“Would it be okay if I stayed here tonight?” I asked when Mrs. Chen answered. “Someone broke into my place.”

Reagan wasn’t even there—she was working crazy hours as usual. Her mother set me up in what had been my bedroom as a teenager. The window overlooked the street, and the tree next to it was a favorite spot for blue jays. I had no way to thank her enough.

“Who would break into your room, Dee?” Mrs. Chen asked me, perplexed. “You have no money! What could they take? This city is too dangerous now.”

I lay awake for part of the night, asking myself the same question. As much as I hated Theo, he was an ocean away. Ben seemed like the obvious suspect—he’d wanted me to hand over the memory card—but another part of my brain was stuck on Theo’s father. I’d mentioned the card to him. Even though I hadn’t said what was on it, he surely knew Caro had a memory card on her when she died. The cops said it had been given back to her family, so maybe the old man even knew what was on it.

I told myself I was being paranoid. Aubrey Sutton-Braithwaite was definitely out to get me. I could see him breaking into my room and smashing everything I owned for fun. But he wouldn’t care about the memory card.

In the morning, I managed to stop Mrs. Chen from waking Reagan up.

“Do you have any idea how hard she works?” I asked.

“Let me tell you about working hard,” she shot back. I listened quietly while she regaled me with stories I may have heard a few times before. In the end, I promised to go to Mass with her—on a Saturday, no less—and that mollified her enough to let Reagan rest.

Caro’s funeral aside, it had been a long time since I’d set foot in a church. Mrs. Chen attended St. Adalbert’s. Growing up, I’d taken First Communion at the Church of the Ascension, another Elmhurst institution. It lay on the north side of the train tracks that bisected the neighborhood, just like my father’s house did. St. Adalbert’s was on the south side, which meant the odds of running into him were low.

“You have a mask?” Mrs. Chen asked me on our way in. “People still wear them here.”

“Always.” I pulled one out of my bag and put it on. It had become normal to carry one at all times, especially for taking public transit. That was ironic because New York’s subway was better ventilated than most buildings in the city, yet it remained a collective source of anxiety.