I cried out and the jar slipped from my fingers, clipping the edge of the concrete step and rolling into the street.

A preprinted label said Friendship Starter.

CHAPTER

25

THE YOUNG POLICEMAN who showed up seemed unfazed by my frantic explanations about Lena and Brady and the FBI, but he wrote everything down. Jim explained how he’d seen the jar on my parents’ front step when he was picking up Saturday’s mail last night.

My dad kept shifting from one foot to the other, his arms folded across his chest. I knew how much he wished he could fix this, just step in and handle everything. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I’d come here to shelter from danger, but I’d brought it right to my parents’ door.

Even to my eyes, the little jar looked anticlimactic, but the policeman took it with gloved hands and dropped it into a plastic bag. Then he spent a long time talking to someone higher up. Where was his sense of urgency? This was a message from a killer.

Standing on the front lawn of this rented house, I felt so vulnerable and exposed. I didn’t know anyone here; no one was looking out for us. It was just me, my parents, and Grace.

I called Alondra for the fifth time, but it went straight to voice mail again. Emergency, I texted. CALL ME. If Lena had found my parents, maybe we weren’t safe here either. Nothing, not the apartment nor the utilities nor even the mail, came here in my sister’s name, but I didn’t want to take a chance.

As the policeman came back, I asked, “What did they say? Can’t you stay here or send someone to watch the house?”

He shifted from one foot to the other. “They said to bring this in. It wasn’t left here, though, so if they sent anyone out, it would probably be to that other house.”

“But we’re here!” He was going to leave us unprotected, and there was nothing I could do to make him understand. My dad put a hand on my shoulder, but I knew its weight and warmth was a false comfort.

This guy looked so young, probably used to straightforward speeding tickets and noise complaints. I knew the operator hadn’t understood when I’d told her about Lena. This wasn’t some random stalking or a paranoid delusion; it was a message from a killer. They should have sent FBI agents or a SWAT team, something serious. Instead I had a kid whose furrowed brow said he felt sorry for me, he wanted to do the right thing, but he’d been told to collect the evidence. “I hear you,” he said. “I tell you what. Let me take this in, and I’ll see what I can do.” He shook my father’s hand, nodded to me, and headed to his car.