Fractured Read online

  Ahem.

  “Sure.” I stepped across the threshold and put my coat into her waiting hand. Our fingers brushed momentarily. “Your hands are freezing.”

  “Oh, I’ve been typing. That always happens. Closing in on thirty thousand words.”

  “What’s that?”

  “In the new book. Only seventy thousand to go!”

  She rubbed her hands together. She was wearing black yoga pants, a white T-shirt, and a gray cardigan that belted at the waist. Her hair was pulled into a sloppy ponytail. She looked tired, like she’d just woken up from a bad nap.

  “So, what’s wrong with my network?”

  I explained in a bit more detail, leaving out the snooping I’d been doing. Her eyes, which were unfocused since she opened the door, sharpened and then widened in alarm.

  “You mean anyone can get into my documents?”

  “Yes.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “There’s no password on your network, for one, but there are other protections we could put in place.”

  “But I put a password on it, I’m sure of—damn it.”

  “What?”

  “The twins.”

  “They took the password off?”

  “It must’ve been one of them.”

  “That’s kind of sophisticated for a six-year-old.”

  “That’s what I’m always thinking, too, but then they do these things . . . I think they’re born with that information implanted in them now. At the park the other day I’m sure I heard a kid who was too young to talk say ‘Netflix.’”

  “Did you want me to fix the problem?”

  “Could you? That would be fantastic.”

  She led me to the stairs and up to the landing. It widened out into an alcove where she’d set up her writing desk so that it looked out on the muddied waters of the Ohio River. It looked black that day, like it might frost over.

  “This is a great space,” I said. “I’ve never been upstairs in this house.”

  The walls were painted a sunny yellow. An herb garden grew in a long, rectangular planter on the window ledge. The air smelled of rosemary. It felt like being outside on a sunny day.

  “Yeah, it’s worked out.” She indicated that I should sit in her desk chair. I did, and then she leaned over me to start to type in her password. “Wait, close your eyes.”

  “Uh—” Her hand covered my eyes. I could hear her typing a long word, one character at a time. Her hair brushed my cheek. She smelled salty, as if she hadn’t quite washed off her morning run.

  She took her hand away. “How do you know how to fix this, anyway?”

  “I’m an IT guy. Was, I should say. I was laid off recently.”

  “Oh, no, that’s terrible. Or is it? Did you hate your job?”

  “I sort of did, yeah. But it also kind of sucks being home all day. The job market isn’t great.”

  She leaned away from me. “I hated my first job.”

  “You haven’t always been a writer?”

  “God, no. I worked as a prosecutor for a year after I finished law school. In Montreal.”

  “Oh, like Meredith in The Murder Game.”

  She flinched. “Well, not exactly like that.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “No, I know. I’m overly sensitive.”

  “How’d you end up in Montreal?”

  “My mom’s Canadian, which meant I could go to a good law school like McGill and pay way less tuition.”

  “What about Ohio?”

  “By way of Tacoma. Daniel’s from there. We met at McGill when he was doing his master’s. He was supposed to do his PhD after, but he decided he didn’t want to be an academic, and I hated practicing law, so we moved to Tacoma.” She looked down at the floor. “His parents helped us get on our feet.”

  “That was nice of them.”

  “It was. Anyway, should we get on with it?”

  I went into her network settings and added a password, a series of letters and numbers that meant nothing to me. I picked up a pen and wrote them down on a scrap of paper.

  “You can change this, but I won’t remember it.”

  “Neither will I.”

  “That’s kind of the point. Just keep this paper somewhere safe, but nowhere near your computer.”

  “That sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

  “How so?”

  “There are no places in this house safe from the twins. In fact, I’m fairly certain that if I deliberately hide something, they find it faster.”

  “I remember what that’s like. Okay, then use a phrase that would only make sense to you. Can you think of something?”

  She scrunched up her face. “Got it.”

  I tapped on the keys again to bring up the change password screen. “Okay,” I said. “I’m closing my eyes.”

  Her hand snaked around my face again. That salty smell. Tap, tap, tap. I could feel myself start to get hard like I used to when I was fourteen. Unbidden.

  Before I could remember what I used to do to control myself, she leaned away. I blinked at the screen. A placid view of the ocean stared back at me. I was glad I was wearing a stiff new pair of jeans; they hopefully hid the obvious.

  I cleared my throat. “I can put on some extra firewalls if you’d like?”

  “Please.”

  “I’d need to download some software.”

  “Isn’t that what you’re not supposed to do? Download stuff from the Internet?”

  “This is okay, promise.”

  “Go ahead, then.”

  I opened Safari, and her Facebook page loaded. I thought about mentioning the fact that she should sign out of her account every time if she was concerned about security. But I knew how easy it was to get lazy about that kind of stuff. Besides, I, uh, knew from some browsing of her page that she didn’t tend to post personal things.

  As I typed in the web address for some software I liked, I started talking as a way to try to distract my penis.

  “Facebook is a bad privacy risk.”

  “I know, but I don’t post anything I care about, or about where I am or anything.”

  “They keep changing their privacy settings, though. Like geolocating pictures, for instance. You can turn it off, but then a couple weeks later, you’ll find it’s back on.”

