Page 20 of The Better Sister

“I walked down to the beach. It usually calms me, but... not enough. You’re still on duty?”

“I went home for a bit, but, yes, I’m back at it.” She walked to my side of the yard, closing the distance between us so we didn’t need to raise our voices. “If you’re up for it, we’re ready for you and Ethan to do a walk-through of the house with us.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” I looked back toward the pool house. “For Ethan to see that, I mean. Or me, for that matter.”

“We don’t need you to view the actual spot where your husband was found. But you know the house, and we don’t. If you could help us identify anything that’s missing... what’s out of place... that sort of thing. And Ethan, too, I’m afraid. It’s important.”

The house felt like a bizarre replica of the home we had once called our little slice of paradise. Same three bedrooms and 2,700 square feet. Same white-slipcovered sofas and driftwood tables. But our house had always been notoriously tidy. Both Adam and I were naturally fastidious; even when Ethan was little, we had a rule that he had to pick up his toys and put them away each night. When he started to slack off as a tween, Adam threatened to take anything that was left out and donate it to charity. Every night for the next week, I had found the talking Jar Jar Binks doll my mother had given him for his birthday posed conspicuously at the bottom of the staircase.

I had since grown accustomed to the fact that—at least for the time being—my son was a teenage Tasmanian devil, incapable of maintaining any kind of order when it came to his personal possessions. I had trained him, however, to confine his chaos to his own bedroom. The rest of the house looked ready for a real estate showing, which Adam and I considered the highest compliment.

But now, in the new, weird world in which Adam was gone, our meticulously maintained slice of paradise was a giant garbage bin. Even from the dining room at the back of the house, I could see that kitchen drawers and cabinets were open. Entire bookshelves had been emptied onto the floor in the family room. Chairs were overturned. The police had used numbered yellow cards to document the havoc.

Standing next to me, Ethan reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Jesus Christ. Your OCD must be going crazy right now,” he whispered.

It wasn’t just the mess that had altered the house. All the light was gone. It felt like the entire house was covered with a gray filter. It even smelled different.

I walked over to my dining room table and futilely righted the three ceramic vases that had been knocked to their sides on the tabletop. At least they weren’t broken.

I realized how my fussing must have looked in that moment from Guidry’s eyes. “Sorry,” I muttered, wiping away a tear. “Sentimental value.”

My friends James and David ran a pottery studio and had designed these especially for me as a wedding gift. Three different vessels—representing me, Adam, and Ethan—each beautiful on its own, but which fit perfectly together in a single form.

“Of course,” she said.

As I moved farther into the house, I forced myself to gaze toward the living room. Adam hadn’t even looked like a real person by the time I found him. More like those wax statues of celebrities at Madame Tussauds. But now the room was bare, the furniture pushed into a corner next to the fireplace.

Ethan seemed to shrink next to me. “This is where...”

I nodded.

“We cleared that area before you came in,” Guidry explained quietly. I pictured the rug Adam had been so proud to find in the ABC clearance basement, now bloodied on a table somewhere in a crime lab.

“So what do you need to know?” I asked.

“What looks different?”

“Are you kidding?” Ethan blurted out. “Like, everything?”

“It’s been ransacked,” I said quietly. “You already told me at the police station.” I had been so focused on Adam after I found him, I hadn’t even noticed.

Guidry placed her hands on her hips. “Okay, but please try to take a closer look. What do you think they were looking for?”

I shrugged. “Valuables, I guess. Not that we have any. The only jewelry I have of any value is my wedding ring and these.” I tucked my bobbed hair behind my ears to reveal the diamond studs that permanently occupied my earlobes.

“Files? I didn’t see a home office.”

I told her it was in the pool house—pretty much only for my use—and that she could look there if she wanted, but there was no sign of a break-in.

“What about cash?” she asked. “A lot of people out here keep a stash in a dresser drawer or closet.”

I shook my head. “We’re just regular wallet people.”

“Speaking of which...” Guidry made her way back to the kitchen and gestured toward a man wearing a uniform. He handed her a Ziploc bag, which she in turn gave to me. “We already took photographs, so you can have these back for now. It might take a couple days before we’re completely out of your hair.”

There was something about the way she said it, like we both knew it wasn’t true. She wasn’t going anywhere.

I immediately recognized the bag’s contents. Hermes wallet. Tag Heuer watch. Platinum wedding band. Pieces of Adam.

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