No one’s living there now. It used to be the Carlyle house, back when Roy and Laurie lived in it, before Roy left Laurie for his assistant at his advertising firm and Laurie took an overdose of sleeping pills. It didn’t kill her, but it left her in limbo, a coma that she’s been in for two years. Roy and the new wife moved to Houston because he couldn’t live with the silent shaming of his neighbors. He never sold the house. Is he keeping it for Laurie in case she wakes up? Or for his two kids, who will always hate him? Maybe he thinks giving them the house they grew up in will buy him their love. Or out of a sense of guilt? No one knows.

The house usually sits empty, except when Roy’s nomadic brother moves in for a few weeks, sometimes for a couple of months. This often happens at Christmas and Easter. The lawn gets cut regularly by a work crew, but nothing can make the house look lived in except people actually living there. Roy’s brother moves back and forth between Austin and Albuquerque, and no one knows quite what his business is.

What matters is that the house is empty, and Ned Frimpong gave her a key just minutes before they found his mother’s body, back when the world was still full of promise.

He used to babysit for the Carlyles. Laurie gave him a key and Roy forgot that he had it in the wake of their overwhelming tragedy. Ned forgot he had it, too, until he needed it.

Ned appears to have forgotten her as well; he’s ignoring her texts and her voicemails. Or maybe his father’s taken away his phone. She’s scared to go to this meeting by herself, but this is the only way to find a path out of this for her and Ned.

The house has a back deck. She goes up its steps, carefully, trying to make sure the wood doesn’t creak. She doesn’t want a neighbor to hear her. She opens the back door with the key and goes inside. She’s there before Marland. The rooms are still furnished—a sofa, chairs, a few books on the shelf. The power is on, still paid for; she hears the gentle hum of the heater. She doesn’t dare turn on a light; the neighbors would think the nomadic brother was back, but there’s no car in the driveway and they might investigate or call the police. She wonders if Laurie Carlyle might ever wake up and wander back in, unaware of the time she’s lost, unaware that the house sleeps as well.

She hears a noise.

Someone is already here.

She sees him in the doorway leading to the kitchen.

“Hello, Julia. Thank you for coming. It looks like Ned couldn’t make it.”