Page 54 of Stay Away from Him

“Amelia,” Melissa said after a pause.

Lawrence waved her worry away. “I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about there. I mean, they dated back in college. They’re, what, both in their mid-forties now? It’s ancient history.”

“If it’s such ancient history, then why is she a part of his life? Why is she his next-door neighbor?”

“They’re friends. Close friends.”

Melissa huffed an exasperated breath. Lawrence wasn’t listening. Melissa had been doing pretty well not thinking about Amelia at all for the past few weeks, but now that she’d brought her up, it was as though she’d pulled all her misgivings to the surface, unable to deny them anymore.

“Is that all, though?” Melissa asked. “She’s a beautiful woman, Lawrence. You don’t think, in the years since Rose has been gone, that they haven’t been tempted, at least once? Her in that big house all by herself? And him a new widower, without a wife to keep him warm at night?”

Lawrence squinted. “I don’t think Rose was exactly keeping him warm at night. Not at the end.”

“Lawrence. You’re not helping.”

Lawrence put his hand on Melissa’s, gave it a squeeze. “Honey. You’re spiraling. This is a good thing, okay?”

“What is?”

“You have a man, a good man, who is serious enough about you that he wants to introduce you to his kids.”

“We already met.”

“Properlyintroduce you, then,” Lawrence said. “Introduce you as someone who he wants to be part of his life. Oftheirlives.”

Melissa bit her lip. Lawrence was right. She was losing perspective. “And Amelia?”

“Thomas wants to properly introduce you to her too,” he said. “She’s part of his life. And now, so are you. It makes sense that you’d feel threatened by her—but Melissa, he choseyou. He had three years to get with Amelia, if that was what he wanted. But he didn’t. He waited. And then he saw you at the dinner party we threw, picked you out of all the women in the world, everyone he could’ve been with. Okay?”

Melissa nodded. “Okay.”

Lawrence stood, moved to the stairs. “I’m sorry I was weird about the dinner. I just wanted to gossip a bit. You know me. It’s going to be great.”

Melissa smiled, feeling better. “It will.”

***

But the week kept moving at a crawl. The other thing that hung over it was the deal Melissa had made with Kelli Walker, especially Kelli’s promise that her contact in the police department would reach out to Melissa with information about the case against Thomas. A promise that felt like a threat—He’ll find you.

Days passed, and still nothing. Melissa kept waiting for a voicemail, a text from an unknown number, but it never came—just the usual progression of junk calls, telemarketers, and fundraising scams.

Even Thomas seemed to forget about Melissa that week. He texted her a few times apologizing, claiming he was extra busy at the clinic. But there were no surprise visits, no lunches or happy hours, no stolen midday trysts. The accounting work only keptMelissa busy for a few hours, and when she finished it each day a little before lunchtime, the afternoons stretched out desolate and depressing, a wasteland of alone time before she had to pick up Bradley from kindergarten. This was what she thought she wanted when she divorced Carter and moved across the country—time to herself, time to reconnect with who she was. But it turned out she was terrible at being alone. Her rush to a relationship with Thomas was proof of that.

In the quiet boredom, Melissa started to feel imprisoned, like a fairy-tale princess locked up in a tower—or, more appropriately, a dungeon. She startled at minor sounds: Lawrence and Toby’s clock chiming upstairs, the roar of a lawnmower in the yard next door, the creaks and cracks of the house settling around her. Once, looking up from cleaning a plate in the kitchen, she glanced out the back door and thought she saw someone moving through the trees at the back of the yard, a silhouette that she spotted in one moment and then immediately lost in the tangles of brush and leaves. With a clatter, Melissa dropped the plate back in the sink and went to the sliding door, craning to spot the silhouette again. But she couldn’t find it. Maybe she’d imagined it. All the same, she poked her head out the door and called out.

“Hello?” she asked. “Is anyone there?”

In answer, she heard nothing but the wind, the distant sound of cars on the freeway. Instead of easing her fear, the ring of her own voice in her ears brought a shiver. She backed into the house and then whipped around, suddenly feeling eyes on her, not from the trees but from inside the house. But there was no one there. She walked to the table, the place where she’d found a threatening note weeks ago. It was empty. Just her mind playing tricks.

“You’re losing it,” she said to herself, forcing a laugh. “Time to get out of here.”

It was 2:30, still an hour before she had to pick up Bradley. Therewas a nice park with a trail and a lake close to his school; maybe she could take a walk to clear her head and return to sanity before she got her son. She picked up her keys off the counter and left.

It was a beautiful fall day, cool but bright, an orange autumn sun crisping the few leaves that still clung to their branches. In spite of the cars and highways, subdivisions and strip malls, nature thrived in the gaps, postcard-perfect. Even so, as she drove to the park near the school, Melissa couldn’t shake the jittery feeling of being watched. She glanced in the rearview and saw a cop car following close behind her. She wasn’t sure where it came from, couldn’t remember seeing it behind her until that moment, but suddenly it was on her bumper. Then the lights flashed red, the siren let out a whoop, and she pulled over, hoping the officer merely wanted to get around her to some emergency elsewhere.

But he didn’t. He pulled in behind her on the shoulder.

Melissa watched in her rearview as the door opened and the officer stepped out. He hulked toward her, looking abnormally large in the huge vests all cops seemed to wear, armed as if for battle even for a traffic stop. He rapped on the driver’s window with a knuckle. Melissa’s hand shook as she pressed the button to bring it down.

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