It’s a rare thing that all four of us are gathered around the breakfast table.
Since the kids didn’t eat their pancakes yesterday, I am making chocolate chip pancakes again today. It’s nothing amazing. I am using the pancake batter that comes from the grocery store, where all I have to do is add water and mix. Then I pour little circles into the frying pan with lots of oil. I use way too much oil for my pancakes. I am basically deep frying them, but the kids love it. Actually, Enzo does too.
And then my final touch is the chocolate chips. I put about eight or nine chips in each pancake. I try to make the chocolate chips look like happy faces. It is only partially successful.
“Smells good, Millie,” Enzo says. His voice sounds cheerful, but he must be at least a little panicked inside after what Cecelia told him yesterday.
Finally, I lay out four heaping plates of pancakes on the table. The kids dig in with more gusto than yesterday. For all they know, this mess with the police is all over.
“It is raining now but it will stop this afternoon,” Enzo comments. “Nico, we should practice baseball again when I get back from work.”
“Do you think they would let me on a Little League team again next year?” Nico asks around a mouth full of pancakes.
I’m not sure about the rules, but after punching a kid in the gut, Nico might be banned for life. “I am not sure,” Enzo says, “but maybe
over the summer, we practice soccer instead. We get you just as good as at baseball. Okay?”
Nico nods. “Okay!”
It’s this perfect calm family moment that I dreamed of when I first saw this house. The four of us, sitting around the breakfast table in the kitchen, eating pancakes. If I could take a family photo, it would be at this very moment.
And then the doorbell rings, spoiling everything.
“I get it.” Enzo leaps out of his seat so quickly, I’m worried he already knows who is at the door. “Will be right back.”
Of course, I follow him. Whatever is going on, I want to know what it is. At this point, I’m fairly sure nothing good is waiting on the other side of that door.
When I get out to the foyer, Enzo has already opened the front door. Cecelia is standing there, her pants suit drenched, her blond hair plastered to her head from the rain. If she were wearing any makeup, it would be running down her face.
“Come in,” Enzo tells her. “You are soaked!”
Even though Cecelia is dripping wet, she barely seems to notice as she pushes past us into the foyer. “I’m glad I got here in time. We need to talk.”
I look over at the kitchen, making sure the kids aren’t standing at the entrance, listening in. I have a feeling whatever Cecelia has to say, I don’t want the kids to hear it.
“Do you want to sit down?” I ask her. “I can get you a towel or—” “The police are on their way here to arrest you, Enzo,” Cecelia
interrupts me.
Even though she warned me yesterday, this revelation knocks the wind out of me. Enzo looks equally shaken.
“The police gave me a heads-up this morning as a courtesy.” She pushes a few strands of wet hair from her face. “They are obtaining a warrant for your arrest, and I would expect they will be here shortly. I got here as fast as I could so we could talk before it happens.”
“Why?” he cries. “What do they have? They have nothing.”
“Benito had some information for me,” she says. “We talked while I was driving here. As I told you yesterday, they did find something
when they were here. They found what they believe is the murder weapon.”
“Is ridiculous!” Enzo rants. “Murder weapon? What—one of our kitchen knives?”
“No, a pocketknife,” she says. “It had your initials on it—EA. They found it stuffed in a drawer.”
I turn my head to look at my husband. I know that knife—the one his father gave him. He always carries it around.
“And,” she adds, “it looked like it had been wiped clean, but there were still traces of blood on it. They did a rush DNA analysis that came back this morning with a match for Jonathan Lowell.”
Enzo’s mouth falls open. He slumps against the wall, looking like his legs are about to give out. Of all the evidence they had against him, this is by far the most damning. But he must have a reason. There must be a reason why his knife has Jonathan’s blood on it. I need to hear his explanation.
I need to hear it now. “Enzo?” I whisper.
“I ” He blinks a few times. “I thought I wiped it all off.”
What?
He stands up straight and takes a shaky breath. “I’m so sorry, Millie,” he says. “I was not honest with you. I am the one who killed Jonathan.”
