I’d been about to ask Atlas what would come next—if he might be able to predict how this story would play in the current news cycle—when the sudden sound of glass shattering made Wallis scream. I saw the alarm in Cricket’s eyes before Atlas pulled me down with him behind the island. My back slammed against his broad chest as he curled—fell?—around me, his arm around my waist. For a moment I was completely encircled; he’d even placed a hand on the top of my head. But no debris fell, no sound, even, followed the initial crash.

“Are you all right?” he asked me. Then, louder, to everyone: “Are we all okay?”

“What the actual fuck,” cried Wallis, her voice wavering.

Atlas’s grip loosened, and he scooted around so he could see my face.

I nodded. “I’m all right,” I told him, wanting to appear brave.

He pushed to his feet, and made for the front of the house, ignoring my pleas to be careful.

When I got my shaky legs under me, I circled the island and helped Cricket up.

“What on earth?” she said, breathless, as she got her bearings.

Wallis made a move for the kitchen door, but I yanked her back.

“It’s okay!” Atlas announced from the living room. “It’s just a brick.”

Indeed, as we discovered when we joined him, the brick had torn through the bay window overlooking P Street, leaving a comet’s tail of glass both inside and out. Georgetown bricks—old South bricks, Jeffersonian bricks—are the color of rust and amber and clay, but this brick was new, almost lipstick red. I wondered, as it taunted us from Cricket’s rug, if someone had gone to a home improvement store and bought it. How much did one brick cost? The brick through the window, such an old-fashioned way of delivering hate.

“Did you see who did it?” Wallis asked Atlas.

“I’m going to find out.” Atlas threw on his coat.

Cricket protested, as did Wallis, but I’d seen his face change, the slight reshuffling of his features, turning him from polite guest to man on a mission. He was a journalist. Here was a story.

“I’ll call the police,” I said.

It was thirty minutes before the officers arrived. Wavering between sympathetic and disinterested, they took our statements and scouted the room, nudging pieces of glass with their boots, explaining how difficult it would be to lift prints from a brick. Only then did Atlas return, with names and numbers of possible eyewitnesses, the addresses of security camera footage, and a dozen pictures of the scene. The officers weren’t nearly as happy to receive this information as I would’ve hoped, but they dutifully jotted it down and departed, giving us absolutely no confidence that we’d ever find the culprit.