Chapter 6: The Guest Room

I got home at 8:40 with my hands still shaking, and I sat in the rental in the driveway until they stopped.

Mitchell's car was gone.

There was a note on the kitchen counter in his square handwriting: Called in for a bleed. Back tonight. Eat something. Love you.

I read it twice and put it in the drawer with the takeout menus.

I had a plan, and it was a small one.

I would not say anything and I would not accuse anyone.

I would act like a woman too broken to be dangerous, and I would watch.

At noon the doorbell rang again.

Camilla stood on the porch with a paper bag from the bakery on Linden Street and a bouquet of grocery-store tulips.

She was wearing jeans and the same navy fleece, and her hair was wet.

"I come bearing carbs," she said. "I was in the neighborhood."

"You live across town."

"Okay, I wasn't in the neighborhood." She smiled, and her chin wobbled. "I couldn't sleep, and I thought you couldn't either."

I let her in.

I wanted her where I could see her.

She had come on foot from the bus stop, she said, because her car was in the shop.

She put the tulips in a vase, and she opened my cabinets and found the right glasses without asking.

I sat at the table and watched her do it.

"Mitchell told me about the records office," she said, not turning around. "He's worried about you."

"I know. I embarrassed him."