On their way back to Priya’s apartment, they passed the old playfield. Children in striped jerseys were practicing soccer beneath the supervision of two exhausted parents. Mara watched a goalkeeper dive into the grass and get up laughing, his teammates shouting approval. There was risk in ordinary life, she thought. But there was a profound difference between choosing to join a game and finding yourself used as a piece in somebody else’s game without knowing the rules.
“You’ve gone quiet,” Priya observed.
“I want to be angry at Willa,” Mara said. “I am angry. But somebody frightened her with a story about a child. She thought she could interrupt it by doing exactly what he asked.”
“Being frightened doesn’t make her choice safe.”
“I know. I also know how easily people follow a confident person who claims to be protecting somebody.”
Priya stopped at the crossing. “What will you do if you see Simon tonight?”
“Tell the police what he did. Not give him the performance he wants.”
“He may try to provoke you.”
“Then I will be boring,” Mara said.
Priya gave a surprised laugh, the first honest laugh either had managed since Thursday. The traffic light changed. They crossed together, carrying the uneasy knowledge that a person could be ordinary, frightened, angry, and brave in the same afternoon.
Chapter Six: The Woman in the Blue Coat
Owen’s mother arrived at the library shortly after noon. Her name was Teresa Bell. She wore the blue coat Mara remembered and carried an oversized canvas tote filled with schoolbooks. At her side walked Owen, the boy in the photographs, who looked younger than his twelve years but stood with the composed attention of somebody used to adults discussing him in front of him.
Mara greeted them in the empty reading room. Teresa refused coffee and asked for the door to remain open.
“I don’t want another meeting where someone tells me my son is part of an artistic experiment,” she said.
Mara immediately understood this was not the first confrontation. “I’m sorry the photographs were used without your permission.”
“That’s the smallest part of it.”
Owen looked at the pictures on Mara’s phone. He pointed at one showing the red wagon.
“I took that,” he said.
Teresa turned to him. “When?”
“Tuesday. At the house.”
Mara’s throat tightened. “You were in my yard?”
Owen nodded. “Simon said it was a location test for the story. He said the homeowner knew. I didn’t go in the house.”
“Did somebody take you there?”
“A woman from the company. Celia. She kept saying we only had fifteen minutes.”
“What did they want you to photograph?”
“Doors. The gate. The side window. The red wagon. Then Simon asked me to take pictures of where a person could stand without being seen from the road. I said that sounded strange. He told me it was for the mystery.”
