She Loves Me Not (13 page)

Leslie turns her attention back to the matter at
hand. “That's a good idea.”

“But won't the kids get scared if the police show
up? You said Leo's been having trouble sleeping as it is,” Peter says.

Rose looks torn. “Leslie, can you take the kids out
for—I don't know, for ice cream, or something? If somebody has been in the
house, I need to report it.”

“Sure.”

“I'll come, too,” Peter says.

“Maybe you should stay here to talk to the police
with Rose,” Leslie tells him. “You know, so you can tell them what you
found.”

“Oh . . . right. Okay.”

As she loads the kids—and Cupid, whom they refuse
to leave behind—into her car, Leslie glances again at the house next door.

It almost looks as though a figure is standing in a
window on the side of the house facing Rose's.

She blinks, and the figure—if it was ever really
there in the first place—is gone.

Hmm . . .

You never know.

“A
re
you hungry?” Christine asks Ben, sticking her head into his office.

He jumps, his hand knocking the coffee cup beside
the computer. It sloshes over onto some papers.

“Dammit!”

“Sorry.” She hurries across the hall to the
bathroom and returns with a wad of paper towels. “Here. I didn't mean to scare
you.”

“I told you never to sneak up on me when I'm
working.”

“I wasn't
sneaking,
Ben.” She sighs inwardly.
Here we go again.
“I was just trying to be nice, and now we're about to have yet another
argument? Maybe I should just stay away from you altogether.”

“What are you talking about?” He mops his desk
furiously.

“Are you kidding me? Have you forgotten all about
the blowup because I didn't get butter on your sandwich from the diner?”

“All I said was, ‘oh, no butter?' and you blew up
at me,” he retorts, tossing the sodden paper towels into his wastebasket and
shoving his fingers through what remains of his hair.

“I didn't blow up.”

“Yes, you did. And then you went on and on about
how there was some intruder next door—”

“On and on? All I did was tell you about it, and
you acted as though you couldn't care less. I'm alone here all day, every day,
and it doesn't even seem to have occurred to you that something could happen to
me.”

“This doesn't have anything to do with you,
Christine. It was the neighbors who had the prowler, if there even was a prowler
in the first place. It's really none of our business.”

“Of course it's our business. We're right next
door.”

“Well, what the hell do you want me to do? Grab a
torch and lead a posse through the streets?”

She glares at him. “That was so uncalled for. For
your information, I thought I saw someone lurking in their bushes the other
day.”

“You
thought
you saw
. . . ?”

“I'm pretty sure of it. I was thinking maybe I
should go to the police and tell them.”

He shakes his head. “Tell them what? That you were
spying on the neighbors? They'll think you're the one who's prowling around the
house. I say stay out of it, Christine.”

“We're not in the city anymore, Ben. You're the one
who wanted to move to a small town. This is what it's like in a small town. You
help your neighbors. You look out for each other. In fact, I was just telling
Rose next door that I'd be happy to babysit for her kids if she needs me.”

He brightens. “That's a good idea.”

“Really?” She's surprised by his reaction. “Because
they're such sweet kids, from what I've seen, and I thought it would be
fun.”

“Yeah, and that's a good way for you to bring in
some extra money.”

Horrified, she blurts, “Ben, I wasn't going to
charge her for it!”

“Not charge her? Why would you babysit, then?
You're not running a day care over here. She has a lot of nerve to ask—”

“She didn't ask. I
offered.”

He shrugs and mutters something she doesn't catch,
and doesn't want to.

With a sigh, she asks, “Did you want anything for
dinner? Because we're pretty much out of everything. But I could order a
pizza—there's a coupon from a new place in town.”

She's thinking that is sure to get him. Ben likes
her to use coupons. He expects it—just like he expects her to buy the generic
brand of everything, to save money.

“You get a small cheese pizza free if you buy a
large with one topping,” she goes on. “And I was thinking we could put the small
pizza right into the freezer and save it for one of those nights when you come
home late from—”

She breaks off, realizing that his gaze has drifted
down to the pile of papers on his desk. “You're not even listening to me, are
you?”

“I'm just really busy, Christine,” he says,
sounding exasperated.

“Well, you heard what I said about the free
babysitting. And about the break-in next door, and that I'm almost positive I
saw—”

“Come on, Christine, stop making a big deal out of
nothing.”

“A break-in is not nothing. And I didn't even tell
Rose that I thought I'd seen someone there, in her yard.”

“Well, don't.”

“Why not? What if I was witness to somebody casing
the . . . the . . .”

“Joint?” he asks dryly.

Actually, she was looking for a word other than
“joint.” The last thing she wants to do is sound like she's spewing dialogue
from an old gangster film—or admit to Ben, or anyone else, that she spends quite
a bit of time looking at the neighbors' house through the curtains. She doesn't
want to be seen as some kind of nosy recluse . . . but maybe that's
exactly what she's become.

She turns and walks toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Ben asks.

“Downstairs to find something to eat and watch
60 Minutes.
I'm sorry I bothered you.”

“It's okay. And Christine?”

She hesitates in the hallway, hoping he'll tell her
he's going to quit working for the night, that he'll say to order the pizza and
he'll come downstairs and watch TV with her. If he does, maybe she'll tell him
that her period is already more than twenty-four hours late, and she doesn't
feel as though it's coming on.

“Yes?” she asks, holding her breath.

“Can you please close the door so I can
concentrate?”

T
he
house is silent, aside from the faint pattering of rain on the roof. According
to the eleven o'clock news, it's snowing north and west of eastern Long Island,
but out here in Suffolk County, it's still just an icy downpour and isn't
expected to change over at all.

