Page 4 of I Know She Was There

“Then don’t lie to me.”

“I don’t even know you.” I held my hand up. “I never tell strangers my name.”

“You’re the stranger here, and I’d prefer you keep it that way. Stick to your own neighborhood. Keep your stroller, your car, and yourself off these streets. You don’t belong here.”

Her petty threat burst my fear like a soap bubble. Who the hell wassheto tell me where I could stroll my child? I lowered my chin until my gaze was level with hers. “I can walk wherever I please. If you have a problem with that, too bad.”

“You need to mind your own business. Keep your nose out of?—”

“Out of what?” I sighed, impatience warring with the good manners my mother instilled in me. “Yourbusinesslooks like a lot more fun than mine.”

Jane’s mouth dropped and I could see her face redden in the ambient light from her cell phone, now glowing beside her thigh where she’d dropped her hand. Before she could sputter out a reply, I turned on my heel and headed down the street, vigorously pushing the stroller ahead of me.

Was that a good idea?asked a voice. The voice that sounded like my mother’s.

“Probably not,” I muttered. But it felt fantastic to tell her off.

I couldn’t properly catch my breath until I was in front of Muzzy’s dark house. So Jane had followed me home one evening? So much for my stealth. Gazing at the shadowy box that was Muzzy’s house, I wondered if my former BFF had filled Jane in on my story. Sadness encircled me like a heavy woolen cape, weighing me down and notching my body temperature up a good ten degrees. I didn’t care. Even if my one-time friend had gossiped all over the neighborhood about me, I deserved it. And it would be a small price to pay to get Muzzy Owen back in my life.

My gaze lingering on the dark house, I walked on. Ignoring the trickle of the fountain in the loathsome pond to my right, I turned left onto Pine Hill Road and approached Matt and Melanie’s house on the corner. A porch light flicked on, illuminating the21over the front door, which was open to reveal the profiles of two people. Melanie, her long tresses recently chopped to her shoulders, thrust her arms around the shoulders of a tall, dark-haired man and pressed herself intimately against him.

“I don’t care,” she declared. “Let him find out about us. Let themallfind out!”

I paused, staring. The man in Melanie’s arms was not the fair-haired Matt.

“Don’t say that, it’s dangerous,” warned the man, not returning her embrace. He shot a furtive glance toward the street, his eyes catching mine. Alarm crossed his features, followed by anger. With one hand he reached out and caught the edge of the door in his grasp, slamming it firmly shut.

I startled, but I wasn’t sure whether it was surprise or my own anger that made me flinch.

How dare she do that to Matt! She has everything! Good God, she’s no better than slimy Jane Brockton!

CHAPTER3

SUNDAY, AUGUST 13

Istaggered into the kitchen, squinting against the sunrise lighting up the window over the sink. My clumsy paws spilled coffee grounds all over the counter. I tidied, tried again, my mind cycling through the thoughts that had prevented rest this night and all the others: thoughts of my husband. Quite possibly my soon-to-be ex-husband. I closed my eyes tightly, trying to squeeze out the image of our first meeting, years before, but Tim appeared in torturous detail on the backs of my eyelids.

I met him in the produce section of the Stop & Shop. I was sizing up the Roma tomatoes, squeezing one, when he angled his shopping cart next to me, nearly knocking over a cardboard fixture of avocados.

“You swing like a hammock,” he said, leaning casually against the cart, offering me no choice but to meet his gaze or appear rude.

“Excuse me?”

“Your walk, it swings back and forth like a hammock.”

I felt my face flush with embarrassment and a bit of pleasure. I frowned and looked at his cart, inches from the avocado display. “And you steer that thing like a drunk.”

He laughed and angled the end of the cart toward me. “I used to have a hammock slung between two maple trees in my yard. Loved that thing. I’d swing for hours under those leaves. I liked the way the sun flickered through them, hitting me in flashes. Nature’s strobe light.”

“That’s an oddly specific thing to share with a total stranger,” I said, but I noticed he had nice brown eyes. His flannel shirt looked pressed.

He grinned; his gaze locked with mine. “The swaying is so enticing.”

I blushed again, my face certainly as red as the tomato I held. “That’s weird,” I said, unable to think of anything to add. I’d never been good at flirting.

“Would you give this weirdo your phone number?” His voice was as intimate as a cat’s purr.

“Probably not.”

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