As we passed Lena’s house, Rahmia spoke more and more quickly, as if to distract me from the gravitational pull of the familiar place, now so terrifying. There wasn’t any way to tell if someone was inside. The windows weren’t dark, but they were shining with reflected light, which made them just as impenetrable. I imagined Michael standing behind that door, afraid for his life, afraid for us. I could picture every inch of the first floor of that house.

The kitchen must look the same as I remembered, but if I stood there now, every shadow on the wall, every smudge on the grout, would be the afterimage of death. Or it could be nothing. After all, that kitchen was just a room. This house was just a house.

Without realizing it, I had slowed down, and Rahmia was a few steps ahead of the stroller. She turned back. “Kacy, are you okay?”

Despite the warm October day, I was cold as if that house cast a shadow. A shadow like the one that must have been underneath Lena’s broad smile, our shared jokes. Was it me? Did I attract something dark and dangerous?

“What will happen to the house?” I asked. “I mean, if Brady goes to jail, what happens to it?”

Rahmia stayed at a distance, as though she was also afraid of the thing we couldn’t see, unspeakable acts committed within those walls. But it wasn’t the house’s fault. Its builder was the same as mine, the same as hers, the same as Elizabeth’s. Rahmia answered, “I asked Alondra about this. After the investigation is over, and the trial, it might go to family, or it might be sold to pay the lawyers. But the HOA has to discuss things too. There are hundreds of houses in our community. This isn’t the first one where something bad has happened, just the worst.”

My hands relaxed a little on the handle of the stroller, and I started walking again. The HOA as an agent of justice—that seemed as bizarre as anything else that had happened. And then it was behind us and we were at the corner, just as I had been with Lena so many times.

“Do you mind if we stop by and pick up Bibi? I didn’t want to bring her into your home with the baby, but now that she’s safely in the stroller …” Rahmia’s fluttering hands twitched at the canopy, making sure Grace was protected from the sun.

“Sure.” The sunlight felt amazing, but I was having the strangest sensation, like I was simultaneously walking with Lena and Rahmia. That spoiled rat of a dog is her baby, Lena whispered in my head, and I felt a flash of guilt, as though Rahmia would hear.