot.

Spread across the length of the island, in four neat columns, are the clippings.

I don't remember deciding to lay them out. That's what stops me when I finally notice. Kane's face vanished from my laptop hours ago, and somewhere between then and now I've sorted every article in the envelope.

The left column holds the earliest dates. Next are the attacks with two victims, followed by the ones the reporters aren't sure belong to the same man. On the right are the outliers, the pieces I can't make fit anywhere even after reading them three times each.

I don't remember making those choices. But some part of me did. Some part looked at these articles and knew where they belonged before I did.

I pick up the phone.

“Cassandra.”

“Mal, you sound out of breath.”

“Yeah, I was rushing around.” I look down at the clippings spread across the island. “Actually, that’s a lie. I was standing right here.”

Cassandra laughs softly. “At least you’re honest.”

“Only when cornered.” I move away from the island, toward the window, as if putting some distance between me and the clippings might help. “How are you?”

"Old. Underfunded. Otherwise unchanged." Cassandra smoked for thirty years and quit twice out of spite, and her voice has never forgiven her for it. Fifty-three, unimpressed, and she’s still the best editor I've ever had. "How's the ear?"

Everybody asks about the ear. It’s the safe question. It’s the door you can knock on without opening everything else.

“Same on the right. No change.”

"And the rest?"

"That's a bigger question, Cass."

"I've got time."

I press my forehead against the glass. Out on the lake a boat drags a white seam across the flat water, and a kid on a paddleboard wobbles in the wake of it. "The rest of it is fine. I sleep some. My therapist tells me over Zoom that my body is doing its best. David's away a lot. I read. I walk the dog. Oh, and I get invited to parties by women who don't like me." I hear how it sounds and stop. "I'm fine, Cassandra."

"Mm."

“You sound like my therapist,” I say.

“I wouldn’t try to psychoanalyze you. I can barely keep my own life together.” Cassandra pauses. I can hear the office behind her, the murmur of somebody else’s deadline. “Well then, I’ll get to why I called. I’ve got a hole in October, and I’d rather fill it with something that matters than another eleven hundred words on the ferry system.”

“Then you rang the wrong person.”