“Sorry.” Tessa’s voice from the tiny speaker. But Chevette knew she wasn’t.
“Me too,” Chevette said, as the pedals made a final arc, locking for dismount. She swung the bars up and stepped down, batting at the platform, spoiling Tessa’s shot.
“Une petite problemette. Concerns you, I think.”
“What?”
“Come into the kitchen and I’ll show you.” Tessa reversed one set of props, turning the platform on its axis. Then two forward and it sailed back through the doorway, into the garage. Chevette followed it, pulling a towel from a nail driven into the doorjamb. Closing the door behind her. Should’ve had it closed when she was riding, but she’d forgotten. God’s Little Toy couldn’t open doors. The towel needed washing. A little stiff but it didn’t smell bad. She used it to wipe sweat from her pits and chest. She overtook the balloon, ducked under it, entered the kitchen.
Sensed roaches scurrying for cover. Every flat surface, except the floor, was solid with unwashed dishes, empties, pieces of recording equipment. They’d had a party, the day before the fire, and nobody had cleaned up yet.
No light here now but a couple of telltales and the methodical flicker as the security system flipped from one external night-vision camera to the next. 4:32 A.M. showing in the corner of the screen. They kept maybe half the security shut down because people were in and out all day, and there was always someone there.
Whir of the platform as Tessa brought it up behind her.
“What is it?” Chevette asked.
‘Watch the driveway.”
Chevette moved closer to the screen The deck, slung out over the sand…
The space between the house and the next one. The driveway. With Carson’s car sitting there.
“Shit,” Chevette said, as the Lexus was replaced with the between-houses view on the other side, then a view from a camera under the deck.
“Been there since 3:24.”
Thedeck,..
“How’d he find me?”
Between houses…
“Web search, probably. Image matching. Someone was uploading Pictures from the party. You were in some of them.” The Lexus in the driveway. Nobody in it.
“Where is he)
Between the houses… 35 Under the deck…
“No idea,” Tessa said.
“Where are you?”
Deck again. Watch this and you start to see things that aren’t there. She looked down at the mess on the counter and saw a foot-long butcher knife lying in what was left of a chocolate cake, the blade clotted with darkness.
“Upstairs,” Tessa said. “Best you come up.”
Chevette felt suddenly cold in her bike shorts and T-shirt. Shivered. Left the kitchen for the living room. Pre-dawn gray through walls of glass. English lain stretched, snoring lightly, on a long leather couch, a red LED on his motion-capture suit winking over his sternum. The lower half of Lain’s face never seemed to be in focus to Chevette; teeth uneven, different colors, like he was lightly pixilated. Mad, Tessa said. And never changed the suit he slept in now; kept it laced corset-tight.
Muttered in his sleep, turning his back to her as she passed.
She stood with her face a few inches from the glass, feeling the chill that radiated from it. Nothing on the deck but a ghostly white chair, empty beer cans. Where was he?
The stair to the second floor was a spiral, wedge-shaped sections of very thick wood spun out from an iron shaft. She took that now, the carbon-fiber pedal clips set into the soles of her shoes clicking with each step.
Tessa waited at the top, slim blonde shadow bulked in a puffy coat Chevette knew was burnt-orange in daylight. “The van’s parked next door,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Up the coast. My grant came through. I was up talking to Mum, telling her that, when the boyfriend arrived.”
“Maybe he just wants to talk,” Chevette said. She’d told Tessa about him hitting her that time. Now she half regretted it.
“I don’t think that’s a chance you want to take. We’re away, right? See? I’m packed.” Bumping her hip against the bulging rectangle of a gear bag slung from her shoulder.
“I’m not,” Chevette said. 36 “You never unpacked, remember?” Which was true. “We’ll go out over the deck, go ’round past Barbara’s, get in the van: we’re gone.”