The mud from the wetlands had dried into dark, jagged cracks on Maya’s sneakers. She stood at her kitchen sink, scrubbing the rubber soles with a stiff brush, watching the black water swirl down the drain. It looked like ink. It looked like guilt.
The house was quiet again. Chloe and Elena had retreated to their own fortresses to shower away the smell of the Sinks, but Maya couldn’t bring herself to leave the ground floor. She needed to be near the door. She needed to be ready.
The receiver in the woods—the birdhouse with its glass eye—was a fixed point in a spinning world. It gave her a target. But targets shot back.
A frantic pounding on the front door shattered her focus.
Maya didn’t jump. She turned off the faucet, dried her hands on a dish towel, and walked to the foyer. She checked the Ring camera feed on her phone, though she already knew who it was.
Sarah Vance stood on the porch. She wasn’t wearing her usual armor of structured blazers and pearls. She wore a loose cashmere cardigan wrapped tight around her body, and her face was devoid of makeup, revealing pale skin and dark, bruised circles under her eyes. She looked like a ghost haunting her own life.
Maya opened the door.
“I saw you,” Sarah whispered, pushing past Maya into the hallway without waiting for an invitation. She brought the smell of ozone and stale fear with her. “I saw you walking the dogs. I saw you go into the woods.”
Maya closed the door and locked it. “We were walking, Sarah. It’s a free country.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Sarah’s voice cracked, a high, brittle sound that bounced off the high ceilings. She spun around, her eyes wild. “You found something. I saw Chloe’s stroller. I saw how you looked when you came out. He knows, Maya. He knows you were back there.”
“He has a blind spot,” Maya said calmly, walking past Sarah into the kitchen. She needed to control the geography of this conversation. “But you don’t, do you, Sarah?”
Sarah followed her, her footsteps erratic. “What are you talking about?”
Maya reached into her back pocket and pulled out the folded piece of paper she had stolen from the HOA shed. She smoothed it out on the quartz island. The noise complaint from August 1st, 1994.
COMPLAINANT: Sarah Vance. NATURE OF COMPLAINT: Female screaming.
Sarah stared at the paper. Her breath hitched. She gripped the edge of the counter so hard her knuckles turned white.
“You filed this,” Maya said. “Three weeks before she died. You heard Juniper screaming, and you filed a complaint with the HOA instead of calling 911.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Sarah whispered. Tears began to pool in her eyes, hot and fast.
“Wasn’t it?” Maya pressed. “Because the podcast narrator says the neighbors watched. He says we’re complicit. And looking at this paper, Sarah, it’s hard to argue with him.”
“I thought it was just a fight!” Sarah cried. “She had men over. She was… she was that kind of girl. I didn’t want the police sirens waking up Rick. He was just a baby.”
“Rick was twenty-two,” Maya corrected coldly. “We checked the records. Stop lying, Sarah. The lies are what he’s using against us.”
Sarah squeezed her eyes shut. A tear tracked through the powder on her cheek. “You don’t understand. You didn’t live here then. It was different. We were… we were trying to build something perfect.”
“And Juniper was a stain on the perfection?”
“She was a mirror!” Sarah shouted, slamming her hand on the counter. The ceramic mug sitting there jumped, rattling against the stone. “She showed us everything we were trying to hide. She was loud. She was messy. She was pregnant.”
The word hung in the air.
“You knew she was pregnant,” Maya said. “Before the autopsy report.”
Sarah crumpled. All the fight left her body in a rush of air. She sank onto one of the barstools, burying her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs.
Maya watched her. She felt a pang of sympathy, but she shoved it down. Sympathy wouldn’t solve a murder.
“Tell me about the night of the Tuesday Toss,” Maya said softly. “August 21st, 1994.”
Sarah didn’t look up. Her voice came out muffled, wet. “It was raining. A summer storm. Hot. Sticky. The kind of rain that doesn’t wash anything clean.”
“Where were you?”
“I told the police I was asleep,” Sarah whispered. “I told my husband I was asleep. But I wasn’t.”
She lifted her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed, haunted.
“I was in the sunroom,” Sarah said. “My sunroom. It looks right into hers. The hedges weren’t as tall back then.”
“What did you see?”
“I was waiting,” Sarah said, drifting into the memory. “I was waiting for him to come over. My husband was in the city on business. Rick was in the basement with his headphones on. The house was empty.”
“Waiting for who?”
“For Tom,” Sarah said. The name was a confession.
“Who is Tom?”
“He was a rookie cop,” Sarah said. “Assigned to the Gables patrol beat. He was young. Charming. He drove the squad car around the circle every night at 10:00 PM. He used to flash his lights at my window.”
Maya’s stomach turned. “You were having an affair with the patrol officer.”
Sarah nodded miserably. “I was lonely. My husband was never home. Tom… he made me feel seen.”
“So you were waiting for him,” Maya prompted. “And?”
“He didn’t come to my door,” Sarah said. “I saw his car pull up. But he didn’t come to Number 1. He went to Number 4.”
Maya froze. “He went to Juniper’s house?”
