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A rap at the glass slider that led out onto the deck made Auggie jump. Yarmark stood there.
“Be right back,” John-Henry said.
He stepped out onto the deck and shut the door behind him—careful, Auggie noticed, to touch the handle as little as possible. Just in case, Auggie guessed. After a few moments of conversation, he stepped back inside.
“Officer Yarmark noticed some security cameras around the exterior of the house.”
Theo shifted on his stool, a half-glance sliding to Auggie. “Yeah.” And then, because he must have felt some kind of explanation was necessary, he continued, “We’re far enough out here—I mean, we turned off the notifications because we get so many deer.” He stopped again. In a different voice, he said, “I’ll check right now.”
“What are they looking for?” Auggie asked.
“Anything that might suggest a break-in.” John-Henry tipped his head toward one of the bookcases. “Is that camera functioning?”
That, Auggie decided, told him a little more about John-Henry, because the camera was tucked behind some books and a little bust of Shakespeare. Somebody might spot it if they were in the room long enough, and John-Henry had been over plenty of times as a friend, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you’d notice unless you were looking for it. Had trained yourself to look for it.
“No,” Theo answered for him. “We got them when Lana had a sitter here, and then we turned them off once she started going to school.”
John-Henry nodded.
Auggie felt his face heat. “We should have them on, shouldn’t we?”
“Auggie, I told you: you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But that’s the whole point of having cameras, to have them on. Like, on a schedule, even. For when we aren’t home.”
John-Henry nodded, but it could have meant anything. “Why don’t we talk about your day? Theo, you were at school, right?”
Theo nodded, but his attention was fixed on his phone, where he was reviewing the clips recorded by the exterior cameras. “Got there, uh, about eight.”
“Seven forty-five,” Auggie said. “He’s always early.”
“And you?” John-Henry asked.
“After I dropped off Lana, I went to the gym. I picked up some groceries.” Auggie tried to run through his day in his head. I stopped for a smoothie, he thought. I dicked around in a bookstore because I was avoiding work and I wanted to find something nice for Theo. Was that what he was supposed to say? He settled for “I ran some errands. When I got home, I used my tablet to catch up on some clients’ feeds, just making sure everything posted, the content was what we’d agreed to—” He nodded toward the tablet on the sofa. “—so, I didn’t notice the laptop was missing until I went into the office to do some editing.”
Another nod. “What time did you go to the gym?”
“I don’t know, maybe eight thirty? Nine? I wait until people have gone to work so it’s not as crowded.”
“Which gym?”
“The Y.”
Another of those unreadable nods. A hysterical laugh rose in Auggie’s throat, and he had to clamp down on it. It was so unreal, all of it, that it was making him think of job interviews, of all those opaque responses, never knowing if you’d said the right thing or if the other person was thinking you were a fucking moron. This was why I never got a real job, he wanted to say, and then he thought of John-Henry and Theo hearing him say that, the looks on their faces, and the wild laughter surged up inside him again.
“God damn it,” Theo said.
Auggie glanced over. On the screen of Theo’s phone, a figure dressed in black was fumbling with a window on the side of the house. It slid open easily, and the figure climbed inside. The camera continued recording for another fifteen seconds, but nothing happened, and then the clip ended. Theo played it again.
Someone came into our house, Auggie thought. Someone was inside our house. He tried to rally, tried to focus. The angle made it hard to tell how tall the person was—average height for a man, a slender build. But it could have been a woman. Auggie couldn’t see enough to tell if the breadth of the shoulders, the shape of the hips suggested anything more. Someone came into our house, and they weren’t even trying.
Theo’s knuckles were white around his phone.
“I’m going to be right back,” John-Henry said. “Theo, would you send me that video, please? And then I’d like you to see if you can find the recording of when this person left.”
John-Henry stepped out onto the deck again, and the door clicked shut behind him.
Theo’s chest rose and fell. He tapped the screen harder than he needed to.
