How do I know that Morgan Baines’s killer isn’t there?
How do I know that the dogs aren’t barking because there’s
a murderer in my yard?
Backlit by the kitchen light, I’m a fish in a fishbowl.
I can see nothing. But whoever is there—if anyone is there—
can easily see me.
Without thinking it through, I take a step suddenly back.
The fear is overwhelming. There’s the greatest need to run back
into the kitchen, close and lock the door behind myself, pull
the drapes shut. But would the dogs be able to fend off a killer
all on their own?
And then, the dogs suddenly stop their barking and I’m not
sure what terrifies me more, the barking or the silence.
My heart pounds harder. My skin prickles, a tingling sen-
sation that runs up and down my arms. My imagination goes
wild, wondering what horrible thing is standing in my yard.
I can’t stand here waiting to find out. I clap my hands, call
to the dogs again. I hurry inside for their biscuits and shake the
box frantically. This time, by the grace of God, they come. I
open the box, spill a half dozen treats on the kitchen floor before closing and locking the slider, pulling the drapes tightly closed.
Back upstairs, I check again on the boys. They’re just as I
left them.
But Imogen’s door, this time as I pass by, is open an inch. It’s
no longer closed. It’s no longer locked. The hallway is narrow
and dark with just enough light that I’m not blind. A faint glow
from the lamp in the living room rises up to me. It helps me see.
My eyes go to that one-inch gap between Imogen’s door and
the frame. It wasn’t like that the last time I was here. Imogen’s
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room, like Otto’s, faces onto the street. I go to her door and press on it, easing it open another inch or two, just enough so that I
can see inside. She’s lying there, on her bed, with her back to
me. If she’s faking sleep, she does so quite well. Her breathing is rhythmic and deep. I see the rise and fall of the sheet. Her curtains are open, moonlight streaming into the room. The win-
dow, like the door, is open an inch. The room is icy cold, but I
don’t risk stepping inside to close it.
Back in our bedroom, I shake Will awake. I won’t tell Will
about Imogen because there’s nothing really to say. For all I
know, she was up using the bathroom. She got hot and opened
her window. These are not crimes, though other questions nag
at the back of my mind.
Why didn’t I hear a toilet flush?
Why didn’t I notice the chill from the bedroom the first time
I passed by?
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Will asks, half asleep.
As he rubs at his eyes, I say, “I think there’s something in the
backyard.”
“Like what?” he asks, clearing his throat, his eyes drowsy and
his voice heavy with sleep.
I wait a beat before I tell him. “I don’t know,” I say, leaning
in to him as I say it. “Maybe a person.”
“A person?” Will asks, sitting quickly upright, and I tell him
about what just happened, how there was something—or some-
one—in the backyard that spooked the dogs. My voice is trem-
ulous when I speak. Will notices. “Did you see a person?” he
asks, but I tell him no, that I didn’t see anything at all. That I
only knew something was there. A gut instinct.
Will says compassionately, his hand reassuringly stroking
mine, “You’re really shaken up about it, aren’t you?”
He wraps both hands around mine, feeling the way they
tremble in his. I tell him that I am. I think that he’s going to
get out of bed and go see for himself if there’s someone in our
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61
backyard. But instead he makes me second-guess myself. It isn’t
intentional and he isn’t trying to patronize me. Rather, he’s the
voice of reason as he asks, “But what about a coyote? A raccoon
or a skunk? Are you sure it wasn’t just some animals that got
It sounds so simple, so obvious as he says it. I wonder if he’s
right. It would explain why the dogs were so upset. Perhaps they
sniffed out some wildlife roaming around our backyard. They’re
hunters. Naturally they would have wanted to get at whatever
was there. It’s the far more logical thing to believe than that
there was a killer traipsing through our backyard. What would
a killer want with us?
I shrug in the darkness. “Maybe,” I say, feeling foolish, but
not entirely so. There was a murder just across the street from
us last night and the murderer hasn’t been found. It’s not so ir-
rational to believe he’s still nearby.
Will tells me obligingly, “We could mention it to Officer
Berg anyway in the morning. Ask him to look into it. If nothing
else, ask if coyotes are a problem around here. It would be good
to know anyway, to make sure we keep an eye on the dogs.”
I feel grateful he humors me. But I tell him no. “I’m sure
you’re right,” I say, crawling back into bed beside him, knowing
I still won’t sleep. “It probably was a coyote. I’m sorry I woke
you. Go back to bed,” I say, and he does, wrapping a heavy arm
around me, protecting me from whatever lies on the other side
of our door.
