Chapter 4: The Box

Shanna drove me to my own house on Thursday afternoon, and parked across the street with the engine running.

"Ten minutes," she said. "Clothes, passport, drawing tablet. Anything else, we leave."

"The sketchbooks too."

"Fine. The sketchbooks."

"And I need to borrow forty dollars for the bank run," I said. "Everything I own is frozen. Two days, and the card still says declined."

"Borrow nothing," Shanna said. "We'll fix the money after we have your things."

It was my house, and I still had to ring the bell.

Christian had changed the keypad code on the garage, and my key no longer turned the front lock.

The door opened.

Pia Hellstrom stood in my kitchen doorway in her stocking feet, holding my blue mug.

"Em," she said, and her whole face went soft. "Oh, honey. Come in. Christian's at the clinic. He said you might come."

"He changed the locks."

"I know. I told him that was too much." She pushed the door wider. "I told him twice. Come in and let me make you tea."

I did not want her tea.

I wanted my coat, and I was cold, and she was holding the door.

Shanna came up the steps behind me with her arms folded.

"I'll stand right here," she said.

"Of course you will," Pia said, and laughed her kind laugh. "Shanna, you look exhausted. Both of you sit, please."

In my kitchen, the lamb pan was washed and put away.

The dinner plates were back in their cabinet.

There was not one sign that a dozen guests had watched me walk out of this room.

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