AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Impossible.
I figured, if I went over there in person, I might be able to extract more detail from him. He’d also said a girl living in the house that had been built on the site of my former home had seen this woman. Maybe I could talk to her, too.
I had the sense that my universe, such as it was, was on the verge of some kind of … unraveling.
There was so much I had not told Jayne.
Max had been expecting me, and was sitting on his porch when I pulled up in front of his house, parking the Explorer at the curb. He came down to greet me, extended a hand.
“Andy,” he said. “Nice … to see you.”
Nice and awkward was more like it. Max and I had been good neighbors to each other, chatting on trash pickup day when we would find ourselves bringing garbage and recycling to the street at the same time. If he needed a special drill attachment, he could borrow one from me. If I ran short of ice on a Saturday night, Max could provide. Brie and I occasionally socialized with him and his wife, Ruth. A backyard barbecue once or twice a year. But we weren’t what you would call close.
Max told me basically the same story he’d related over the phone. The black Volvo pulling into the driveway, the woman getting out and looking at the house, distressed that it was not the one she expected to find. His description of the woman was imprecise. She kind of looked like Brie, but he couldn’t swear to it. The closest he got to her was probably forty feet.
“But who else would be shocked to find the house gone?” he asked. “I heard that the McGuires, who you bought the original house from, have all passed, so, who else would come back here expecting to find a house that got torn down a long time ago?”
I had no idea how to respond to that.
As we stood in his driveway, I looked at the home that now stood where mine had been. It was a dramatic-looking building. Angular, modern, lots of glass. It didn’t fit in with the other, older houses on the street, but the neighborhood was slowly evolving, and in another ten years, as more homes came down and new ones went up, no one would give this place a second look.
I noticed, mounted discreetly under the eaves, a small glass bubble. A security camera with a wide-angle view.
I left Max standing there as I crossed the property line, went up to the front door, and rang the bell. It was one of those camera doorbells you see advertised all the time on television. It had the ability to capture a decent image of someone on the front step, but that camera below the eaves would have a broader field of vision.
The door was opened by a tall, portly man in his forties. I wracked my brain, trying to remember the name of the buyer on the property transaction from several years ago, but it wouldn’t come.
“Yes?” he said.
“Sorry to bother you,” I said. “My name’s Andrew. I used to live here. Well, not in this house. But the house that was torn down to build this one.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Andrew Mason?”
I didn’t see the point in correcting him. That was my name at the time, and was the name on all the real estate documents. The fact that my name was now Andrew Carville didn’t seem important right now.
“Yes,” I said. “I know I should know your name but I can’t pull it up.”
“Brian,” he said. “Brian Feehan.”
“Right,” I said, now remembering that there were two names on the documents. “And your wife is Sonia.”
“Yes.”
“Your neighbor, Max? He gave me a call a short while ago to tell me about something he witnessed. Here.” I waved my hand toward the driveway. “Something that your, I’m guessing, daughter, something she saw as well?”
Brian slowly nodded. “Yes,” he said. “It was very strange. A woman. She caused quite a scene. There were groceries spilled all over the place. Is that what you’ve come for? Because we did save them. We gathered them up in a bag. It’s in the kitchen.”
“Very kind of you, but no, that’s not what I was wondering about.” I pointed a finger skyward. “You’ve got a security system.”
“Yes.”
“I’m hoping you’d let me have a look at the incident. I’m guessing your system records video, saves it for a period of time. And this would be just a short while ago.”
Brian eyed me warily. “Why’s this a concern of yours?”
“Mr. Feehan, I’m sure you knew what I’d been going through when I sold this property to you. The personal tragedy I was dealing with.”
He nodded. “I … was aware.”