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Sadie
I come to when Will says my name. I must have spaced out.
He’s there beside me, giving me a look. A Will look, fraught
with worry. “Where’d you go?” he asks, as I look around, get
my bearings. A sudden headache has nearly gotten the best of
me, making me feel swimmy inside.
I tell him, “I don’t know,” not remembering what we were
talking about before I spaced out.
I look down to see that a button on my shirt has come un-
done, revealing the black of my bra beneath. I button back up,
apologize to him for zoning out in the middle of our conver-
sation. “I’m just tired,” I say, rubbing at my eyes, taking in the
sight of Will before me, the kitchen around me.
“You look tired,” Will agrees and I feel the agitation brim
inside. I glance past Will and into the backyard, expecting to
see something out of place. Signs of a trespasser in our yard last
night. There’s nothing, but still, I prickle anyway, remember
what it felt like as I stood in the darkness, pleading for the dogs to come.
The boys are at the table, eating the last of their breakfast.
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Will stands at the counter, filling a mug that he passes to me. I
welcome the coffee into my hands and take a big gulp.
“I didn’t sleep well,” I say, not wanting to admit the truth,
that I didn’t sl
eep at all.
“Want to talk about it?” he asks though it doesn’t seem like
something that needs to be said. This is something he should
know. A woman was murdered in her home across the street
from us two nights ago.
My eyes breeze past Tate at the table, and I tell him no be-
cause this isn’t a conversation Tate should hear. For as long as
we can, I’d like to keep his childhood innocence alive.
“Do you have time for breakfast?” Will asks.
“Not today,” I say, looking at the clock, seeing that it’s even
later than I thought it was. I need to get going. I begin gather-
ing things, my bag and my coat, to go. Will’s bag waits for him
beside the table, and wonder if he stuck his true crime novel
inside the bag, the book with the photograph of Erin hidden
inside. I don’t have the courage to tell Will I know about the
photograph.
I kiss Tate goodbye. I snatch the earbuds from Otto’s ears to
tell him to hurry.
I drive to the ferry. Otto and I don’t say much on the way
there. We used to be closer than we are, but time and circum-
stance have pulled us apart. What teenage boy, I ask myself, try-
ing not to take it personally, is close with their mother? Few, if
any. But Otto is a sensitive boy, different than the rest.
He leaves the car with only a quick goodbye for me. I watch
as he crosses the metal grate bridge and boards the ferry with the
other early-morning commuters. His heavy backpack is slung
across his back. I don’t see Imogen anywhere.
It’s seven twenty in the morning. Outside, it’s raining. A mob
of multicolored umbrellas makes their way down the street that
leads to the ferry. Two boys about Otto’s age claw their way on-
board behind him, bypassing Otto in the entranceway, laugh-
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MARY KUBICA
ing. They’re laughing at some inside joke, I assure myself, not
at him, but my stomach churns just the same, and I think how lonely it must be in Otto’s world, an outcast without any friends.
There’s plenty of seating inside the ferry where it’s warm and
dry, but Otto climbs all the way up to the upper deck, stand-
ing in the rain without an umbrella. I watch as deckhands raise
the gangplank and untie the boat before it ventures off into the
foggy sea, stealing Otto from me.
Only then do I see Officer Berg staring at me.
He stands on the other side of the street just outside his Crown
Victoria, leaned up against the passenger’s side door. In his hands are coffee and a cinnamon roll, just a stone’s throw away from the
stereotypical donut cops are notorious for eating, though slightly
more refined. As he waves at me, I get the sense that he’s been
watching me the entire time, watching as I watch Otto leave.
He tips his hat at me. I wave at him through the car window.
What I usually do at this point in my drive is make a U-turn
and go back up the hill the same way I came down. But I can’t
do that with the officer watching. And it doesn’t matter any-
way because Officer Berg has abandoned his post and is walk-
ing across the street and toward me. He motions with the crank
of a hand for me to open my window. I press the button and
the window drops down. Beads of rain welcome themselves
inside my car, gathering along the interior of the door. Offi-
cer Berg doesn’t carry an umbrella. Rather, the hood of a rain
jacket is thrust over his head. He doesn’t appear to be bothered
by the rain.
He jams the last bite of his cinnamon roll into his mouth,
chases it down with a swig of coffee, and says, “Morning, Dr.
Foust.” He has a kind face for a police officer, lacking the usual
flintiness that I think of when I think of the police. There’s
something endearing about him, a bit of awkwardness and in-
security that I like.
I tell him good morning.
