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chance. You can’t just…I love you. You can’t do this. I love you so much, and I will never act like I did before. I promise.”
    Tobias takes her hand and squeezes it.
    “You should go home,” he says. “Be safe.”
    He releases her hand and turns to face me. Anna’s lower lip is trembling, but she seems to be trying to keep it together. Our eyes catch and her cheeks turn pink.
    “Are you ready?” he asks. I nod. We begin to walk toward my apartment. I want to say something about what just happened, but I honestly don’t feel like it involves me. It’s a closed chapter in his life and now he’s beginning a new one.
    “I hope you can deal with all of his baggage!” Anna screams to me, her voice breaking on the word baggage . I try to ignore the implication in her statement because I know Tobias has made peace with how she betrayed him. Still, I can feel that he is still weighed down by something that I don’t know about. I know that some chapters don’t simply end—they bleed into all of the other chapters until every page in your life is stained.
     
    ~~~~~
     
    I knock on the door directly across from Timothy Wood’s apartment. It’s one of the few houses on the block, though, like the others, it is Victorian-style. Tobias and I have already questioned Timothy’s apartment neighbors, the occupants of another apartment beside it, and the store owner of a shoe shop on its other side. Tobias cracks his knuckles.
    “I don’t know how honest that shoe store owner was being,” he says. “I don’t trust him.”
    “Do you trust anybody?” I ask.
    “My mother,” he says.
    “You’re just a psychologist’s gold mine, aren’t you?” I ask.
    “Yeah, I except I turn into a land mine if they get too close,” he says. I take a tiny step away from him as the door swings open. A man in his twenties glances at the two of us, his light brown hair in disarray as if he just woke up.
    “We don’t want whatever you’re selling and we don’t need religion,” he says.
    “We’re cops,” Tobias says, showing the man his badge. “I’m Detective Rodriguez, this is Detective Williams. Can I ask what your name is?”
    “George,” he says. “George Kellerman.”
    “Do you live here?”
    “Uh, not exactly,” George says. “My mom does. I moved in a few weeks ago because she has lung cancer and needs some help around the house. Hopefully, she’ll get better soon and I can move back into my old apartment.”
    “Is your mother here?” Tobias asks.
    “Yeah, um, come in,” he says. Tobias and I follow him inside. The house seems to be past its prime, with pale blue wallpaper peeling around the edges and the white tile floors tinted yellow. George leads us to the kitchen, where a bald elderly woman sits in a wheelchair at a table. As she turns, I see that she has a compressed-oxygen mask covering her mouth. She eyes us suspiciously as we walk in. George sits across from her.
    “Hello,” Tobias says. “Are you Mrs. Kellerman?”
    The woman lowers her oxygen mask.
    “It’s Mary Kellerman, not that it’s any of your business” she says. “You’re the one in my house. You should be telling me who you are.”
    Tobias and I exchange a look. We’ve interviewed about a dozen people, and an old lady will be the most volatile one.
    “You have a neighbor named Timothy Wood,” Tobias says. He sets a photo of Timothy in front of her. She stares at it. “Have you noticed anything strange about him?”
    “This man lives across the street,” she says.
    “Yes, he does,” Tobias says. “What do you know about him?”
    “He is a dirty man,” she says. She puts the oxygen mask back on and fiddles with the tank. She breathes deeply for a few seconds before sliding down the mask again. “He commits unforgivable sins in his car.”
    “Yes, that,” Tobias says. “Have you ever seen anyone taking photographs of him doing these things in his car?”
    Mary points a finger at Tobias. “You’re a