Jane thought of the fictional Tosca. Thought of this fifteenth-floor apartment, its balcony, and the sorrowing and fearful girl who had imprisoned herself here. How whatever happened to Isabel—and Jane still didn’t exactly know what it was—had almost killed her, sure as a fifteen-story fall.
“Isabel?” Jane heard the apprehension in her own voice. The girl answered her, with that plaintive “no,” so she was not dead. And as long as she wasn’t, this story wasn’t over.
Jane eased open the front door and steeled herself for whatever was to come.
Isabel sat at the kitchen table, the goldfish swimming circles in its bowl beside her.
Jane stopped, planted, not knowing what to say.
“You promised whatever I tell you is confidential, right?” Isabel stood, turning her open laptop toward Jane.
Whatever Isabel was about to show her—and it had to be the identity of her rapist—Jane could not let herself see. No one was jumping off balconies, though. Good.
“I don’t want to know who raped you.” Jane paused as the pieces of a potential puzzle picture clicked into place. Only one chair was near the kitchen table, Isabel’s, so Jane stayed put, relieved the computer screen was too far away to read. “I believe you. But I don’t want to know.”
“But I asked you—”
“Yes, definitely. Confidential.” Jane tried to untangle her responsibilities, and it seemed as if justice was the only one. But justice for who? Jane knew what could happen if you kept your word and kept silent. Next life she would choose an easier career. Like rocket scientist.
“When was Professor Morgan killed?” Isabel asked. Her transformation last night into a hip and attractive college woman had vanished. Now her hair went spiky and wild, a tiny white T-shirt pulled tight over her narrow shoulders, eyes smoky, with exhaustion, maybe. Her dark circles were back. “I know I asked you before. But are you sure? Exactly sure?”
“Well, our sources say between two and four. In the afternoon. Yes, I’m sure as anyone can be.”
“Monday.”
“Monday.”
“And they think Trey…” Isabel swallowed, hard.
Jane could tell she was deciding.
“Trey Welliver killed her then?”
“Yes,” Jane said. “He’s in custody. Charged.”
“He was on the creep list, you know,” Isabel said.
Jane didn’t. “Huh.”
“And we’re all going to see Dean Tarrant today,” Isabel said. “The SAFEs. About it all. They’re going to call me when we get an appointment. That’ll probably be soon.”
“Okay,” Jane said, simply listening. “Sure.” As long as Isabel kept talking, she wasn’t jumping off a balcony. So hurray, Jane wouldn’t have to talk her off the ledge. Literally, at least. The computer screen popped to black.
Jane perched on the arm of the couch, balancing on one pointed toe. “What are you trying to say, Isabel? It’s just me and you, you know that.”
Isabel turned her back, walked to the window, facing outside. Oh, no. Not the window. Jane hurried to her side.
“Isabel?”
“Tarrant’s office is just over there.” Isabel pointed. “You can see his window. He’s on sixteen.”
Jane narrowed her eyes. “Okay.”
“I always look out from here, you know?” Isabel’s voice softened. “Seeing the world. It’s my way of connecting. Staying real, and human, and like, part of it.”
“You can’t really see much, though, up here,” Jane said. “Except colors and pavement and cars. Pedestrians, I guess, but not really … faces.”
“That’s why I have these,” Isabel said. Jane turned from the view. Isabel was holding chunky black binoculars to her face. She handed them to Jane. “Now look.”
Jane adjusted the focus wheel as she held the glasses to her eyes. She took a step backward, almost thrown off balance as the world leaped into hard-edged clarity. Office windows precisely visible, some revealing shadowy figures moving behind them. Jane twisted the focus again, riveted. She could read logos on cars, see each cobblestone on one sidewalk path. See people’s faces, even tell who was smiling, almost hear them talking. A pigeon bobbed on a patch of grass, battling with another over scraps in a Dunkin’s wrapper. The lenses were so powerful Jane saw the bird’s individual feathers. She wheeled the lenses toward Tarrant’s office, curious. But she could make out only a snippet of curtain, a fraction of a window. Where was Isabel going with this?
Jane handed the binoculars back. “Okay,” she said. Her phone pinged, a text. At this hour? Jake. It must be. “’Scuse me,” she said. She grabbed her phone, checked it. Kat? Why would the medical examiner be texting her? She read the message, and her eyes began filling with tears.
“Jane?”
Jane’s knees were not working. Nor was her brain. But there was nothing she could do, nothing, and right here right now could not be avoided. Poor D. Poor Kat. Poor Jake.
“Jane?” Isabel persisted. “Look again. You see Colonial Hall, right? Tarrant’s building? Then the coffee shop, Java Jim’s. On the other side is Endicott Library. See?”
Where Jane and Fee had met with SAFE. “Yes,” Jane said.
She tried to focus, tried to be patient. Isabel had asked her to come over, and at seven in the morning, it wasn’t for chitchat. Jane longed to race to the hospital, but first she had to hear this. Nothing she could do there, anyway. Nothing but be with her Jake.
“So, Jane,” Isabel was saying. The rising sun glinted through a little crystal suspended on an almost-invisible wire, rainbowing the girl’s face. “Thing is. I watch out the window all the time. But I am not simply … looking. I watch for the man who raped me. And I see him. All the time. And I keep track. Where he is. How long he stays.”
Jane scratched the side of her nose, watching the shifting prism of colors.
“Why?” was all she could think of to ask. Poor D.
“To stay alive,” Isabel said. “To have … power, I guess. Because he would hate it, and I hate him, and it makes me feel like God.”
If Jane could have heard the fish swimming, she wouldn’t have been surprised.
“I know you don’t want to hear it.” Isabel’s voice grew stronger, each word with an edge. “But the man who raped me is Trey Welliver.”
“Isa—” Jane’s mouth opened, her brain trying to catch up, but failing. “You—”
“Look at this calendar,” Isabel interrupted. “See the red dots? And notations? I know where he was, exactly, between two and four on Monday. In fact, the entire time between one and five. At the library, and Java Jim’s. Trey Welliver could not have been at Avery Morgan’s house.”
“You’re saying…” Jane’s brain went to warp speed. She had to tell Jake. The boundaries of their jobs didn’t matter. Not in a situation like this. “… they arrested an innocent man.”
“No question,” Isabel said. “I saw everything.”