Chapter 14
The apartment smelled different the next morning. Not like home anymore. Like dust and cold coffee and the cleaner they'd used on the table where they'd taken prints.
A deputy was parked out front of our building. Not the same one as last night. This one was younger, with his window down, drinking from a gas station cup. He nodded at my mom when we pulled up. She'd borrowed Elena's — no, she was Elena — she'd borrowed a county victim advocate's car to drive us from the church lot where we'd slept on cots.
That morning we'd slept late and nobody woke us for school.
Elena unlocked our door and held it open for me. "We photograph first," she said. "Then we pack. Only what we need."
I nodded. My breathing sounded loud in the quiet. The rug was still there in the middle of the living room, taped at the corner where they'd marked it. The tech had said to leave it. Don't roll it, don't shake it out.
Elena took out her phone. Her hands weren't shaking anymore but she moved slow, like she was making sure I saw each step. She stood in the doorway and took a wide shot of the whole room. Then the kitchen, the sink where two cups still sat. Then my small room, the mattress on the floor, the faded t-shirt I'd left folded the night she vanished.
"You're good at this," I said.
"I've got a list," she said, and almost smiled. She showed me the notes app. Photo hallway. Photo locks. Photo rug condition. It had check marks next to each one. "Deputy said take more than you think you need. So we keep our deposit."
We packed into the two duffels the advocate had given us. Not our old suitcases. Elena said we weren't taking furniture. The landlord would store it or toss it. We took clothes, my school papers, her ID folder, the toothbrushes. I folded my faded t-shirt — the one under my brown jacket in the plaza — and put it on top.
When we got to the rug, Elena stopped. She knelt and didn't touch it. She just took three close photos of the edge where they'd found the thin scrape.
"Leave it?" I asked.
"Leave it," she said. "Evidence stays. We don't need it."
She stood and looked around once more. The apartment was almost empty and already felt like someone else's.
Outside, the older man was waiting on the sidewalk.
He wasn't by the door. He was a good ten feet back, near the deputy's car, in the same navy suit but no tie today, his gray hair combed but not slicked. His hands were in his pockets. When he saw us come out with the duffels, he didn't step forward.
Elena saw him first. She set her duffel down on the stoop.
"Mr. Whitaker," she said. Her voice was even.
He nodded. "Elena."
He looked at me. "You get everything you needed?"
"We left the rug," I said.
"Good," he said. "Good call."
He didn't ask to carry anything. He just stayed where he was, on the public sidewalk where anyone could see him, not on our little concrete step. I realized he was waiting to be invited and wasn't going to invite himself.
Elena went back inside to get the last bag — her papers — and I stood on the stoop. The deputy watched without getting out.
"I've got something for you," Elena said when she came back out. She zipped her jacket and pulled out a small sealed plastic sleeve, then a second one.
She handed me the second one. Inside was a clean reprint on thick photo paper. The same image as the worn card — the foundation gala photo, her younger, smiling, standing next to a much younger Whitaker by a banner — but crisp, the edges straight, the stain gone. No fray.
"The original stays filed," she said. "Detective pulled it from evidence this morning to copy it. Chain of custody. The worn one stays in the locker."
I held the reprint flat in both hands. It was the same picture but it didn't feel the same. It wasn't soft at the corners. It didn't smell like my pocket.
"So I can keep this one?" I asked.
"You can keep that one," she said. "Forever. Put it where you want. The old one did its job."
I slid the reprint carefully into the front pocket of my duffel, between my school papers so it wouldn't bend. My old brown jacket was folded over my arm. It still had the kneeling dirt on the knees from the plaza, faint gray on the brown.
Elena touched the jacket. "You want to keep wearing it?"
I looked at it. For a long time that jacket was the thing I put on when I didn't want anyone to see my shirt. It was the thing I'd knelt in.
"I want to keep the t-shirt," I said. "This one." I meant the faded one in the duffel. "But the jacket—can we wash it? Like, really wash it?"
Elena's eyes got wet but she didn't make a big thing. She just nodded once. "We'll wash it at the laundry on Main. Hot water. It'll still be yours, just clean."
"Okay," I said. I felt lighter saying it.
Whitaker was still on the sidewalk. Elena looked at him, then at me.
"You want to say anything to him?" she asked, quiet, so only I heard.
I thought about it. My breathing slowed. I stepped down one step, not all the way to the sidewalk, so there was still space between us.
"Thanks for waiting out here," I said to him.
Whitaker's mouth moved a little. Not quite a smile. "Boundary's important," he said. "You tell me where it is, I'll stay there."
Elena picked up both duffels. "We're going to the new place now," she said to him. "The advocate has the key. You can mail anything else through the office."
"Understood," he said. He took his hands out of his pockets, then put them back in. He didn't reach for us.
May you like
We walked past him to the car. The deputy started his engine but didn't follow close. At the car, I turned back once. Whitaker hadn't moved from his spot on the sidewalk, watching us leave but not following, the stone building of our apartment behind him and the street open in front of him.
I got in and closed the door myself.
