She didn’t like to have her car seen at her house. She didn’t want anyone knowing who she was or where she lived. Instead, she drove the T-Bird to the very end of the park’s paved roads, near deserted picnic grounds. Twenty yards away, a sidewalk led to an open gate in the fence. She got out and slipped between the squat palm trees. She heard rustling and cackling from a brood of chickens that wandered in and out of the park from a nearby hobby farm. A peacock screamed not far away. She ducked through the gate and hugged the fence for another block until she was across the street from their house.

Overgrown oaks crowded the roof. The house dated to the 1960s and was surrounded by a warped wooden fence that Deacon was always promising to fix. The roof needed help, too; it was missing shingles from the last big storm, and it leaked over the toilet in her bathroom, dripping on her head. A sign warned trespassers against dogs, but they had never owned a dog. She didn’t see the Mercedes in the driveway, and she didn’t expect Deacon for hours.

She let herself inside. The house smelled of the fish she’d microwaved for dinner the previous night. The two of them weren’t the best housekeepers, especially during campaign season. Junk mail and newspapers filled the counters and tabletops. The open wooden surfaces were gray with dust. Rather than turn on a light, she made her way in the dark toward her bedroom on the south side of the house, looking toward the park. There, she pulled the heavy curtains shut and switched on an overhead light.

Half a dozen white department store mannequins stared at her with empty eyes. She could see them in the full-length mirror, too, as if the bedroom were populated with ghosts frozen in odd poses. Deacon thought it was weird. She’d named them when she was a teenager: Ditty, Sexpot, Petunia, Rickles, Harley, and Bon Bon. They wore different wigs and outfits, suitable for disguises. A longhaired hippy. A blonde bombshell. A punk-tattooed biker chick with fire-red hair. She’d been all of those women in the past year.

She hadn’t spent much time being herself.

Peach kicked off her Crocs and flopped backward onto her twin bed. She spread her arms and legs in an X and stared at the ceiling, which was webbed with hairline cracks in the plaster. She knew she should eat, but she wasn’t hungry. All she wanted to do was sleep, but she hadn’t slept for days.

Her phone rang. Sighing, she squeezed it out of her pocket. The number was blocked.

‘Hello?’

‘Is this Peach Piper?’

‘Who is this?’ she asked.