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My thoughts are moving so fast, so frantic, I almost don’t hear the groan of the front door opening beside me; the presence of someone new stepping outside.
“Who the fuck are you?”
I look up, startled, and see a man standing on the porch beside me—only this man, I recognize. I can’t recall his name, but his features are hard to forget: red hair, late fifties, with freckled skin and the kind of skinny stature that makes his hip bones protrude. I spoke to him once—a year ago, now—and I remember thinking he was polite, friendly, but entirely unhelpful.
Forgettable, even, until this very moment.
“Hi,” I say, standing up and realizing with a stitch of embarrassment what I must look like; how strange it would be to walk outside and find a woman rocking in your rocking chair. “I’m so sorry, let me explain—”
“Jesus, it’s you.” He seems relieved to recognize me, but at the same time, he doesn’t. He sighs, running his hands through his hair, and I watch as a tuft of it flops back over his forehead. The motion triggers something in me again; a memory that I can’t quite place.
“Hi, yeah. Sorry,” I say. “We met last year when I was going door-to-door about my son, but I can’t recall your name. I’m Isabelle.”
I hold my hand out, smiling, and watch as the man stares at me, his thin lips set in a straight line. It’s silent for a few seconds, my arm hovering in the air, and once it becomes clear that he’s not answering, I retract it, clear my throat, and continue.
“Listen, I was just wondering: Does an older gentleman live here? The other night—”
“Get the fuck off my porch.”
I stare at him, taken aback, and fully register the way he’s looking at me now, scrutinizing the dark bags beneath my bloodshot eyes. My tangled hair and the smudges of last night’s makeup still caked to my ashen cheeks. He looks angry, maybe even afraid, and I suppose he has every right to be.
I would be, too, finding someone lurking this close to my home.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” I say again, stumbling over myself to try and find the words. “I’m sorry for just showing up like this, I’m sure I gave you a scare. It’s just that the other night, I saw someone, and I was wondering ifhemight have seen someone—”
I stop, realization dawning on me slowly. Monday night, at the vigil. That quick flash of color in the distance that caught my eye as I was scanning the crowd—not unlike a bob of fiery red hair ducking down low, weaving its way through the pack.
“Where were you on Monday night?” I ask, eying him carefully. “Were you downtown, by chance?”
“I’m gonna warn you one last time,” the man says, taking a step closer. “Get off my porch before I call the cops.”
I think back to what Detective Dozier told me: that sometimes, perpetrators can’t help themselves. That they have to revisit the scene of the crime or a public gathering—like patrolling the back of a vigil, maybe, or sitting on the porch at night, staring at a window they once entered in the dark.
“What is your name?” I ask again, firmer this time. My eyes dart past his face and toward his front door, barely cracked to reveal a sliver of his living room: a splash of beige carpet and a mustard-colored couch.
“You’re trespassing,” he says, ignoring my question, and I take in the little twitch of his lips, almost like he’s afraid. “I could have you arrested in a second after what you did to that other guy.”
I feel a spasm in my chest and force myself to continue.
“Who was the man on your porch?” I ask, ignoring his threat. Taking in the windows next, realizing that they’re shuttered. That all the lights inside are off. “And why were you at my son’s vigil on Monday?”
“Get off my porch.”
“Why can’t you justtalk to me?” I ask. “What are you hiding?”
“GO!” he screams, charging at me a bit. It isn’t threatening, more of a little lunge, and suddenly, despite how badly I want to lunge back—despite the fact that every muscle in my body is screaming at me to push past him and run inside—I think again of Dozier’s warning.
“I would advise you not to do anything impulsive.”
I think of that man at the grocery store, the way things had escalated so quickly the second I lost my cool. I can feel the adrenaline in my arms, my legs, twitching at the thought of finally finding the answers I’m looking for—findingMason—but my mind is telling me that if I do this, and if I’mwrong, I won’t be able to do anything to find Mason from inside a jail cell.
“Fine,” I say at last, my fingers curling into fists. I can feel my nails digging into my palms as I retreat down the steps. “I’m leaving.”
I make my way back home, my heart racing by the time I step inside. I immediately walk into my dining room, my eyes tracing the map. I’m almost positive I won’t find a pin there—if either of those men were on the registry, this close to my home, I’d already know—but still, I look at the neighborhood, the area clear where his house would be. I skim the spreadsheet next, anyway, looking for 1742 Catty Lane: the numbers I had seen bolted to the porch columns when I had approached the house. I flip through the first page, then the second. The third, fourth, fifth—just in case I somehow missed it. Only once I look at them all—every name, every address—do I deflate a little.
He’s not there.
I grab my phone and navigate to my email, refreshing my Inbox. Still no response from Dozier. Then I click over to his contact information and make a call, listening as the line rings and groaning when his voice mail picks up instead.