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“What a day,” he says, and I say, “Quite a doozy.”
The rain isn’t expected to go on all day. The sun, however,
won’t make an appearance anytime soon. Where we live, just off
the coast of Maine, the climate is tempered by the ocean. The
temperatures aren’t as bitter as they are in Chicago this time of
year, though still it’s cold.
What we’ve heard is that the bay has been known to freeze
come wintertime, ferries forced to charge through ice floes to
get people to and from the mainland. One winter, supposedly,
the ferry got stuck, and passengers were made to walk across
yards of ice to get to the shoreline before the Coast Guard came
in with a cutter to chop it up.
It’s unsettling to think about. A bit suffocating, if I’m being
honest, the idea of being trapped on the island, cordoned off
from the rest of the world by a giant slab of ice.
“You’re up early,” Officer Berg says, and I reply, “As are you.”
“Duty calls,” he says, tapping at his badge. I reply, “Me too,”
finger at the ready to hoist the window up so that I can leave.
Joyce and Emma are expecting me, and if I’m not there soon,
I’ll never hear the end of it. Joyce is a stickler for punctuality.
Officer Berg glances at his watch, makes an offhand guess that
the clinic opens around eight thirty. I say that it does. He asks,
“Have a moment to spare, Dr. Foust?” I tell him a quick one.
I pull my car closer to the curb and put it in Park. Officer
Berg rounds the front end of it and lets himself in through the
passenger’s side door.
Officer Berg cuts straight to the chase. “I finished speaking
to your neighbors yesterday, asking them the same questions
I asked of you and Mr. Foust,” he tells me, and I gather from
his tone that this isn’t merely an update on the investigation—
though what I want is an update on the investigation. I want
Officer Berg to tell me that they’re ready to make an arrest so I
can sleep better at night, knowing Morgan’s killer is behind bars.
Early this morning before the kids were up, Will searched
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online for news into her murder. There was an article detailing
how Morgan had been found dead in her home. There were
facts in it that came new to Will and me. How, for example,
the police found threatening notes in the Baines’s home, though
they didn’t say what the threats said.
Overnight the police released the little girl’s 911 call. It was
there online, an audio clip of the six-year-old girl as she fought
back tears, telling the operator on the other end of the line, She won’t wake up. Morgan won’t wake up.
In the article, she was never referred to by name, only ever
as the six-year-old girl, because minors are blessed with a certain anonymity adults don’t have.
Will and
I lay in bed with the laptop between us, listening to
the audio clip three times. It was gut-wrenching to hear. The
little girl managed to remain relatively calm and composed as
the dispatcher talked her through the next few minutes and sent
help, keeping her on the line the entire time.
But there was something about the audio clip that got under
my skin, something I couldn’t put my finger on. It pestered me
nonetheless, and wasn’t until the third go round that I finally
heard it.
She cal s her mother Morgan? I’d asked Will, because the little girl didn’t say her mother wouldn’t wake up. She said Morgan
wouldn’t wake up. Why would she do that? I asked.
Will’s reply was immediate.
Morgan is her stepmother, he said. Then he swallowed hard, tried not to cry. Morgan was her stepmother, I mean.
Oh, I said. I don’t know why this mattered. But it seemed
it did.
Jeffrey was married before? I asked. It’s not always the case, of course. Children are born out of wedlock. But it was worth
asking.
Yes, he said, but he said no more. I wondered about Jeffrey’s first wife. I wondered who she was, if she lived here on the is-9780778369110_RHC_txt(ENT_ID=269160).indd 66
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67
land with us. Will himself is the product of divorced parents.
It’s always been a sore subject with him.
How long were Jeffrey and Morgan married? I asked, wondering what else she told him.
Just over a year.
They’re newlyweds, I said.
They’re nothing anymore, Sadie, Will corrected me again. He’s a widower. She’s dead.
We stopped talking after that. Together, in silence, we read on.
I wonder now, as I sit in my car beside Officer Berg, about
signs of forced entry—a broken window, a busted door jamb—
or blood. Was there blood at the scene? Or defensive wounds,
maybe, on Morgan’s hands? Did she try to fight her intruder off?
Or maybe the little girl saw the attacker or heard her step-
mother scream.
I don’t ask Officer Berg any of this. It’s been over twenty-
four hours since the poor woman was killed. The etched lines
on his forehead are deeper today than they were before. The
pressure of the investigation is weighing on him, and I realize
then: He’s no closer to solving this crime than he was yester-
day. My heart sinks.
Instead I ask, “Has Mr. Baines been located?” and he tells