Mina remembered the day she’d moved Annabelle into a freshly painted room. She’d loaded her sister’s few meager suitcases and some boxed-up framed photographs and personal items into the trunk of her car. Even though it had been swelteringly hot that day, Annabelle insisted on riding with the car windows rolled up. She had sat bolt upright in the passenger seat, her eyes bright as buttons, to use one of their mother’s expressions, as their old neighborhood streamed by.

“Are you sure there’s enough gas?” Annabelle had asked. She asked the same thing every time she got in the car with Mina—or in a cab, or even on a bus, for that matter.

“We’re going to run out of gas,” Annabelle said for the third time as they passed a gas station. A half block later, “Shouldn’t we get gas?”

“Look,” Mina said, pointing to the needle that showed well over half a tank. “There’s plenty. Relax.”

But relax was one of the many things that Annabelle could no longer do. Sitting there in her coat, sweat streaming down her face, she’d clutched the armrest and twisted in her seat, watching the blue-and-yellow Sunoco sign recede behind them, so agitated that the knuckles on the hand Mina could see turned white. With the other hand, she pulled at her hair, yanking out pins that Mina had so carefully put in not twenty minutes earlier.

Irrational anxiety—the doctor had already warned Mina about that and told her that it was likely to increase as dementia deepened. Mina had learned from experience that it was immune to reasoning or hard evidence. Distraction was the only strategy that seemed to work, even temporarily.

So, when they came to a stop at a red light, Mina pointed to the opposite corner. “Oh Annabelle, look. What happened to the movie theater that used to be over there on that corner?”

It took Annabelle a few seconds to refocus—as if gears were shifting and cogs falling into place. But when she did, her expression softened, and the lines of tension eased from around her eyes. “Oh yes, the Halcyon.”

Mina had forgotten that the movie theater, with its gilded ceiling and massive crystal chandelier, had been called the Halcyon—from halcyon days, how appropriate. The light turned green, and Mina accelerated.

“Popcorn,” Annabelle said. “Can I get a large?”

At least Annabelle had died first, as Mina had hoped and prayed she would, with Mina sitting by her side and holding her hand. Would anyone be there with Mina to hold her hand at the end?

Chapter Thirty

Getting old sucked, Evie thought as she crossed back to her mother’s house. She left behind wet footprints in the tall grass, already flattened by the heavy rain. Would she go out flailing and dwindling like her mother or fighting—she noticed the open garage with the light on—and sweeping up cat litter like Mrs. Yetner?

She detoured to the garage. The pile of litter was mounded on the floor near the back, and the smell of gas had completely vanished. She’d deal with it tomorrow. She turned off the light, pulled down the door, and returned to the house. The minute she’d unlocked the front door and pushed it open, an overpowering smell, both acrid and sweet, sent her reeling back. Roach bombs. She’d forgotten all about them.

She took a deep breath before plunging in and racing from window to window, throwing them open. When she got to the back door, she pulled it open, stepped outside onto the back porch, and gasped for breath. The light mist and stiff breeze that whipped off the marsh felt good on her face. She stayed out there for a few minutes, giving the house and her own lungs time to air out before going back inside.

In the bedroom she found a sweatshirt and sweatpants in her mother’s bureau and a pair of warm socks. She shucked her damp clothes and changed. Returning to the living room, she stood there, looking around. Something felt off, but she couldn’t put her finger on what.

The photos were still in their places on the mantel. The pattern of dust on the coffee table showed where Evie had cleared away ashtrays and papers. The TV was still on the wall. Still, she couldn’t shake a feeling of unease.

Her neck prickled as she realized what it was. The TV’s shipping box with the SONY logo was no longer leaning against the side of the sofa. It was gone. What else?

Evie walked through the dining room and into the kitchen. Slowly she did a 360. Cabinets and drawers were open. She’d left them that way. The bills and statements were still in orderly rows on the kitchen table. Or . . . not quite. The rows looked as if they’d been slightly disturbed. She could easily have done that herself when she went crashing through to open the windows.

But when she looked more carefully at the piles, she realized it was more than that. The phone bill on the top of one of them was six months old. When she’d finished sorting, the newest one would have been on top.

Someone had been in the house, and it only now occurred to her that it was just possible that the person was still there. Evie grabbed her purse, ran out of the house, and dialed 911.

Evie waited outside in a light drizzle for the police, wondering if the officer who’d rousted Mrs. Yetner off Mr. Cutler’s porch would show up. But the two officers who climbed out of the cruiser that arrived after a ten-minute wait were strangers. One, barrel chested and straight backed, was not much older than Evie. She followed his gaze as he took in the house, reminded again of how appalling it looked: graffiti, sodden bags of trash, and a soiled mattress leaning up against the side, and landscaping that belonged in a vacant lot.

The other officer, an older man, tall with a stiff gait, went into her mother’s house while the younger one came over to talk to her. Evie felt silly telling him about the missing packing box and that papers had been rearranged. But he didn’t seem to think it was silly at all. He wrote down everything she said.

The older officer emerged from her mother’s house and strode over to them. “It’s okay. No one’s inside. There’s no sign of a forced entry. You sure you left the house locked?”

“Absolutely.”

“When did you leave?”

“At around eleven this morning.”

“Anyone else have keys to the house?” he asked.

“My sister. She’s in Connecticut. And”—Evie swallowed a twinge of guilt—“the man who runs the convenience store up the street has keys to the garage. Maybe to the house, too. I don’t know. He was over here this morning, helping me with my mother’s car.”

“You were right to get out of there and call us,” the older officer said. “I’m going to talk with your neighbors. See if anyone saw anything.”

He strode next door where Mrs. Yetner was peering out from behind her screen door.

The younger officer said, “So a cardboard box is missing?”

“I didn’t really have time to check. There might be more.”

“Why don’t we go in and you have a look around?”

Evie agreed, glad not to be going back inside by herself. The officer hung back, following her from room to room. In her mother’s bedroom, she checked her jewelry drawer. There, amid a jumble of rhinestones and fake pearls, were her grandmother’s diamond wedding ring and the sapphire earrings that her dad had given her mother on their twentieth anniversary. In the dining room, her mother’s few pieces of good silver were still there. Beyond that, there wasn’t much of value to take. Not any longer.

“Up until this morning,” Evie told the police officer, “there was a fair amount of cash in the house.”

That got his attention. “Really?”

“Thousands of dollars. I’d taken it with me.”

“Lucky thing you did. Who knew your mother was keeping cash in the house?”

“Obviously whoever gave it to her. But I have no idea who that was, and she’s not telling.”