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She stops in front of me. “He’s been on my ass to tell him when you got home. I’m sorry. I’m not helping him, though! I’m just playing along.”
I don’t buy it, not for a second.
“You call the sheriff boss?”
“I call everyone boss,” she says with a regretful tone, like this is a habit that annoys even her.
“What did you mean, telling him you’re in my house all the time?”
“He keeps asking me about Saturday night. He’s obsessed with this idea that you killed Josh that night. I keep telling him the same shit I told you. I’m at your house all the time and I can see through your windows. I think I would have noticed if you murdered someone.” She exhales a frustrated breath. “Do you think I could sue him for harassment? Because—”
“Forget the sheriff. You lied to me.”
In the cold light from my phone, her face goes still.
“About what?”
“You worked for Andy. For WekTech.”
She makes a pained expression. “How did you—”
“A picture in the robotics building at IU.”
“I mean... I never told you I didn’t work for WekTech. Error of omission, okay? Like I said, my career ended in a fucking trash fire. Can you blame me for not advertising my most embarrassing disaster to everyone I meet?”
“What exactly happened, Eden?”
“What do you already know?”
“No. You tell me. Now.”
She fits the joint to her lips and draws in, hollowing her cheeks. She holds the smoke in for a few seconds, then slowly puffs it out. “Want some?” Her tone is resigned.
I reach for the joint. Why the hell not. I’m alone in the woods with someone who may or may not wish me ill, steps away from a neighbor who sure as hell does, with a sheriff on my ass and my daughter hundreds of miles away. If anything, this may help ease my anxiety enough so I can get one good night of sleep. I inhale deeply.
“Easy there,” she cautions. “If it’s your first time—”
“I’ll be fine.” I hold the joint between my fingers as I release the smoke into the night air. “Talk.”
“Right. WekTech. Well... I got this dream internship there. Like, six years ago? Anyway. Might as well be a lifetime. I got this massively stupid idea to prank the CEO by hacking into his phone. Pure attention-getting. I was pissed that he didn’t know my name. I was just the intern, you know? Like, hey, intern, can you run this down to Marketing? Hey, intern, where’s my coffee? Anyway. I got his attention, that’s for sure. He fired my ass, and my stellar career came to a quick and violent conclusion.”
I take a second drag, then return the joint to Eden.
“Okay.” I nod slowly, smoke billowing from my mouth. “So what happened next? You went back to school and—”
“I didn’t go back. I bartended in LA for a few years, but cost of living was so high... Then the pandemic hit and the restaurant I worked at closed, and it made sense to move in with my aunt and uncle.”
“Right down the road from me, on one of only six adjacent lots.”
“Weirder shit has happened?” she says tentatively, with the face of a child who’s just hoping her parent will buy her lie and move on.
I don’t even answer.
“Fine,” she concedes. “If you must know, I did move here for you. I’m a robotics nerd, okay? And I’m working on my own robotics shit in my spare time. At some point, I’d like to have a real career.”
“Then you’ve been spying on me.”
“No, actually,” she says. “It was stupid. Impulsive, like a lot of the shit I’ve done. At this point, you’re just a person who lives down the street, Julia, and I love watching your kid. That’s pretty much the extent of it.”
