Excerpt of Included!

DOWN RIVERI tried to call Jamie from the car and got his voice mail again. I left a message,and doubted that my voice sounded kind. He’d been unusually scarce and Iguessed that he was either drunk, hungover, or avoiding me. Miriam was right,I realized. The family was tearing itself apart. But I couldn’t worry aboutMiriam now, or even Grace. I had to concern myself with Dolf first. He wasstill in jail, still not talking to any of us. There were things that I did not know,things going on, and I needed to get to the bottom of it, preferably beforeGrantham did. Today, I told myself, and Candace Kane was a good place tostart. I found her apartment at eight thirty.It was an old development, two stories high, redbrick, with a balcony runningalong the facade. It filled a skinny lot a block away from the college: thirtyunits, mostly blue-collar local. Forty years’ worth of broken beer bottles hadbeen ground to powdered glass under ten thousand tires. The whole lot lookedlike spilled glitter when the sun hit it right.Candace’s apartment occupied the back corner, second floor. I parked andwalked. Rough concrete grated beneath my shoes as I hit the stairs. From thebalcony, I could see the tall spire of the college chapel, the magnificent oaktrees that stood above the quad. The numbers were off the door, but I saw atrace of the number “sixteen” in the discolored paint. Desiccated tape covereda drilled-out peephole. A corner had folded up in the heat, and I saw wheresomeone had packed the hole with tissue before taping it up. A plastic garbagebag leaned against the wall, smelling of sour milk and Chinese takeout. Iknocked on the door, got no answer. A minute later, I tried again.I was halfway to my car, sun finally breaking through, glass shards lightingup on the tarmac, when I saw the woman cutting across a parking lot two hundredfeet away. I watched her: mid-twenties in pink shorts and a shirt too smallto contain either her breasts or the penny-roll of fat around her waist. I thoughtof Emmanuel’s description: White. Kind of fat. Trashy. Looked about right.She had a paper bag in one hand, a half-smoked cigarette in the other.Bleached hair straggled out from under a baseball cap.I heard her flip-flops.Saw the scar on her face.229