The Leftovers

more new green every time you turned your head. The winter hadn’t been harsh by historical standards, but it had felt long and stubborn, almost eternal. March was especially bleak—cold and damp, gray sky pressing down—the gloomy weather reflecting and intensifying the mood of foreboding that had afflicted Mapleton ever since the murder of the second Watcher on Valentine’s Day. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, people had convinced themselves that a serial killer was on the loose, some unhinged loner with a grudge against the G.R. and a plan to eliminate the organization, one member at a time.
    It would have been bad enough if Kevin had simply been dealing with the crisis as an elected official, but he was involved as a father and a husband, too, worried about the psychological well-being of his daughter and the physical safety of his soon-to-be-ex-wife. He still hadn’t signed the divorce papers Laurie had given him, but it wasn’t because he thought their marriage could be saved. He was delaying for Jill’s sake, not wanting to dump more bad news on her now, when she was still recovering from the shock of finding the body.
    It had been an awful experience, but Kevin was proud of the way she’d responded, calling 911 on her cell phone, waiting alone in the dark with the dead man until the cops arrived. Since then, she’d done everything she could to assist the investigation, submitting to multiple interviews with detectives, helping an artist produce a sketch of the bearded Watcher she’d seen in the Stellar Transport parking lot, even visiting the Ginkgo Street compound to see if she could spot the man in a series of lineups that supposedly included every male resident over the age of thirty.
    The lineups were a bust, but the sketch bore fruit: The bearded man was identified as Gus Jenkins, a forty-six-year-old former florist from Gifford Township who’d been living in a G.R. “outpost” on Parker Road—the same group home, Kevin was startled to learn, into which Laurie had recently moved. The victim, Julian Adams, lived in the same house and had been seen with Jenkins on the night of the murder.
    After repeated denials, the G.R. leadership finally admitted that Jenkins was a member of the Mapleton Chapter, but insisted—unconvincingly, according to investigators—that the organization had no idea as to his current whereabouts. This stonewalling infuriated the cops, who’d made it clear that they were seeking Jenkins as a witness, not a potential suspect. A couple of detectives even wondered out loud if the G.R. wanted the killer to remain at large, if they might be secretly pleased to have a homicidal maniac turning their members into martyrs.
    Two months had passed without any breakthroughs in the case, but also without a third murder. People got a little bored with the story, started to wonder if maybe they’d overreacted. As the weather changed, Kevin sensed a shift in the collective mood, as if the whole town had suddenly decided to lighten up and stop obsessing about dead Watchers and serial killers. He’d seen this process before: It didn’t matter what happened in the world—genocidal wars, natural disasters, unspeakable crimes, mass disappearances, whatever—eventually people got tired of brooding about it. Time moved on, seasons changed, individuals withdrew into their private lives, turned their faces toward the sun. On balance, he thought, it was probably a good thing.
    “There you are.”
    Aimee stepped through the sliding door that connected the kitchen to the deck, then turned to shut the door with her elbow. She had a mug in one hand, the coffee carafe in the other.
    “Want a refill?”
    “You read my mind.”
    Aimee poured the coffee, then pulled up a cushionless metal chair, giving an exaggerated shudder as her butt touched the seat. She was wearing a Carhartt jacket over a nightgown she’d borrowed from Jill, but her feet were bare on the rough wood.
    “It’s quarter after nine,” she said through a yawn. “I figured you left for work.”
    “Pretty soon,” Kevin said. “There’s no rush.”
    She nodded vaguely, not bothering to point out that he was never home after nine in the morning, or to suggest that he might have delayed his departure on her account, because he’d grown attached to their morning talks and didn’t want to leave while she was still asleep. But he didn’t have to say it; it was in the air, obvious to both of them.
    “What