Page 33 of I Know She Was There

“He was wearing a ball cap the evening I saw him leaving their house.”

“Hmm,” I said. Of course, a man would zero in on another guy’s muscle mass, while a woman noticed his overall attractiveness. I recalled Matt’s trim, taut muscles. Was he muscular enough to be considered a bodybuilder? I had no idea. I thought of something else: Matt and Melanie dancing in the living room at 21 Pine Hill Road. “Tell me, does Annie like to dance?”

“Dance?” Jeffrey’s nose scrunched, making his eyes squint. When I nodded, he said, “I don’t know. I never danced with her, but that means nothing. I have two left feet.”

I decided Jeffrey didn’t need the visual of Annie dancing with another man, husband or otherwise.

His gray eyes met mine. Tilting his head with what appeared to be curiosity, he asked, “What’s your story?”

The question jolted me out of my musing. I shook my head. “You sound just like a reporter.”

He smiled but said nothing more as he looked at my face. Waiting for an answer.

“I’m just a mom, recently separated from her husband,”

“Do you have any other family?”

“No, I have no siblings, my dad’s been gone for years, and my mom died recently,” I said, feeling suddenly shy. People so seldom asked me about my life that I was unused to revealing anything about myself. I quickly turned the focus back on him. “Are you happy in Deer Crossing? Do you live alone?”

He nodded absently. “I do. I’ve been divorced for just over a year. I like Deer Crossing okay, but my ex never wanted a house. She was a free spirit. Conformity didn’t appeal to her. She’d take temporary jobs, save up cash, and travel. I was enchanted by her, at first. The age-old story is I thought I could settle her down, lure her into complacency with a house. My folks left me a small inheritance. I used it to buy the worst house in the nicest neighborhood, thinking I could improve it over the years. But I knew almost from the day we moved in that it wasn’t going to work. Not only do I have zero ability to renovate, but my wife had even less desire to be tied to a property. Her mantra was weekends were for partying, not fixing a leaky roof. We only shared the house for nine months before she took off.” He ran a hand through his nearly black hair. “I was going to sell the place. Then I met Annie at a homeowners’ association meeting.” He shook his head. “When I think of all the crazy twists and turns that my life has taken in the two years since I moved to this town, well... guess I don’t make the best choices when it comes to women.”

“I understand,” I said. “I didn’t make a sound choice either. After Tim and I had Emmy, well, our relationship changed. He moved out.” I sighed. “Mine is probably a story old as time too.”

“Doesn’t matter. The story is new to you.” His gray eyes dodged away from me. He was already losing interest in my life.

The server came with our check and Jeffrey quickly reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a leather wallet.

“Let me pay for mine,” I said, reaching for my purse handle, slung over the back of my chair.

“My treat,” he said.

“But I?—”

He smiled, handing the server a ten-dollar bill. “Caroline, it’s a cup of coffee.”

* * *

I didn’t want to go back to my lonely house. I spent the next few hours driving around the area, eventually pulling into a shopping mall three towns over and hitting up the food court for dinner. Something nibbled at the back of my mind as I ate a greasy chicken sandwich. Thinking about my diner meeting with Jeffrey, it hit me:hehad been the man I’d seen Melanie—Annie—embracing in her front foyer. Had I not been so distraught when we’d first met, I’d have likely made that connection much sooner. Lost in thought, I headed to the children’s section of the department store in the center of the mall, buying Emmy a ruffled pink romper on clearance. Did knowing this about Jeffrey and Annie change anything? I supposed it did. It validated his claim of loving the mysterious woman, which probably shot my theory of him as her killer to pieces.

Toting my tiny bag, I wandered aimlessly in and out of boutique shops upstairs and on the ground floor until I noticed the sun setting beyond the oversized plate-glass window at the mall’s entrance. Where had the day gone?

When I swung my car into my driveway, I cursed myself for not thinking to leave on a single light in the house. I looked at the darkened windows of my tiny ranch. Without Emmy inside, there seemed no reason for me to be there either.

I leaned back in my seat, the nape of my neck against the headrest, staring vacantly at my house. That’s when I saw it: a flicker of light in the living room. I blinked, sat bolt upright. Trained my gaze on the front bay window. Sure enough, a light glimmered there for the span of a few heartbeats before going out. A giant firefly of incandescence, brief and illusionary.

Panic spiked in my chest like a syringe of adrenaline had been shot directly into my heart. Someone was sneaking around in my house.

CHAPTER16

THURSDAY NIGHT, SEPTEMBER 7

Call the police!

I rummaged through my handbag for my cell phone and extracted it, tapping the surface to turn it on. Out of battery! I couldn’t remember the last time I’d charged it. I threw the thing on the front seat, swearing.

Should I drive to the police station and report a break-in? By the time I did that, the intruder would surely be gone. I thought of the skeptical expressions on the cops’ faces when we’d discussed my witnessing the bleeding woman on Pine Hill. If the intruder escaped, would the police arrest me for submitting another “false” report?

Unsure what to do, I backed out of the driveway and parked down the street, scanning the area for parked cars that looked unfamiliar. There were none. Before I had time to talk myself out of it, I got out of the Honda, locked it, and walked back to my house.

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