She went to his desk next, pulled out all the drawers, and poured them out like jugs of water. She sifted through the debris without seeing what she wanted, but she knew she would find what she was looking for eventually. She knew Finn. With her face sober and emotionless, she pulled all of his clothes off the hangers in the closet, pulled the board games down off the dusty shelf, and felt along the grainy surface of the wood with outstretched fingers. When she found nothing, she dragged the mattress off Finn’s bed and then flipped the box spring off the frame.

Nothing.

She toppled the black nightstand to the floor with one hand. The lamp came with it, crashing and breaking. She bent over and peered at the underside of the nightstand and nodded grimly to herself.

There it was.

A bulging manila envelope was taped to the unfinished wood with duct tape that was losing its stickiness, because it had been pulled off and resealed countless times. Rikke grabbed the envelope. Slabs of tape came with it. She ripped the flap and extracted the dog-eared sheaf of papers inside. She went through each one carefully, studying every picture. They were grainy color photographs, printed on the inkjet on Finn’s desk. Blurry images, taken at night. It didn’t matter. She could see clearly enough what they were.

Teenage girls.

When she had seen them all, she shoved them back into the envelope. On the opposite wall, beside Finn’s desk, was a metal trash can. She emptied it of garbage and then put the envelope inside. She hunted for a box of matches amid the chaos she had created on the floor, then lit a match and dropped it inside the trash can, where the wispy fire smoldered on the paper and grew into a widening torch of flame. Smoke and orange lightning belched from the can. The envelope and all the photographs curled into flakes of black ash that floated in the room like coal-colored snow. In the hallway, the smoke alarm honked in protest. Rikke ignored it.

When it was over, the metal inside was scorched. She took a ruler, got down on her knees, and hacked at the warm ashes, turning them into dust. Her skin was streaked with soot. She got up and wiped her hands on her shorts, leaving black fingerprints.

The computer was next. And the camera. They would all go in the river sometime during the middle-night hours. You couldn’t erase things like that. Someone who knew what they were doing could always find them again.

Rikke heard a noise in the hall and looked up.

Finn was in the doorway.

22
___________

Tish parked in an alley behind the Kitch, where it was dark except for a soft yellow glow from inside the club windows. A diagonal rain swept the street as she climbed out of her Civic. She unfolded an umbrella, held it at an angle like a flag, and splashed through the puddles in her heels around the corner of the building toward the high door. The four-story clubhouse towered above her, regal and imposing in red brick, like a rich man’s mansion. Hollow-eyed Indian gargoyles guarded the entrance and stared at her disapprovingly. By the time she slipped inside, her white dress was speckled with rain spots. She flipped her hair, and water sprayed onto the wine red carpet.