She pauses again to lift the shade a crack, peering out to check the shed roof for the silhouette of a hooded man. He’s gone, just as he was the last time she’d checked, right before her mother called.
Maybe that should make her feel safer, but it doesn’t. It makes her wonder if he was ever there. If he wasn’t, she might be losing her grip on reality. If he was, he might be edging closer to the house. He might already be inside. He might be— She cries out, hearing a shrill blast and loud banging noise downstairs.
He’s trying to get in through the front door, and she’s trapped here, and— The blast comes again and she realizes it’s the doorbell. The watcher wouldn’t ring the doorbell and knock like a Girl Scout selling cookies, for God’s sake. But her sister would, just as Stacey herself had the other day when she’d tried to let herself in and found that Mom had fastened the chain on the other side.
Checking her phone, she expects to find a text from Piper saying she’s here to collect her lame loser of a big sister.
Instead, she sees one from Lennon.
I’m here. Are you okay?
She exhales, relieved. It doesn’t matter that he’d upset her today or that she didn’t want to see him tonight. She no longer wants space.
She flies out of her bedroom and down the stairs. She unfastens the chain, turns the lock, and opens the door . . .
To a hooded man in black.
She cries out.
He reaches for her.
Grabs her.
“Stacey, what happened? Are you all right?”
Lennon, wearing a sweatshirt, hood up. Lennon, so concerned.
“Why are you here? How did you know?”
“Jules texted me from the restaurant. I had to lie to her—I told her I was at a party in Williamsburg, because that’s where Courtney and your sister went.”
“They went to Williamsburg?”
“Not Virginia. It’s a neighborhood in Brooklyn.”
“No, I know, but . . .”
It’s not like she hadn’t suspected Piper was up to something.
“I’m supposed to be covering for them, and I couldn’t let on that I was home, because they aren’t.”
He wasn’t the man on the shed roof. Of course he wasn’t.
He always wears black. His hood is up because of the night chill.
“Can I come in?” he asks, and she sees his eyes flick to the hall behind her.
Recalling his fascination with the murders, and how he’d mentioned that he wants to check out the house, she shakes her head. She doesn’t want him inside. But she doesn’t want to be left alone here, either.
“I’m starving, and I was about to go out and get something to eat.”
“I thought you were freaking out about a Peeping Tom, and that the guy from this afternoon is stalking you.”
“Oh, my parents blow everything up into a big deal.” She reaches behind her, glad her keys and jacket are right there by the door so that she doesn’t have to let him in even for a minute.
“I’m thinking pizza,” she says, stepping onto the stoop. “Maybe that brick oven place you like on Edgemont?”
The boulevard will be hopping at this hour on a Saturday night. Plenty of people around, just in case . . .
“Sure. That’s cool. As long as I get to see you. I missed you.”
“Oh, come on. You just saw me a few hours ago.”
“I know, but, Stacey . . .” He pulls her against him and murmurs against her ear, “Are you sure you don’t want to go back inside? Or come down to my house? Nobody’s home . . .”
Yeah, no. That’s the last thing she wants.
“If I don’t get something to eat, I’m going to pass out.” She closes the door behind her and turns her key to lock the dead bolt.
As they head toward Edgemont, she scans the street for the hooded man.
I’m not crazy. I’m not. I know what I saw.
Someone really is watching this house. Watching her.
She only hopes he isn’t much closer than she thinks, walking beside her with his arm around her like a straitjacket.
Part Three
Nora
Five days after the tumultuous evening at Nonna Della’s, Nora’s life has settled into a rhythm.
With the girls and Keith coming and going on a predictable schedule, she’s available to them when they’re here, and when they’re not, she focuses on the things that make her most comfortable. Garden chores when the weather cooperates; indoor chores when it does not.
It’s been an active hurricane season, with a tropical storm parked offshore for a few solid days of warm, humid rain. Nora reorganized closets and drawers, scrubbed the oven and fridge, scoured all the tile grout in the house, and rented a steamer to deep clean the rugs, drapes, and upholstery.
Yes, it was largely unnecessary, all of it. But anything to keep busy. Anything to avoid dwelling on the past, the murders, Jacob, and the box that remains locked in the shed.
Jules reaches out daily, and not just once. Nora tells herself she’s just trying to be friendly, or maybe she’s lonely during the days with everyone gone at work and school. She wants to get together for lunch or coffee, even to talk about the community garden, though she admits Ricardo is away this week.
Nora puts her off, blaming the weather, a nonexistent headache, pressing household chores. The more she resists, the more Jules persists, like an ardent suitor.
It’s morning now, the first since Saturday with sunlight streaming in. She goes through the house lifting the shades above windows that have been open all week. Kato follows her, energized by air flowing through the screens that’s gone from muggy to crisp overnight. In the kitchen, he sits at the back door and fixes Nora with an expectant look.
She opens the door and watches him from the doorstep as he trots into the yard.
Keith usually takes him out for a quick walk. This is the first day Nora arrived downstairs before him, because last night was the first she hadn’t allowed herself to take a sleeping pill. She only has a few left, and she’d better hoard them.
Their plastic surgeon back home prescribes them whenever she or Keith has a procedure. Keith never fills his prescription, and is unaware Nora fills hers. She’s never used the medication to keep postoperative discomfort from waking her, but she needs it on nights when the past intrudes. Now that she’s here, in this house, that’s every night.
She gazes at the surrounding rooftops, wondering where, exactly, Stacey had seen the man on Saturday night. Or thought she’d seen him.
She’d texted Nora and Keith at the restaurant to say that she was going out with Lennon. They got home before she did and waited up in front of the living room television, the day’s discord hanging in the air between them.
When Stacey came in, she wasn’t interested in discussing what had happened.
“It’s no big deal,” she said, heading for the stairs. “I just want to go to bed. I’m sorry I said anything.”
When her door closed overhead, Keith looked at Nora. “I think you might be right about having her see someone.”
“See someone?”
“A psychiatrist, Nora.” He sighed. “The way she sounded on the phone earlier . . . agitated, barely making sense . . . it wasn’t like her at all.”
“She’s always been anxious.”
“Low-key, quiet, normal anxious. Not frantic, like some . . .”