“I took it from your pocket when we were at Gwen’s.” Her voice is full of regret, but it lasts all of two seconds before she perks up. “But Cathy said I could come. She said any time before four o’clock was fine.”
Aimee plucks the phone from her daughter’s hand. “What did I tell you about taking my phone without asking?”
“But you were busy,” she wheedles.
“You shouldn’t take my phone, Noa.”
“Sorry.” Noa lowers her head.
Aimee looks at her messages and sure enough, there’s a back-and-forth with Cathy. She inhales sharply.
“Noa Helen Crowder, you cannot do that. Ever.” Aimee’s tone is angrier than she intends. Her daughter recoils.
“But you said you would ask her,” Noa says, quiet but determined.
“No, I didn’t say that. And that still doesn’t give you the right to text people on my phone.”
“Yes, you did,” Noa says with the confidence of the righteous. “You said so. You said,I’ll ask her. You said it this morning in the kitchen.”
Did she? Aimee can’t remember. Maybe she did say that, just to get Noa to stop badgering her. This morning in the kitchen seems a world away. A chaotic, normal world where the biggestproblems were childcare, not murdered husbands and fatherless children.
“Anyway,” Noa says. “She doesn’t mind. She said so.”
How can she explain to her daughter that even when people say they don’t mind, they might actually mind? A lot. Noa can be so literal.Literal. Rigid.Those were some of the words that Noa’s teacher had used to describe her.
The youngest of her three half brothers was the same way as a child, and it had befuddled her family until he was diagnosed with being on the autism spectrum. The diagnosis helped him get services at school and opened up new ways for her dad and Deb to support him, but it didn’t change him. He is in his thirties now and still lives at home, in a tiny house they built for him on the back of their property. He works in the family nursery business, in the billing department, and by all accounts is excellent at what he does. But he isn’t independent by any means. Life’s responsibilities, what some people calladulting, just elude him. Her dad and stepmom pay his utilities, shop for his food, and send in a cleaner once a week to make sure things haven’t gotten too bad.
Is that what is in store for Noa?
Aimee shakes the thought from her head. She’s getting ahead of herself. She hasn’t read the report yet. Lots of kids are literal or have impulse issues, and they grow up to live full, independent lives. The news of Anton’s death is affecting her, scaring her. Something so terrible and violent happening in such a safe place has shattered her sense of security. The sound of boys screeching from the kitchen echoes through the house and Noa flinches. She has always been sensitive to loud noises and bright lights. Spending the day here with four boys and with Lisa, who would just tell her to get over it, would be brutal for her. Cathy was a former teacher. She was good with kids. Her house was serene, set on several acres.
“Fine, get in the truck. You can go to Cathy’s.”
“Really?” Noa runs outside toward the truck without waiting for a response. Aimee calls out to Lisa that she is taking off, and that Noa is coming with her. She doesn’t stick around to hear what Lisa has to say. Once outside, she watches Noa climb in on the passenger side. She is halfway to the truck when someone calls out to her. She turns to see the detective emerging from the sedan parked in front of Gwen’s.
“Hey, hold on a minute!” He waves at her, and she stops, only a few feet from her truck.
“Can I help you?” She is alarmed that he was clearly waiting for her.
The detective looks past her at Noa. “Sorry, I don’t mean to hold you and your daughter up, Ms. Stern, but I meant to ask you this earlier. We’ll be canvasing the neighbors to see if anyone has security footage of last night. You know, Ring cameras, that sort of thing. Trying to figure out exactly when Mr. Khoury might have left the neighborhood. Do you have a camera at your house?”
Aimee nods. “We have a doorbell camera.”
“Great. Is it accessible from your phone?”
“You want me to look now?” She glances over at Noa in the front seat.
“If you don’t mind,” the detective says. “I’m interested in nine o’clock on.”
Aimee doesn’t feel she has a choice. She pulls up the app on her phone and then angles the device so the detective can see it. “It records any motion detected,” Aimee says, feeling vulnerable, as if she is about to expose some terrible secret about herself. She clicks on the video from the night before and starts it at nine.
The two of them watch a man Aimee does not recognize walk up the street with a small dog, whom he allows to come up onto their lawn and take a dump.
“That’s not right,” the detective says.
The video skips ahead, showing a man turn up their front path, a little unsteady on his feet. He keeps touching the side of his head. Aimee swallows a gasp. “That’s Anton,” she says. He steps closer to the front door and turns slightly, revealing a bloody gash across his forehead.
A moment later, Scott steps out onto the front stoop. His coat is on, and he pulls the door behind him. Together the two of them head back down the path and disappear out of the camera frame, somewhere on the darkened street.