Chapter 6
I didn't see the apartment that night. I was still in the hospital bed with my rabbit in both hands, and the hall was quiet except for the beep from my monitor. Marcus had left his vest over the back of the chair so I wouldn't be cold, and Andrea kept checking her phone. Later Marcus told me what happened after they used my key, and I remembered it the way he told it, because he didn't try to make it sound like a story.
Deputy Harris went in first. It was 2:47 and the apartment was dark and cold the way our place got when Mommy turned the heat down to save money. Harris had his flashlight low and his hand on his service weapon, not drawn, and he called out, "Sheriff's office, welfare check," and nobody answered. Marcus told me he could smell old cooking grease and the lemon cleaner Mommy always used, and the air felt stale, like no one had been home since Mommy left for work. Andrea stayed just inside the doorway with gloves on and said not to touch anything until Harris cleared it. The living room was neat. Mommy's couch pillows were straight. But the kitchen counter had a chair knocked over on its side, and that was wrong.
Harris cleared the master bedroom first because that was procedure. Mommy's bed was made, her uniform shirt folded over the chair, her phone charger empty on the nightstand. Marcus didn't stay there. He said he kept hearing what I'd told him in the hospital — "what she hid at home" — and the way I'd said it while holding my rabbit like it mattered. He walked past the master and went to my room and Andrea followed him and Harris came after. My room was small, just my twin bed with the blue blanket, my little dresser, and the rug Mommy got at Target with the stars on it. The night light was unplugged.
Marcus knelt down beside my bed the same way he'd knelt beside the hospital bed, and his knees popped. He ran his hand along the edge of the floor where the rug didn't quite reach the wall. He said the dust was thick there, except there was a clean spot, like something had been moved. Andrea crouched down too and held her flashlight flat across the boards so the light cut sideways. One board under my bed, right where I kept my feet at night, didn't sit flush. It wobbled when Marcus pressed it with his palm. Harris said, "Don't force it," but Marcus lifted it careful with his scarred fingers, and it came up clean.
Underneath there wasn't much space, just enough for a box. It wasn't a treasure chest or anything. It was Mommy's old sewing box, the one with the flowered lid that matched my rabbit's ear color, beige with faded pink roses. Mommy kept buttons in it, and sometimes she'd let me play with the ribbons. It was tucked sideways so it fit between the joists, and there was dust on top of it but not on the sides, like someone had brushed it off to open it and then put it back. Marcus didn't pick it up right away. Andrea took pictures with her phone, and Harris took pictures with his body camera, and the flash made the little room look white for a second at a time.
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When Harris said it was okay, Marcus lifted the box out and set it on my bed. It was heavier than a sewing box should be. He undid the little metal clasp. Inside, on top of Mommy's pincushion, there was a cheap black burner phone with the battery still in, a thick stack of cash held with a blue rubber band, and a big manila envelope sealed with two kinds of tape, clear packing tape and then brown tape over it, like Mommy didn't want it to come open by accident. Through the paper you could feel something hard and flat, and Andrea said it was photos and a little plastic stick, a USB, but they didn't open it. Marcus said his hands were shaking a little and he put the lid back down. He told me later he didn't look because that wasn't his to look at yet, and because Harris kept saying chain of custody, keep everything sealed.
That was when Andrea saw the boot prints. She swung her light down to the hallway and there they were in the dust by the front door, big ridged prints coming in and going out, still sharp at the edges. Not our shoes. Mommy wore sneakers for work. I wore light-up sneakers. These were wide, heavy boots, and the dirt was still a little damp, like they'd been there that night. One print overlapped the place where the rug had been pushed. Harris knelt and put his pen next to it for scale and took more pictures. He said quietly, "Someone was here after you left. They looked around but they didn't find this." Marcus looked back at the box on my bed and then at the prints leading out the door, and he understood what that meant. The bad man had come before sunrise just like Mommy said he would, and he'd searched, and he'd missed, and he would probably try again.