  “Geolocating? You mean something that says where a picture was taken?”

  “That’s right. It’s getting pretty specific. The picture you posted from the Bow Tie Cafe last month said you were in Mount Adams.”

  “The picture I posted from the Bow Tie Cafe?”

  What was wrong with me? I was babbling like a fourteen-year-old, too. Only fourteen-year-old me didn’t talk to girls. He just stood in the corner giving them intense looks because he thought that was how you got girls interested in you.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Is that weird? The etiquette of all this online crap is so fucking complicated these days.”

  “I know. Are you supposed to pretend you didn’t see that awkward photo online or . . .” She laughed. “Anyway, that photo was geolocated?”

  “It was. Here, look.”

  I brought us back to Facebook and scrolled down her page to the pumpkin-chai latte picture. Her location was clearly showing next to her name.

  “That’s not good.”

  “It’s not that big a deal, is it?”

  “Well, kind of. I have a stalker.”

  “Oh, right, I read about . . . ugh, sorry, is that weird?”

  She bit her lip. “You read the article I wrote in Vogue?”

  “I did.”

  “That was just the tip of the iceberg. Honestly, you wouldn’t believe it if I told you. Ha. I used to think it was flattering to have someone stalk you. What was I thinking?”

  “Is that why you moved here?”

  “Partly. Plus, I couldn’t take the weather anymore. Anyway, I thought I saw her the other day, but it was only Ashley.”

  She described what had
happened with Ashley on the street.

  “Did you really think she’d followed you across the country?”

  “Honestly, I wouldn’t put anything past her.”

  I turned back to her screen as the browser closed. A message popped up.

  YOUR NEXT WINDOW WILL OPEN IN TWO HOURS. YOUR MYSANITY TEAM.

  “What the hell?”

  She looked embarrassed. “It’s this program I use to keep me from getting lost in the Internet.”

  “I’ve heard about those. So, is it saving your sanity?”

  “Not as far as I can tell.”

  Today

  John

  9:00 a.m.

  Alicia—Ms. Garson, to Chris—finds us a table at the nearest coffee shop, takes our orders, and acts more like she’s our personal assistant than our chest-tightening, expensive lawyer. It was her suggestion to come here, away from the prying lenses and the hard sidewalk. It’s a typical chain. A line of people in suits checking their phones. The tables crowded with young men and women on their laptops. It smells like French roast and heated-up breakfast sandwiches.

  I hate these kinds of places.

  Hanna’s the one who picked Alicia to represent us. She asked around and was told Alicia was the one we wanted. She has a reputation as a wizard who gets things done that no one thought possible.

  We could use some magic right about now.

  My jury’s still out on whether Alicia’s magical. But the one time I saw her in court, at the bail hearing, she snapped into focus, stared down the prosecuting attorney, and intimidated the judge into getting what she’d promised us, a bonded release.

  I’ve wondered more than once if the flutter is an act, but I guess it doesn’t matter. I’ll take flutter if it means this nightmare will end today.

  When we’re all seated and be-coffeed, Alicia launches into a rapid-fire reminder of how the grand jury system works. Nine citizens are chosen every couple of weeks from registered voters. They hear an outline of the evidence from the principal witnesses, led by the prosecutor. The accused doesn’t usually testify. So, based on one side of the story, they decide whether there’s sufficient evidence to charge someone with a crime. The standard of proof is low. Their deliberations are secret. No lawyer but the prosecutor is allowed in the room. The jury doesn’t even need to be unanimous. If a majority thinks there’s probable cause, the result is an indictment. It all sounds like more than what nine strangers should be able to decide on a regular Monday.

  “The First Assistant Prosecutor will lay out his case this morning. He’ll tell the grand jury what he thinks happened and what he thinks the charges should be. They’ve asked eight witnesses besides yourselves to be available to testify—”

  “So many?” I ask.

  “It’s not typical. But because of our strategy—because you’ll all be testifying today—they aren’t taking any chances.” She checks them off on her fingers. “The medical examiner, the first officer on the scene, the lead detective, Heather Stanhope—”

  “Her?” I can’t help interjecting. “What the hell?”

  “Who is she?” Chris asks. His tie is loose around his throat, his shirt collar pulling away from his skin. I hear my father’s voice telling me to Straighten up and fly right. A military man, the way we presented ourselves was his priority.

  “She was stalking Julie . . . Mrs. Prentice,” I say.

  Alicia shakes her head.

  Need-to-know basis, she’d told us once. There were certain things we didn’t need to be told if we didn’t know them already. She said that at our first meeting: if she didn’t think it was helpful for us to be aware of something, she reserved the right not to tell us. We could take her condition or leave it. She, on the other hand, needed to know everything. Whether we thought it was relevant or not. All of our secrets, that’s what she asked for. No surprises. Surprises, apparently, are what topple plans.

  And some ridiculous part of me couldn’t help but think: And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.

  “John?”

  “Yes?”

  “Alicia asked you a question twice,” Hanna says. She looks disappointed. A look I’m too familiar with, these days.