“He parked in front of the hydrant,” Sarah said, the details spilling out now that the dam had broken. “He got out. He wasn’t wearing his uniform. He was wearing a blue suit. He looked… angry.”
The Blue Suit. Maya remembered the clue from the archives.
“He went to her door,” Sarah continued. “She opened it. She was wearing that red dress. I saw it clearly. The light from the hallway was behind her. She looked like she was on fire.”
“Did he go inside?”
“No. They argued on the porch. I couldn’t hear the words, the rain was too loud. But I saw their bodies. She was shoving his chest. He grabbed her wrist. He was shaking her.”
“He assaulted her,” Maya noted.
“They fought for maybe five minutes,” Sarah said. “Then… then he pushed past her. Into the house. The door slammed shut.”
“And you did nothing?” Maya asked, her voice tight.
“I was jealous!” Sarah wailed. “I thought… I thought she was sleeping with him too. I thought that’s why he hadn’t come to see me. I was furious. I went upstairs and got into bed. I told myself I didn’t care what they were doing.”
“When did he leave?”
“I don’t know,” Sarah sobbed. “I fell asleep eventually. But the next morning… when the garbage truck came… the police were everywhere. And Tom was the first one on the scene.”
Maya felt the blood drain from her face.
“Tom found the body?”
“He took the call,” Sarah said. “He controlled the scene. He set up the tape. I went out to talk to him. I whispered, ‘I saw you last night.’ And he looked at me… Maya, his eyes were dead. He grabbed my arm and squeezed it until it bruised. He said, ‘You were asleep, Sarah. You were asleep, or your husband is going to find out about us. And if he finds out, you lose everything. The house. The money. Rick.’”
“He blackmailed you,” Maya said.
“He protected me,” Sarah corrected weakly. “He said it was a drifter. He said he handled it.”
“He handled the investigation into a murder where he was the last person to see the victim alive,” Maya said, pacing the kitchen. “Sarah, do you realize what you did? You gave the prime suspect an alibi. You gave him control of the evidence.”
“I was scared!”
“Who is Tom?” Maya asked again, stopping in front of Sarah. “Where is he now? Is he still on the force?”
Sarah looked up, terror etched into every line of her face.
“Tom isn’t just on the force, Maya,” she whispered. “He’s the Chief of Police. Thomas Garrett.”
Maya felt the room tilt. Chief Garrett. The man she had planned to call about the listening devices. The man who signed off on the neighborhood safety patrols.
“The Chief of Police,” Maya repeated, the horror settling in. “The man in charge of the cold case unit is the man Juniper was arguing with the night she died.”
“He’s the one who sent the note,” Sarah said, pulling another piece of cream cardstock from her pocket. “This morning. After the podcast aired.”
Maya took the note. It was typed on the same typewriter.
THE RED DRESS WAS A MISTAKE. BURY IT, SARAH. OR I BURY YOU.
“He knows about the dress in the gazebo,” Maya said. “Of course he does. His officers took it down.”
“He thinks I put it there,” Sarah said. “He thinks I’m taunting him. He thinks I’m the Podcaster.”
“But you’re not,” Maya said.
“No,” Sarah shook her head frantically. “I just want it to go away.”
“It’s not going away,” Maya said. She looked out the window at the grey sky. “The Podcaster knows, Sarah. That’s why he mentioned the ‘prominent neighbor.’ That’s why he mentioned the Blue Suit. He knows Garrett killed her. And he knows you watched.”
“What do we do?” Sarah asked, her voice small. “We can’t go to the police. Garrett is the police.”
“No,” Maya said, her mind racing, connecting the webs of corruption. “We can’t go to the police. And we can’t trust the HOA records because Elias Thorne is cleaning them.”
She looked at Sarah, seeing not a villain, but a victim of her own silence. A woman trapped in a gilded cage for thirty years, holding the key in her throat.
“We have to interview him,” Maya said.
“Garrett?” Sarah gasped. “Are you insane? He’s dangerous.”
“He’s a public official,” Maya said, the journalist taking over completely. “And I’m a concerned citizen writing a piece for the neighborhood newsletter about safety upgrades. I need a quote from the Chief.”
“He’ll see right through you.”
“I’m counting on it,” Maya said. “I want to look him in the eye. I want to see if he has the same dead eyes you saw in 1994.”
She grabbed the noise complaint and the threatening note.
“You’re part of the club now, Sarah,” Maya said. “No more secrets. No more silence. If Garrett goes down, he takes the corruption with him. But we have to prove it.”
Sarah wiped her face. She looked older, frailer, but the panic had receded, replaced by a grim resignation.
“He wears a ring,” Sarah said suddenly. “A signet ring. Gold. With an onyx stone. He had it on that night. I saw it flash when he grabbed her.”
“Does he still wear it?”
“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “I haven’t looked him in the eye in twenty years.”
“I will,” Maya promised.
The rain began to fall again, harder this time, drumming against the roof like a thousand fingers tapping for attention. The receiver in the woods was listening. The Chief of Police was watching. And the women of Bittersweet Court were finally, dangerously, awake.