Page 38 of (My Accidental) Killer Summer
And now he’sback, didn’t even tell me he was coming, and he looks even better than before our divorce. Honestly, who does that?
What a prick.
“Amy,” I whisper hoarsely. “He’s back.”
“Yeah,” she says.
“And he didn’t tell me.”
“I know, babe.”
“He’s back and working with the police force and didn’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What’s worse is, he didn’t tell the kids.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod. “They would have said something for sure.”
As if he hears us talking about him, Noah pauses before getting into his shiny police SUV and looks in our direction.
“Duck!” I whisper.
We hurriedly slouch low in our seats. And even though his eyes are hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, I can feel his gaze cutting right down to my very soul.
“He’s back. He’s working homicide. Oh, God Amy, he’s going to connect this,” I mutter, clutching the steering wheel like it’s a lifeline. “I just know it.”
Amy flicks her gaze toward me. “You think he’ll tie you to Doug?”
“I think if he gets within ten feet of this car, he’s going to smell the Eau de Rotting Contractor I’ve been marinating in since last night.”
Amy makes a strangled sound and grabs my arm. “Shit! He’s coming this way. Abort. Reverse. Flee. Go. But be cool about it.”
“Be cool?” I whisper, throwing the SUV into drive and peeking just far enough above the dashboard to make sure I don’t hit anything. “Right. Okay. We flee coolly. I don’t even know what that means, Ames.”
I make the most obvious U-turn in suburbanite history, completely cutting off a kid on a scooter who stops mid-roll and proceeds to watch us with the disapproving glare of someone whose mom probably hand-stencils their name on their snack bags. I wave and smile in that way you do when you're trying to pass for a regular citizen and not an accidental murderer on a low-speed getaway.
“Act casual,” Amy hisses, still ducking as if that helps.
“I am acting casual.”
“You’re signaling with your wipers.”
“Shit.”
I hit the turn signal instead, but now it just looks like I’m doing a musical number with my windshield. I glance in the rearview mirror. Noah is still by the SUV, faced in our direction but talking to someone else. His hand is on his hip, and his head tilts like he’s deep in thought. The same head tilt he used to give me when I told him I wasn’t mad, and he knew—knew—that I was about to emotionally gut him with a passive-aggressive remark about laundry.
We clear the block, turn a corner, and I exhale like I’ve just been laced into a twenty-three inch corset on the set ofDownton Abbey. My heart is pounding. My stomach is grinding itself in knots. And my thighs are sticking to the seat with the kind of sweat that only guilt and panic can produce.
Amy shakes her arms in front of her and does a little shimmy in her seat. “Okay, so that was?—”
“Bad,” I say. “That was bad.”
“It could be worse,” she offers weakly.
“How?”