  “Did you remember something?” Alicia asks. “Something important?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then what, John?” Hanna says. “Pull yourself together. You’ve been in dream town all week.”

  I feel a twinge of anger. Hanna’s the one, after all, who was crying in the car not half an hour ago. But she’s right. I’ve been in dream town for a lot longer than that. And look where it’s brought us.

  It’s just that sometimes you can’t shake a dream. It clings to you like film.

  “What are they doing here together?” Hanna says.

  I turn to look. Susan and Brad Thurgood walk past the coffee shop, their eyes cast down, holding on to each other as if waves are trying to rock them out of a lifeboat.

  “They were friends,” Chris says. “Mrs. Thurgood and Mrs. Prentice. But they had some kind of fight, I think.”

  Three pairs of adult eyes travel to Chris. We wait for him to say something more.

  “What?” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “You’re the only ones allowed to know things?”

  Pine Street Neighborhood Association Monthly Newsletter

  January Edition

  Hello Neighbors!

  Brrr. It’s cold out there! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. Paul, Ashley, Tanner and I certainly did!

  If I may be allowed a humble brag [blushes!], our own Ashley just won a local photography contest! And with her camera phone, too. So, if you see Ashley trying to take your picture, say cheese!

  A reminder that our campaign to have TWO speed bumps added to our street is still ongoing! You can sign the petition on our website: www.pinestreetneighbors.com. In the meantime, please SLOW DOWN! Someone—name available upon request—drove by my house so quickly the other day, their tires were squealing!

  Susan Thurgood will be hosting the February block party. If you haven’t taken a look at the rules, please pop on over to the website, as there have been further amendments.

  For those of you in the book club, this month’s read will be Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld (that’s the new Pride & Prejudice—I am so excited!) But oh my goodness, what did I find when I was book browsing at Joseph-Beth? It turns out we have a famous author hiding among us! Julie (Apple) Prentice is definitely one for keeping secrets!

  Stay warm.

  Cindy Sutton,

  PSNA Chair and Founder, 2009–present

  Another Day in Paradise

  Julie

  Nine months ago

  We skipped the January block party—the New Year’s Holiday Countdown Extravaganza!—preferring instead to have a quiet evening at home, reminiscing about the crazy times we used to have in Seattle every year when we were young and foolish. We had a good laugh telling each other “Christie Brown” stories about our old friend who always seemed to get lost late at night whenever we spent any time in the city together.

  The twins passed out at about ten, exhausted from the Harry Potter marathon we’d let them watch—I want to see the bas-lisk, Mommy, Sam kept saying, make him come back!—and Daniel and I made love illicitly on the couch as the ball dropped on the television, the first time we’d had sex outside of a locked bedroom door in years. I had one too many glasses of champagne and was feeling sexy and restless. A dangerous combination that had, in the past, led to Christie Brown–like trouble. But what could happen there, in safe Ohio, in our fortified house while our neighbors partied sans alcohol down the street?

  A loud smack! against our window half an hour later disrupted our postcoital slumber, setting off the sensor alarm and bringing the terrified children tumbling down the stairs as I failed once, then twice, to enter the right code into the shrieking keypad. Sam started imitating the noise; Melly had her hands clasped over her
ears. Daniel yanked open the front door and rushed outside with his shoes half on, letting the midnight air stream in. When I finally got the alarm to stop, he was standing in the middle of the road, watching the backs of a couple of teenagers as they pelted down the street, their hoots of laughter echoing into the night.

  I looked at our front window. There was a large snowball stuck to it. Gummy snow was falling from the dark sky.

  “Daniel?”

  “It was just a bunch of kids playing a prank.”

  “What’s a prank?” Melly asked, clinging to my leg. Sam was trying to put on his rain boots and do up his coat at the same time.

  “A kind of joke,” I said. “Sam, stop that. You have to go back to bed. It’s really late.”

  “But I wanna have a snowball fight.”

  “Good idea, buddy,” Daniel said, stooping to scoop up a handful of snow with his bare hands. He was in boxers and a T-shirt, and he was wearing his tennis shoes like they were slippers. He lobbed the snowball at me slowly. It splattered at my feet.

  Melly laughed.

  “Do it again, Daddy! Do it again!”

  “Can we, Mom?” Sam asked. “Please?”

  “Please, Momsy?”

  “Come on, babe,” Daniel said. “It’s beautiful out here.”

  “You guys are crazy.”

  The twins knew that meant yes, and they vocalized their happiness as I bent down to help Sam finish suiting up, then threw a coat and boots on Melly. I put on my own coat and grabbed Daniel’s from its hook. His whole body was shivering so hard I could hear his teeth clacking.

  Sam ran to stand by Daniel, handing him his coat.

  “Girls against boys!”

  “How about Mommy and Daddy against the twins?”

  “Grown-ups can’t be on the same team!” Sam said.

  Melly and I walked into the street. There was only one light on in John and Hanna’s house, casting Sam’s and Daniel’s shadows toward us on the half-covered pavement. I thought I saw one of their curtains flutter. I blinked the heavy snow out of my eyes. The curtains were steady. Daniel beckoned me to him, then nudged Sam toward his sister.