Propped on several pillows in the queen-sized bed
she used to share with Sam, Rose turns another page in the romance novel she's
been trying to read all night. Leslie gave it to her, claiming it would take her
mind off everything, but she hasn't gotten past the first chapter since she
climbed into bed with it hours ago, at around midnight.

She stares at the page, reading the same passage
over and over, wondering if she should go check the kids again.

Poor Leo cried himself to sleep earlier, distraught
when she told him he couldn't have his sound machine in his room tonight.

“But Misto-Gwegg said it would help me!”

“I know, sweetie. We'll get you a new one. That one
was broken.”

Nothing seemed to calm him down, not even Rose
leaving the lamp on for him so that he wouldn't be alone in the dark.

“You're a big brave boy, Leo. You don't have to be
afraid of the dark.”

“Mist-o Gwegg is a big bwave man, and he said
sometimes he's afwaid of the dowk, too. He said he used to think the bogeyman
wivved behind his bookcase.”

Terrific. Rose knows Mr. Gregg is only trying to
help by relating to Leo's fears, but he didn't need a new one to worry
about.

As for the sound machine . . .

She threw it into the garbage right after the
police officer left, hoping he was right about it having a short. That might
explain how it could have turned on by itself.

But it doesn't explain how
Cupid got locked in the sunroom.

Both Peter and Leslie seemed inclined to agree with
the police officer's assessment that the puppy somehow managed to get himself
shut inside.

Rose supposes she can't blame any of them for
wanting to believe that. It makes a hell of a lot more sense than the theory
that somebody got into the house with nary a sign of a break-in, ostensibly only
to turn on a sound machine. Nothing has been ransacked; nothing is missing.

The nice young police officer—whom Rose has seen
crossing kids over at the elementary school when the regular crossing guard is
absent—was patient, thorough, and sympathetic as he took her report. She even
felt temporarily reassured, and actually managed to relax as she and Leslie
played several rounds of Candyland with the kids while Peter worked on the
bookshelves.

But tonight, alone in the house after Peter and
Leslie went home, she has found herself on edge all over again.

Sleep is out of the question. It would mean turning
off the light, and she's afraid to be alone in the dark.

Isn't that silly, Sam? I'm a
grown woman, and I'm afraid of the dark, just like Jenna and Leo.

Yes, it's silly. About as
silly as not putting bullets in that gun in the bedside table. It's not
going to do you any good if it's not loaded, Rose.

But it can't hurt the kids if
it's not loaded, either.

She left the hallway light on for Jenna and Leo as
always, and their doors ajar. She's been in to check them several times already,
reassured to gaze at them tucked cozily into their beds and to hear their
hushed, even breathing.

She has also reached a decision. She'll have to
somehow scrape together enough money to get an alarm system installed, as the
police officer suggested on his way back to his patrol car. It will be worth it,
for peace of mind.

A loaded gun wouldn't give her peace of mind. Hell,
she doesn't even know how to shoot a gun.

Sam learned.

Hitch taught him. Apparently, Mr. Military is big
on weapons. Sam told her once that Hitch even carries a gun in his truck. His
plumbing supplier is in a rough neighborhood in the Bronx, and he's convinced he
might need it for protection.

Belatedly, Rose realizes she should have asked
Hitch about that before she let Leo go off with him the other day. Hitch was
driving his father's car, but for all she knows he keeps a loaded gun in there,
too.

She makes a mental note to discuss it with him, and
decides she should check on the kids again.

Swinging her feet over the edge of the mattress,
Rose sets the book aside on the bedside table. She means to lay it down in an
open position so she won't lose her page, but it topples to the floor. Oh, well.
She should probably start all over again with the prologue anyway—or scrap the
whole thing and try to fall asle—

The telephone rings.

Rose gasps.

Her gaze flies to the phone, and then to the
digital clock beside it on the nightstand. It's three-thirteen
A.M
.

It rings again.

If only she had an answering machine that could
pick up and intercept the call. But theirs broke right before Sam died, and she
never did scrape together the money to replace it.

Outwardly, Rose is motionless, her feet rooted to
the floor, her hand pressed against her mouth as if to stifle her terror.
Inside, however, chaos reigns: her thoughts careen wildly, her heart thrashes
about her rib cage, her stomach quakes with fear.

Another ring.

Don't answer it.

But what if it's important?
What if something's happened to somebody?

Ring.

The children are safe. Sam is gone. Mommy, too.

But there are other people. Leslie. Dad and his new
family in California . . .

An image of Christine Kirkmayer's face comes to
mind. What if it's her neighbor calling? Christine pulled into her own driveway
when the police car was here earlier, and rushed right over to make sure
everything was okay. She seemed concerned that there was potentially a prowler
in the neighborhood and promised to keep an eye on things when Rose isn't
around.

Ring.

Maybe Christine got up in the middle of the night,
happened to look out the window, and saw somebody prowling around the property.
Maybe she's calling to warn Rose that somebody is trying to break in.

She lunges abruptly for the receiver. “Hello?”

Nothing.

“Hello?”

Still nothing.

Her blood runs cold . . .

And then she hears it.

Piano music.

Chords she remembers vaguely from her childhood; a
duet she used to play with her father, back when he was still living at home,
before Mommy got sick and he left.

She tried to teach it to Sam on his parents' piano
when they first started dating, but gave up when he couldn't learn the treble
melody or the chords. She remembers his mother laughing about it, saying she
recalled him telling her once that only sissies played the piano.

“Who is this?” Rose's voice wavers; she struggles
to keep it low, not wanting to wake the children.

No answer.

Just the piano music.

“Who is this?”

Nothing.