CHAPTER 1

I returned home later that afternoon with a minivan full of grocery bags, a twin-pack of pregnancy tests, two cranky, hungry kids, and a jumble of paranoid thoughts. I hadn’t been able to shake Dr. Wiley’s line of questioning, and by the time we’d arrived at the grocery store, I’d started wondering if she could be right.

I couldn’t have been more than a day or two late, but I’d been so frazzled in her office, maybe I’d miscalculated. I’d tossed the two-pack of home tests in my shopping cart just to be sure, assuring myself I’d count my pills the moment I got home.

Delia sat up in her booster to see out the window as I pulled into my driveway. “Javi’s here!” she said cheerfully when she spotted his white work van parked in front of our house.

I shoved the box of pregnancy tests deeper inside the grocery bag and checked the time. Vero had given her boyfriend her house key when she’d been arrested three weeks ago, along with firm instructions to help me and the children with whatever we needed while she was gone. But he’d been showing up more often since Vero’s extradition to Maryland, busying himself with minuscule repairs and minor home-improvement projects I hadn’t asked for and probably didn’t need. It had started to feel less like a favor to me and more like a grieving man doing everything in his power to keep the home fires burning, and I was beginning to worry about Javi’s state of mind.

The auto repair shop where he worked didn’t close for another few hours. The shop was owned by Vero’s cousin Ramón. Javi and Ramón had been best friends since grade school, and Ramón entrusted his business to Javi on the days when he made the long drive to Maryland to check on Vero and her mother. It wasn’t unusual on those days for Javi to come straight from work and busy himself with odd jobs, but the fact that he was here while the garage was supposed to be open didn’t sit right.

I looped all the grocery bags around one arm and followed the children into the house. I ordered Zach to go straight to the bathroom to wash the lollipop goo from his hands, while Delia made a beeline to the pantry.

“No cookies,” I said preemptively. “We’re having dinner in an hour.” I had no idea what that dinner would consist of yet, but almost every recipe I knew could be thrown together from five ingredients in sixty minutes or less.

I took the pregnancy tests out of the bag and hid them in the closest cupboard.

“Javi?” I called out. I listened for the sound of hammering or the clank of tools. A folding ladder was propped against the wall in the foyer along with a stack of air filters and a pack of nine-volt batteries. When he didn’t answer, I went upstairs to look for him.

A light was on in Vero’s bedroom. Javi was sitting at the foot of her bed, in front of her open closet, her photo album spread across his lap. I leaned against the doorframe, tipping my head to see the pictures. I recognized the childhood photos of Javi, Vero, and Ramón. The three of them had grown up together in the DC suburbs of Maryland. Vero’s and Ramón’s mothers were sisters, both divorced, and had moved in together when their children weren’t much older than my own. Javi had entered the picture not long after. He and Ramón had met in elementary school and became fast friends. Javi, who was as easy to love as he was neglected at home, had practically been adopted by Vero’s family.

He traced a photo of Vero lovingly with a grease-stained finger. Her smile was wide and rimmed in cake frosting. It had been taken after her high school commencement ceremony, and Javi’s and Ramón’s arms were draped over the shoulders of her graduation gown.

“You’re here awfully early. Everything okay at the shop?” I asked him.

Javi glanced up, startled, as if his mind had been someplace else and he was surprised to find himself in my house.

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat and returned the album to Vero’s closet. I had taken some of her clothes and toiletries to her mother’s house after her arrest, but her precious belongings had stayed behind in this room. Javi wasn’t the only one who selfishly wanted to hold on to them. “Ramón cut me loose early. Said I was too distracted to be any use. Thought I’d come over and check the air filters and change the battery in Vero’s smoke detector. Guess I got distracted doing that, too.”

I didn’t bother to point out that all his tools were downstairs. “Want to talk about it?” I sat on the edge of the bed beside him. He fidgeted with the purple plastic bat ring on his left fourth finger. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t taken it off since he and Vero had exchanged drunken vows during an impromptu wedding in an Atlantic City casino chapel two months earlier. The ceremony might not have been official, but I had little doubt he meant it when he said until death do us part.

