I take a deep breath. I unclench my jaw. I unclench my fists.
On the screen, Martin leaves the kitchen and I still have nothing and I lean back in the chair, rub my eyes. I look at the bank of monitors in front of us, and I try to think.
There has to be something, I tell myself. He fucked things up for everyone all summer long.
Somewhere, there’s evidence.
Something catches my eye: a bright flash, a quick glint of sunlight on water. On one of the pool cameras, a kid wearing arm floats just did a cannonball into the water.
I sit up straighter. I lean forward again, like I’ve got a renewed interest in catching my saffron thief.
Marcus doesn’t pay me much attention. I open the folder labeled POOL.
It’s the same as the kitchen cameras: sorted by date. I scan for the 25th, two Saturdays ago.
The files skip from 8-24 to 8-26.
I blink. I double-check.
I’m not wrong.
I open a dialogue box and search the computer for 8-25. Marcus still isn’t paying attention, but I find nothing. No pool footage from that day. Not even in the trash.
Tension prickles through my veins, even as my stomach twists.
Suddenly, Jim appears in the doorway. Marcus and I both look up.
“You find what you need?” he asks.
I found the opposite, I think.
“Camera’s pointed at the wrong place,” I say, regretfully. “Thanks for the help, though.”
“No problem,” he says, and I shake his beefy hand.* * *I squeeze a few more drops onto the whetstone, draw the knife through it, and then crouch down in front of the counter.
Shiiiick.
I adjust the angle and do it again. The sound raises the hairs on the back of my neck, but I ignore that in favor of the solid feel of steel on stone underneath my hands, the concentration it takes to do this freehand.
Shiiick. Shiiiick.
I have to do something or I’ll lose my mind.
“Should you be doing that while you’re drinking whiskey?” my mom asks from behind me.
I draw the knife across the whetstone one more time, check the blade, then look over my shoulder.
“I could do this in my sleep,” I tell her.
She walks up to the counter, leans one hip against it, standing next to me.
“Yes, but should you be doing it while drinking?”
My mom eyes the mostly-empty glass of whiskey on the counter near the knives.
“I’m fine,” I tell her.
“Are all those knives really ours?” she asks.
“They were in your kitchen,” I say, holding the knife I’m working on against the stone again. “Maybe you stole them from a church potluck, I don’t know.”
“Are you planning on sharpening them all?”
I glance at the counter. It’s mostly covered in knives: steak knives, carving knives, butcher knives, even a filet knife or two.
“If they’re dull.”
“Why’s there an axe?”
“Because it needs sharpening,” I say, drawing the knife over the stone again. “Or I assume it does. You ever sharpened that thing?”
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, still leaning against the counter.
“About sharpening the axe?”
“About whatever’s wrong,” she says.
Shiick. Shiiick. Shiiiick.
“Everything is fine,” I say, not looking at her.
I’m lying. She knows I’m lying, and I know she knows I’m lying. Clara Loveless is a very smart woman — she got her Ph.D. in astronomy when she was fifty-three, after raising five boys — and there’s not much fooling her.
“Bullshit,” my mom says. “You’re sharpening every blade in a ten-mile radius while drinking whiskey, and moreover, you’re home at six o’clock on a weeknight. The sun’s still shining, for Pete’s sake, Elijah.”
I put the knife down, sigh, pick up the whiskey, and down the rest. I don’t particularly want to tell my mom all about the problems I’m having with the girl I was fucking, but the alcohol’s making me want to talk.
“I got into a fight with Violet,” I say.
“A fight? With Violet? Surely not,” my mom deadpans.
“If that’s how you’re going to be then —”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, you’re right,” my mom says, putting a hand on my arm. “That was unkind of me.”
“She thinks I sent our boss a picture of her so I’d win the twenty grand,” I say, walking back to the bar where the whiskey is. I pour myself another glass.
My mom grabs a glass, comes over, and holds it out. I pour her some whiskey too.
“What kind of picture?” she asks.
I drink and don’t answer.
“I see,” she says, and I have to look away as my face heats up. “Did you?”
“No!”
She takes my elbow and leads me to the back porch, sitting us both down. I let her, even though I feel a little like a child. A whiskey-drinking child.
“Then this is just a misunderstanding,” she says.
“She thinks I’m a sociopath.”
“Does she have a reason to think that?” my mom asks.
I drink. I want to say no. I want to have only ever been nice to Violet in my life. I want there to be no reason for her to think ill of me, but I know that’s not true.