“Nothing. Forget it.”
“No, say it, Keith. What are you? A little . . . ?”
Suspicious.
But if he’s not going to voice it, she’s not going to force him. It’s not like she needs to hear it. It’s not like she doesn’t know.
He pushes back his chair and stands. “I’m going to go for a run.”
She stares at the spattered yogurt after he leaves the kitchen and goes upstairs.
Even then she doesn’t move, feeling as though he’s watching her, thinking again of what he’d said about wiring the house with cameras.
Was it because he’s worried that the elusive killer is going to return to this house twenty-five years later? Or because he thinks she’s up to something behind his back . . .
Again.
Jacob
“Anna!”
It’s actually happened. She’s alone at last, right here, right in front of him. She’s close enough to touch, though he doesn’t dare.
She’s just standing there, wary and startled. Her eyes are hidden behind large sunglasses but what he can see of her face is familiar.
“Zemra ime,” he breathes.
Heart of mine.
She flinches and steps back, then cries out as he reaches for her arm.
“It’s me,” he tells her. “I’m—”
“Hey!”
He whirls to see two young men in cardigan sweaters.
The larger of the two steps between Jacob and Anna, turning to her. “Are you okay? Is this person bothering you?”
Her head moves. It’s barely a nod, but the man takes it as a reply.
“You heard her,” he tells Jacob. “Get out of here.”
“Who the hell are you to tell me what to do? Anna, tell this . . . person to get out of here.”
People are starting to glance in their direction.
“You need help over there?” a burly looking guy calls.
“Yo, there’s a couple of cops down the street. You want me to go get them?” a young woman asks.
Cops? No, no cops.
“Anna,” Jacob says. “You have to . . . just tell them who I am . . . tell me who you are . . .”
He needs to hear her voice. Now. Not just in his head.
Do you believe in ghosts, Jacob?
At last, she opens her mouth.
“Leave me alone. Please. I’m not Anna.”
Nora
Sitting at the yogurt-spattered kitchen table, Nora thinks back to last April, when Keith caught her in the lie that had threatened—is still threatening—to destroy their marriage.
She’d told him she was going to the Coronado Flower Show, same as she had every spring of their lives together. But when she reached San Diego she kept right on driving, heading south of the border.
Teddy was always in Baja California at that time of year, studying gray whale migration patterns.
As cities go, Ensenada was relatively safe, but just like anywhere else, if you look like a tourist and you let your guard down, things happen. During a stroll along the idyllic but crowded waterfront, Nora’s phone went missing.
She presumed it had been stolen.
“At least it wasn’t your passport,” Teddy said, “or you’d be stuck here for a while.”
“That might not be such a bad thing. Don’t you wish we could just stay here forever?”
“Your life is back in California, Nora, and mine is wherever my work takes me. The whales have moved on, and I need to do the same.”
Of course she knew that. There was never enough time together.
Too soon, she was on her way home, unaware that a good Samaritan had found her phone on the promenade, called her home phone number, and talked to Keith. He knew everything.
Well, not everything.
But enough to shake up the most stable relationship she’d ever had.
Now, she hears his sneakered footsteps descend the stairs. The front door opens and closes as he leaves without a goodbye.
Looking up at last from the spattered yogurt on the table, she spots the vase of pineapple sage she’d moved from the hall table and revitalized earlier in the week. The stems droop, the leaves are dried and curled, and faded red blooms have fallen like wounded soldiers.
Salvia elegans symbolizes healing, Teddy’s voice reminds her.
The move to New York was supposed to help heal Nora’s marriage. It was supposed to heal a lot of things. So far, though, it’s done just the opposite, dredging up unwelcome memories, and . . .
Hallucinations.
Because yesterday, she could have sworn she’d seen a familiar face peering through the café window.
Jacob.
Stacey
At first, Stacey had thought the man was a street person, maybe a panhandler, like the nun on the subway platform.
Then she heard “Anna” and she knew.
He’s the one who’s been watching the house. Watching her. He thinks she’s the girl who was murdered there with her parents.
“I’m not Anna.” Her voice warbles, but she stands tall, buoyed by the strangers who’d rushed to help her, the knowledge that the police are nearby, and an unexpected surge of inner strength. She stares him down as if he’s a schoolyard bully.
His eyes are dark, and his expression is intense. Not insane, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Not that that means anything.
He shrugs, turns, and walks away without another word.
She exhales.
“You okay, honey?” asks one of her cardigan-clad heroes.
“Yeah, I’m just . . . Thanks for helping me.”
“No problem.” They continue on their way.
The onlookers have already dispersed, but someone is hurrying toward her from Edgemont.
Lennon.
“Stacey? What the hell was that?”
“You saw him?”
“I saw a commotion. I was over there, waiting for you.” He points up the boulevard.
“You were supposed to meet me in the park.”
“You were supposed to be running errands. But you were home all morning.” He holds up his phone like a lawyer presenting evidence.
Right. The tracker. Heart-shaped. She’s his girlfriend.
She needs to tell him she doesn’t like the app, and to get rid of it. But not in this moment. Her newfound steely core has gone liquid, and she feels tears welling.
“What happened, Stacey?”
“This guy just . . . he thought I was someone else.” She scans the busy street, making sure he’s not still there, watching her.
“Yeah, they do that.”
“What?”
“Pickpockets, scammers. They stop you and get you talking. Did he take your wallet?”
“I don’t have a wallet. And he wasn’t a pickpocket, Lennon. He was . . .” She takes a deep breath, then shakes her head. “Let’s just go to the park. I need to get out of here.”
“Okay, come on.” He puts his arm around her as they walk.
The gesture strikes her as more possessive than protective. She tells herself that’s only because she’s still disturbed by that damned tracker. She wishes she found it romantic that he wants to know exactly where she is, but it’s creepy.
She shudders, and Lennon pulls her closer.
“Are you cold? Want my jacket?”
“No, I . . . maybe I should go home. I’m kind of freaked out right now.”
“No, we should go to the park, like we said.”
“But—”
“Come on, Stacey. This is New York City, not Kansas.”
“I’m not from Kansas.”