Page 57 of 2 Sisters Murder Investigations

Baby turned to the guy. He went willingly. The consequences of not getting a move on were plain. Baby watched him slide carefully out the window, legs first, and drop onto the grass below with a grunt. With her T-shirt held to her mouth and nose, her head already spinning from smoke inhalation, Baby closed her eyes and jumped out the window.

CHAPTER63

ARTHUR FUSSED OVER BABYall the way back to the house. There was blood running down her left leg, enough to leave a row of bare footprints on the sidewalk. The kids she rescued had disappeared into the crowd, seemingly unharmed. Firefighters had finally shown up.

The front door was hanging open and Mouse was standing at the gate barking when they arrived back at the house. The old man and the girl froze at the sight of the hall light spilling out onto the path.

“Did you ... ?” Baby said.

“No,” Arthur said.

They went in through the gate, closed it behind them. The dog snuffled at Baby’s fingertips, whimpering, as she and Arthur went inside. At least it was clear they were alone. If there had been someone else around, Mouse’s focus would have been on the intruder.

In the kitchen, every cabinet door was hanging open. Arthur strode forward but Baby stopped him. “Don’t touch anything,” she said.

“We better turn the power off, I guess, in case something’s wired up again.” He sighed. Baby went back out, opened the fuse box, and shut the electricity off. The relief she felt was minuscule. When she returned, she found Arthur lighting candles and placing them around the kitchen. The air seemed changed, somehow tainted.

Baby took her phone from the coffee table in the living room and opened the security-camera app. She rolled the footage from the hidden cameras and found what she was looking for. At the front of the house, a small female figure in a black hoodie appeared, walking with confidence, hands thrust deep into her pockets. She slipped silently through the gate, shut it behind her, then went and pushed the unlocked front door open. Instead of going into the house, she bolted around the side. Mouse appeared, rushing out the front door, his attention immediately captured by the crowd in the street. The figure in the hoodie went around the back of the house, disappeared inside, came out again in mere seconds, and jogged off into the dusk.

Arthur joined Baby and the two of them stood in the candlelight and watched the footage a few times in silence. Baby could hear firefighters at the property on the corner of Waterway Street trying to disperse the crowds. She could hear Mouse in the kitchen munching kibble from his bowl.

“She was in the house for only a few seconds,” Arthur said. “Maybe she was just getting the lay of the land.”

“No, that’s Su Lim Marshall, and she’s done something,” Baby said. “Look at the way she walks. Look at the purpose. She lured Mouse away, then came in and did something. And we have no idea what. She might have sprayed contact poison on our pillows or towels. She might have put something in the food. We need to throw out everything, Arthur. Empty the cabinets. We’ll have to wash all the plates and glasses and cutlery. Better yet, throw them out too. Throw out everything from the bathroom. All the medications. The soap and shampoo.”

“Wait, wait, wait. We don’t know for sure it’s Marshall,” Arthur said. “Could have been some kid from the street looking for our wallets while we were out.”

“It’s her,” Baby said. She had watched the footage a dozen times. “I saw her at the Enorme offices. I recognize her size and her shape. But it’s more than that. I told you she made a mistake when she hired Chris Tutti to take you out, Arthur. She’s not gonna make the same dumb move twice. Su Lim Marshall came here herself. She lit the fire down on the corner as a distraction and then came in here. We’ve just gotta make sure that whatever trap she set for us, we don’t fall into it.”

Baby went into the kitchen and grabbed a garbage bag. She tugged open the fridge and started loading items into the bag. Arthur opened the cabinets and began doing the same.

They both turned when Mouse gave a retching cough.

CHAPTER64

MY SLEEP WAS FITFUL,full of nightmares cut short by panicked wakefulness. Living so close to the ocean since I moved to LA less than a year ago, I’d gotten spoiled by the comforting night music — the crunch of the waves, the chatter of gulls, the sound of people clumping along on the esplanade. Here, there was only ringing silence that gave way to sinister suggestions of danger — a scrape, a scuttle, a squeak.

I gave up on sleep at six thirty a.m., washed my face, and dressed. There were fewer overnight voicemails to the 2 Sisters Detective Agency about the Hansen case than there had been before Troy was arrested, but there were still fifteen or twenty, and some of the numbers had intriguing international codes. I listened to a few while I brewed coffee in the sticky little machine.

“My name is Etienne Durand. I’m calling from Pierre Fonds, in France, about the Troy Hansen case — ”

“This is Sarah from Nashville — ”

“Bob Thompson. I’m a resident of Cape Town — ”

There were two cars in the lot when I left my room at seven. A tired-looking couple unloaded bags from a camper van into the room closest to the reception office, and the clerk had arrived for the day. I returned my key and stood looking out the front windows while he finalized my payment.

Across the street from the motel, parked by the edge of the woods, was a beat-up Ford pickup with flaking army-green paint. The morning sun was at such an angle that it bounced off the windshield and made it impossible for me to get a view of the driver.

“That truck,” I said to the clerk. “Was it there when you — ”

Before I could finish, the truck started up and drove away. I paid my bill and left.

But the truck was in my rearview mirror again as I pulled into Ukiah around seven thirty. It sent a cold tingle up my spine, an instinct I didn’t fully trust, given how tired I was. I told myself that the driver was probably a local farmer or hunter just using the same roads I was. But I took the license plate number down anyway. As I followed the GPS to the Hansen house outside of town, I used voice command to send a text to Jamie.

Can you run a plate for me? And yes, before you ask, I’ll deposit the money right into your account. Fifty dollars for a plate check, as usual, but I’ll double it for a response in under an hour.

I had the burning sense that I’d just wasted a hundred dollars on my own paranoia.

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