Nora paid Mina before opening the showroom door that morning. Two days had passed since Bell came to the apartment. She had begun to judge mornings by whether she could get one useful thing done before the police rang.
The payment went through. She sent the confirmation, then looked at the photograph of the drawer Mina had left with her. The darker finish was better. She could admit that without having anyone in the room to see it.
When her phone rang, she expected Mina.
The officer calling from Mercer's team asked whether Iris had tried to contact her.
“No.”
“Have you seen her?”
“No. Where is she?”
“She's been released on bail while the investigation continues.”
Nora sat down. She had imagined Iris in a room which she could not enter, kept there by the extraordinary confession. The thought had been frightening, then useful. If Iris couldn't leave, Nora did not have to decide what she would do if she did.
“Released?”
“With conditions. One of those is that she mustn't contact you.”
“Because she said she'd killed me?”
“Because we're investigating what happened between you.”
“I'm not dead.”
“We know that. It doesn't resolve the injury.”
Nora pressed a thumb against the edge of the counter. There was a rough place Cal had missed. She'd noticed it yesterday and meant to tell him.
“Does she know I'm alive?”
“Yes.”
“She believes it?”
“She's been told. She's not continuing to claim you died.”
Nora closed her eyes. The woman who had spent nine days thinking of her dead now knew she was moving through the room bought with the money they'd fought over. She was not a distant, impossible confessor anymore. She might be having breakfast, trying to find a coat, looking at her phone.
The officer asked again whether Nora had received any contact. Nora confirmed she hadn't. She was asked to report any attempt, and given a way to do so. No one invited her to help clarify things by finding Iris herself.
“What if I wanted to speak to her?”
“I'd strongly advise you not to arrange contact. The condition is there for a reason. Let us deal with the enquiries.”
Nora thanked him. After the call she looked at Iris's name on the phone, where she'd left the old conversation open the night before. The bread and milk were still there. She did not send anything.
Cal arrived as the electrician was packing up. He stood aside to let the man carry his bag out, then asked whether Nora had paid him. She said yes.
“Mina, too.”
“Good.”
“Iris is out.”
His expression changed before he spoke. Not a large change. The smile left him, and he looked down at the floor as if considering where to put something heavy.
“Who told you?”
“The police.”
“Why did they let her out?”
“She's on bail. She can't contact me.”
“Good.”
This time the word meant something different. Nora looked at him more carefully.
“You don't want to know what she said?”
“I know what she said. She said she'd killed you.”
“She doesn't think that now.”
“That must be a relief for her.”
His anger was immediate and understandable. Nora had lain on the floor while Iris left. She could not reasonably ask him to be pleased that the woman might now be somewhere with a kettle and an open door.
“It is for me,” she said.
Cal looked up.
“I mean she knows,” Nora said. “She isn't still thinking it.”
He nodded without warmth. Then he went to examine the finished lighting, switched it off and on and said the electrician had done what he'd promised. Nora waited for the first question about Iris. It didn't come.
“Did you ever hear from her?” she asked.
Cal's hand remained on the switch.
“What are you doing?”
“Asking.”
“I've told you what happened.”
“You told me she left. Did she ring you?”
He turned toward her.
“We've got the police asking us things. We don't need to do it to each other all day.”
“I don't think it's unreasonable.”
“Neither do they.”
Nora watched him take the folded drawing from his pocket. He had bought the timber for the shelves. He showed her the edge, ran his hand along it and explained how he would hide the supports. She listened because the work was good and because leaving him unanswered would make the argument larger than she wanted.
He asked whether she liked it. She said yes.
“Then leave her where she is,” he said.
Nora thought of the condition, the door it drew around another woman, the ease with which Cal spoke from the free side of it. He was not wrong to want Iris away. He was not giving Nora enough to make it feel like her own choice.
After he left to cut the shelves, Nora found a splinter in the edge he'd shown her. She lifted it with her good thumbnail and snapped it off. Then she put the sample beside Mina's drawer, two pieces of work from people who expected different things from her.
Iris's number remained on her phone. Nora closed the conversation, then opened it again, as if one movement might change the other.