I scrolled down her wall.
Brook last recorded her status four hours and twenty minutes ago.
I just used a neti pot for the first time and it’s totally gross but I HIGHLY recommend it.
Three hours later, one of her friends had replied with a link to a story about brain-killing amoebas lurking in neti pots-53 likes.
Brook updated her status an average of three times a day. Yesterday, Brook made the best macaroni and cheese EVER. She provided a recipe link to Pinterest and a picture that looked like a plate of yellow crawling worms. In response, a friend posted a Pinterest link to a dog bed made out of her grandmother’s old suitcase and a pillow. I moved on down.
In the space of twenty-four hours, Brook threw her iPhone out the car window, joined the group Chi-O-My alums, complained that half the PTA’s Silent Auction committee made “crap jam baskets” to sell, and was highly disturbed because she had finally gotten around to watching the DVD of Slumdog Millionaire and not one of her 796 friends had warned her that a kid got blinded by acid.
Ambient awareness. That’s what social scientists say we create when we relate the most insignificant details of our lives to 796 people. I sat in a room for ten minutes with Brook Everheart thirteen years ago because we were raped by the same man and now I was suddenly aware of the current activity inside her mucus membranes.
Used to be, only mothers cared for this kind of detail, probably because they microscopically examined the texture and color of our baby poop for signs of crisis. But while one detail on its own is meaningless, all those details together builds an interesting picture. I knew this because of Mike, the master profiler. And, as a whole, six screens of Brook’s wall, a mundane peek into the last ten days of her life, was revealing enough for my purposes.
If she was testing out neti pots and operating on her mucus only a few hours ago, then making it public, it was a pretty good guess she wasn’t worried about a stalker.
I returned to my inbox.
An email from Brad.
Subject line: Keebler Elf.
One terse sentence: Does the name Avery Crane mean anything to you?
I typed a terse No, and sent it away just as the doorbell rang.
I glanced out the kitchen window. A FedEx van parked across the street. I wasn’t expecting anything. Maybe a baby gift? How many more $60 infant pajamas could I fit in the drawers if I ever bothered to put anything in drawers?
When I cracked open the door, Jesse stood on the stoop with the delivery guy, flashing a badge, asking him to slowly lower a large envelope to the stoop.
“What do you think, that it’s going to explode?” It was pretty heavy-duty sarcasm from a glorified mailman in Dockers shorts. “That terrorists are striking Clairmont? You cops need to get your ass over to Iraq and see some real action.” He pronounced it I-rack.
Jesse didn’t take the bait. He wore the same pleasant expression he always did. “Don’t drop it. Slow. That’s it. Just set it right there. Ms. Page, please step outside and walk to the cruiser. Parker is going to sniff this one out.”
He nodded toward the car. Parker’s head was poking out the back window, black ears standing up like pert triangles.
“Whoa, I am frickin’ outta here. I don’t do cops. And I don’t do dogs.” The FedEx man lit off across the lawn, his Dockers sliding down a few obscene inches.
“Come on out, ma’am.” Jesse reached out a hand. “Please.”
I hesitated, thinking that my wardrobe wasn’t really appropriate for a public walk across the lawn. Mike’s old gray pajama pants and a too tight navy sports bra from the B cup era. Bare feet. Bare stomach area. A silver peace-sign toe ring, a going-away gift from Lucy, that I’d just found on the bedroom floor. “I’m not really dressed…”
“It’s all right, ma’am. I got sisters. Just head on down the walk with me and get in the passenger side of the car.”
“OK. Do you really think there’s a bomb in there?” Pebbles bit into my heels on the stone walk as he urged me forward.
“Your husband’s orders, ma’am. Examine all packages that arrive, human or otherwise. Parker here is a sniffer who worked in Iraq with a soldier friend of mine.”
“He seems like… a great dog.”
“They don’t get better. Parker got a little screwed up after his master died in sniper fire. Survivor’s guilt. He couldn’t have prevented the shot that took Leonard. They say I couldn’t have, either. But neither of us really believe that, so that’s our bond. Parker was glued to Leonard’s body until the medics dragged him off.”
“Mike told me about your leg. Is that when… it happened?”
“Yep, same damn sniper. They let me bring Parker home, and he’s worth a lot more than my foot.” He grinned and lifted up the shoe that housed his prosthetic. “Just can’t run the mile in 6:52 anymore.”
I wasn’t fooled. Keeping up the patter to distract me. Good guy. Smart guy.
“Parker’s not official these days because of his breakdown, but I’d count on him more than a posse of ten Clairmont cops.” His face reddened. “No offense to your husband, ma’am. He wouldn’t be one of the ten I’m referring to.”
“No offense taken.”
I moved around to the passenger side while Jesse opened Parker’s door. The dog bounded out, straight for the porch. I slid onto the seat, immediately aware that the interior of Jesse’s 1992 Hyundai was military pristine. Not a speck of dust on the dashboard. No fast-food wrappers or newspapers or books to entertain him. Jesse’s focus was one hundred percent me.
At the door of the house, Parker was sniffing the package. As if it could protect me, I closed my eyes tight, and when I opened them, Parker had already run back to Jesse, who was feeding him a treat.
“Is that good or bad?” I yelled it out, leaning over to the driver’s window.
“Good. You can get out. Parker won’t move from the package if there’s a problem. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to open it.”
I had no problem with that. My knees wobbled. I ventured back up the walk, sitting awkwardly on the bottom porch step while Jesse stood about fifty feet away in the side yard turning over the package in his hands.
“It’s got a little rattle,” he said. “The return address is a church.” He slit open the envelope with a pocketknife and pulled out a wad of white tissue paper with the end of a chain dangling from it. I noticed that Jesse was wearing latex gloves.
“Sorry, ma’am, for the interference. This appears to be personal.” He walked closer, handed me the tissue and a small piece of white stationery, and whistled for Parker, who was now doing his business on my crepe myrtle. The two moved together in perfect rhythm toward the car, like the last scene of an old movie right before the credits roll.
I read the note first. Three scribbled names, because I already knew hers, and I knew mine.
Margaret Smith.
Brook Everheart.
Lisa Connors.
Add the two of us and you got Pierce’s damaged little sorority of five.
At the bottom Renata had scribbled a short note.
I think you need this more than I do. God bless, R.
It fell into my palm like a trickle of cool water.
I knew without counting that there were exactly fifty-nine amethyst beads.
Renata had sent me her grandmother’s rosary.
30
For the next forty-eight hours, he didn’t call. My stalker seemed to have forgotten me. The more he left me alone, the more I felt his presence.