“Not being able to see her is making me crazy,” he said, getting up to pace the room. “If I could just talk to her, I’d have a better grasp of how she’s handling all this. As it is, I have to rely on Ramón to tell me how he thinks she’s doing, like we’re in goddamn grade school.”

“You can’t just call her?” I knew Vero’s mother had refused to let him see her. Norma was still holding a grudge after he’d ghosted Vero the night before she’d left for college four years ago. Though Javi had had good reasons, and Vero understood them, Norma had never forgiven him for breaking her daughter’s heart. She had forbidden Javi from coming to visit, citing his own criminal record as her reason, convinced he was a bad influence on her daughter. But Vero and I were guilty of far worse things than Javi had ever done.

“She hasn’t picked up her phone or returned my calls all week. She’s not even reading her text messages. I don’t know what’s going on with her. I’m worried something’s wrong.”

I didn’t know what to tell him. The last time I’d spoken to Vero had been at least five days ago. If I confessed to Javi that I shared his concerns, it would only fuel his anxiety. I took the album from his hands to keep him from worrying a hole in it.

“Vero’s resilient, and she has Norma and her aunt Gloria watching over her. If something was wrong, I’m sure Ramón would know.”

He closed his fingers around his bat ring, looking defeated and tired when he nodded. “I should probably get Ramón’s van back to the shop. Thanks for the talk.”

When Javi left, I got up to return the album to the closet and found a handful of loose photos on the shelf. The fresh-faced girls in the images wore sweatshirts with Greek letters on the front. They stood arm in arm in front of a huge brick house, and there was Vero, grinning in the middle of them.

I understood why Vero kept these photos hidden under her album. I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to look at them, and it made me curious why she would bother saving them at all.

A little more than a year ago, she’d been preparing to graduate with honors. But when the university learned her sorority had been hosting organized gambling nights, Vero got stuck holding the bag—literally. When the police were called in to investigate, the sorority’s backpack of ill-gotten cash had gone missing from Vero’s room. The girls all believed Vero had stolen it, and charges were filed against her for larceny. Unable to prove her innocence, she’d dropped out of school and fled the state. That’s how she had come to live with me and the kids in Northern Virginia.

I thumbed through the photos. Could one of these girls have stolen the money? Was that the reason they’d been so quick to pin the crime on her?

I felt like I was looking at suspects in a lineup. Or characters in a story.

Delia burst into the room with Zach hot on her tail. “Mom! Zach stole my favorite Barbie, and he won’t tell me where he hid it!”

Zach collapsed in a tantrum, shouting that he was hungry and demanding cookies.

The photos pulled at me, a mystery begging to be solved. But there were two other dilemmas that required my immediate attention. I tucked the photos back on their shelf and closed the closet door. “Okay, kiddos. Let’s go find your Barbie and figure out what’s for dinner.”

CHAPTER 2

Just after nine o’clock that night, there was a soft knock on my front door. As much as I had been looking forward to seeing Nick, I wasn’t feeling ready for it. I had only just managed to get the kids to bed thirty minutes ago. My hands were still pruny from scrubbing burned cheese off the frying pan, the laundry I’d pulled from the dryer was in a pile on my sofa, the floor was a minefield of Barbie dolls and Matchbox cars, and the front of my holey sweatpants were drenched after Zach’s tantrum in the bathtub. I smelled like baby shampoo and kitchen smoke, and I probably looked like a house fire.

I threw my hair up in an elastic band on my way to answer the door. Nick came over most nights after work, and while he kept a toothbrush, a razor, and a stick of deodorant in my bathroom, he used the key hidden under my downspout only when I couldn’t manage to stay awake long enough to let him in.

I peeped through the window before unlocking the door. Nick smiled back at me, his brown eyes twinkling. A balmy breeze rippled his tie and ruffled the dark, thick waves of his hair.

“Hey,” he said over the chirping of crickets. The tiny frogs Zach loved to chase were singing, too, almost loud enough to drown out the low hum of the highway a few miles off and the planes flying over Dulles. Spring had sprung early in Virginia, bringing with it warmer temperatures and gentle thunderstorms, and my neighborhood in South Riding was ripe with the smells of daffodils, wet asphalt, and a hint of the trash bins left out for morning pickup.

Copyright © 2026 by Elle Cosimano