I wrapped the sheet around me and picked up the cat, who’d now gone deadweight. His heft proclaimed that this was no starving kitty. “Absolutely, positively no cats allowed,” I said as I carried him down the stairs. Then I set him down outside the door and shut it with a satisfying click.
My confessions weighed on me, but the important thing was that Colin was still here. He still wanted me, and that was enough. I’d make it enough. I’d make us a family if it fucking killed me.
Chapter Five
I peeked under the blanket draped over the stroller. A cherub with chubby cheeks and tawny curls slept peacefully, in direct contrast to the little devil who’d shattered my eardrums in the house earlier. Bailey had begun insisting, quite loudly, that she was finished with naps. Droopy eyelids at the dinner table and cranky bath times proved otherwise, though. The battles were epic until I found a secret weapon: the cracked, slanted sidewalks of Colin’s neighborhood. A few minutes in her stroller, and Bailey was out like…well, like a baby.
I didn’t mind the walks. I enjoyed them. Would have done them before, had I not been likely to pass a streetwalker and two drug dealers on a trip around the block. It was like a bad “three guys walked into a bar” joke, but with needles.
Here, there were houses instead of boarded-up storefronts and trees instead of broken streetlamps. I even passed the occasional jogger, a pastime that I’d never understand, or another mom pushing her kid. They’d wave, and I’d wave back. So neighborly.
But I missed my neighbor of almost two years. Shelly hadn’t come around since the revelation about Philip, when she’d said his last name unbidden, and I feared I knew exactly what that meant. Her client, the rich one, the one who liked to hurt her, the one she lived with, was Philip. I already disliked Philip for how he treated Colin—shitty—and how he treated me—like I was invisible. But if I were right, I’d despise him for what he did to Shelly.
I didn’t really understand it. She was beautiful, and she’d had long-term clients. With me and Bailey out of the woods financially, at least for now, she didn’t need a whole lot of money. So why would she live with him? Did he have something on her? Because he sure as hell held something over me. Oh, just my entire future. All because Colin trusted him, and so I had to by default. No biggie.
A cool breeze whistled through the trees. I leaned over to make sure the blanket was still in place, tenting Bailey in her own warmth. The blanket was fine, but from this angle, reflected sunlight glinted at me from the street. I glanced over.
A parked car, black, vaguely familiar. Was it possible that was the same car Shelly and I had watched from her apartment windows, watching us back?
It had to be a coincidence. I hadn’t been close enough to that car, or even this one, to get the exact model. The shape looked similar, but it was common. And so was the color and dark, tinted windows.
What were the odds?
I walked faster than before.
It was silly, I knew, but my heart raced. My body was always betraying me.
Could it be Andrew? He shouldn’t even know where we were. And if he did, would he really watch instead of just approaching us? Then again, it hadn’t worked so well for him before. Maybe he was waiting for something. Or gathering evidence to use against me.
I sped up.
As I reached Colin’s street, I heard the low rumble of an engine. I glanced back as I rounded the corner and saw the car moving away. Good.
I wished I could laugh it off, but my breath was still coming too fast. I paused only at the bigger bumps, not wanting to jar Bailey out of sleep but still needing to get home now. Home, yes. I’d be safe there.
Turning the stroller onto Colin’s driveway, I saw the same black sedan pull onto the street from the other side. It had circled the block in the opposite direction I’d gone. And arrived here. A handful of houses down from Colin’s house. Within viewing distance. Fuck.
No longer concerned for Bailey’s nap, I raced the stroller inside through the back door and slammed it shut. And locked it.
A quick glance; Bailey was still asleep. Normally I would push her into the dining room so she could finish her nap while I got dinner started, but the bay windows in the dining room didn’t have curtains. Neither did the cupboard window in the kitchen. None of the windows in this house did—goddamn bachelor pad—making me feel like a bug in a jar.
Who could they be?
Then I realized—cops.
Fucking cops. Of course. They knew about me and Bailey. They knew about Colin and Philip. And they wanted to know more. Stakeout seemed too strong a word, when the most dramatic thing that might happen on our walk was a poopy in Bailey’s diaper. Surveillance, though. That made sense. Learning our routines. Trying to get something on us. On Colin.