After everyone is in bed for the night, I decide to slip into the Lowells’ backyard with a flashlight.
I wait until after the kids are asleep. Enzo looks like he’s asleep as well. I have no idea how he was able to drift off with everything that happened today, but when I looked down at him on his side of the bed, his eyes were closed and he was snoring softly.
I don’t bother to get dressed because I’m just going into the backyard next door. I put on a pair of pajama pants and stuff my feet into a pair of slippers. That should be good enough.
The entire front of 12 Locust is cordoned off by police tape, and the inside of the house is dark—Suzette has clearly found another place to stay that isn’t stained with her husband’s blood. There were a handful of reporters milling about, but Enzo and I stayed inside, and they eventually got bored and left. I called my work and told them that I would need a couple of days off, and they have been very understanding.
Enzo claims there is a way to get into the backyard without parking in front of the house. I want to believe he is right, because if he isn’t, he is the only one who could have killed Jonathan Lowell. And I want so badly to believe that he didn’t do it.
The Lowells’ backyard is enormous compared with ours. You would think that if our house really used to be for the animals, we would at least have a giant backyard, but it pales in comparison to our neighbors’. The grass has been neatly trimmed, courtesy of my husband, and he has
planted and shaped shrubbery along the periphery of the yard. He has also sectioned off an area that Suzette apparently wanted to reserve to start a garden.
It is exactly as he said it would be.
I shine my flashlight around the edges of the yard. I checked a map before I came over, but it was not very revealing. There are plenty of things that exist in real life that might not show up on a map—even a virtual one. That’s why I’m here to look around myself.
I keep my flashlight trained on the shrubs. Enzo did a great job with them. Every single one is perfectly trimmed, without a stray leaf or branch. He is so skillful. Even without Suzette, he would have been able to build his business here. He didn’t need her.
What if what the detective said is true? What if Enzo and Suzette conspired to kill Jonathan and had an agreement to split the life insurance payment?
No. I can’t imagine my husband agreeing to something like that. Enzo is willing to bend the law sometimes, but he’d never kill someone for money. But I also can’t imagine him breaking someone’s fingers.
Enzo has been stressed about the mortgage payments. They are, admittedly, suffocatingly high. We wanted this house so badly, so it was hard to admit that it was a bit out of our price range. He desperately wanted to give his family a nice home in a great neighborhood.
But no. He would not have killed to get us that. I don’t believe it. I can’t.
When I reach the far end of the yard, I hear a sound. A rustling of leaves. I shine my beam in the direction of the sound, and some of the branches move of their own accord. The shadows shift and bend.
It occurs to me that if somebody did come in through the back to kill Jonathan Lowell, they still have access. And here I am, in my pajamas and fuzzy slippers, wandering around the backyard with no weapon whatsoever to defend myself besides my own two hands.
For a second, I imagine Enzo coming into the backyard next door tomorrow morning and finding me with my throat slashed, lying in a pool of blood.
“Hello?” I whisper, aiming the beam of the light squarely at the rustling leaves.
I consider making a run for it. Our own backyard is only a stone’s throw away. After all, Nico was able to hit his baseball into this yard from our own and break a window. If I turn off the flashlight, whoever it is won’t be able to see me anymore.
Unless they have a flashlight of their own.
My heart races as I debate what I should do next. And as I stand there, frozen, I realize I have waited too long.
The intruder is here.
