I pat my pockets, searching for my phone. All I can find are my house keys. And then I remember: I made a call while I was in my car and then dropped my phone in my purse. Which is currently back at my house. I don’t know if Jonathan has a phone in his pocket that I could use, but there’s no way I’m going to touch him. I’ve got to get back to my house to call the police.
I try not to think about the possibility that the killer could have escaped next door, to the house where my children live, as I do an about-face and run for the front door. I don’t even look behind me. I make a beeline out of the house and back to my own home. I don’t stop running until I get to my front door, and then I come inside and slam it behind me.
When I get into the house, the first thing I hear is the sound of running water coming from the kitchen. Then I hear the swears in Italian—my husband is home. At least he will know what to do in this situation.
I’ve been in scenarios like this before, and he is one of the few people I can trust.
When I get to the kitchen, Enzo is bent over the sink, washing his hands. Again, he swears under his breath. As I come closer, I catch a glimpse of the dark red liquid circling the drain.
What is he washing off his hands?
“Enzo?” I say.
He glances over his shoulder. “Millie, give me one second. I slipped and cut my hand with clippers. Stupido.”
Except I don’t see a cut on his hand. All I see is a lot of blood going down the drain.
“Something is wrong?” he asks me.
I open my mouth to tell him the terrible thing that I just saw. Jonathan Lowell is dead in the house next door. But as he turns around to reveal the blood all over his white T-shirt, I have a horrible feeling he already knows.
“Millie?” he says.
In the distance, the sound of sirens grows louder. Except I never called the police. Somehow, they are coming anyway. Somehow, they know what has happened.
He furrows his dark eyebrows. “Millie? What is going on?”
“Jonathan Lowell is dead,” I choke out. “Somebody stabbed him.”
“What?”
I wasn’t sure if he was lying two days ago when he disappeared from our bedroom in the middle of the night. But at this moment, Enzo truly looks astonished. I could almost swear on my life that he is shocked by what I am telling him.
Almost.
Enzo’s gaze drops to his shirt, speckled in still-damp blood. When he lifts his eyes again and sees my face, he takes a step back. “I told you, I cut myself. This is my blood. My blood.”
The sirens are much louder now. The police car will be here any moment.
“Change your shirt,” I tell him.
Enzo is frozen for a moment, but finally, he nods. He runs upstairs to get rid of his bloody shirt. And whatever else he needs to get rid of.
FORTY-THREE
Over the next twenty minutes, more and more police officers arrive at the Lowell household.
We instruct the kids to stay up in their rooms, because we don’t want them to see what’s going on out there. At some point, they are going to find out that our neighbor was murdered, but I want to postpone that as long as possible. I end up making some pizza bagels in the microwave and let them eat them in their rooms.
I watch the spectacle through the window. Suzette comes home about half an hour after the police arrive, and I watch as a man who looks like a detective breaks the news to her. She covers her eyes and starts to sob, although to my eyes, it looks fake.
She’s not at all upset that her husband is dead.
At some point, the police will arrive at our house to ask questions. But it hasn’t happened yet. And when they do, I’m not sure what to tell them.
Enzo and I sit at the kitchen table, staring down at the pizza bagels I made for us. In the best of times, they would be unappetizing. The cheese is unmelted on one side and somehow overcooked on the other side. But even if it were a gourmet meal, I wouldn’t be able to eat one bite of it.
“I don’t understand,” I say to Enzo. “What happened over there? Were you in their house?”
“No!” he cries. “I never went inside. I was outside. Working.”
“And you didn’t hear a thing?”
“No, but you know my equipment is loud. I never hear anything inside the house.”
I look down at Enzo’s hands, clasped together on the kitchen table. “Where is the cut?”
“What?”
“You told me you cut your hand,” I remind him. “That’s why you were bleeding everywhere, remember? So where is it?”
He holds out his left hand. I don’t even see it at first, but when I look closer, I notice the cut on the palm.
I’m just going to say it: there is no way that cut created that much blood.
“Cuts on the hand bleed a lot,” he says defensively. “Lots of blood vessels.”
“It’s not bleeding now.”
