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Not that I couldn’t use some mystic intervention…

She was a doctor.

We didn’t have people like that here. Hell, I think there were less than a dozen college-educated people in the whole town. We were all in the service industry—we didn’t have white-collar jobs in Wakan. We didn’t have a clinic where she could work, let alone a hospital. We didn’t even have a blood pressure machine in the pharmacy.

I finished breakfast and took Popeye home. When I got back to my place, Alexis was gone. I sat on the bottom of the spiral steps, looking out into the garage. Hunter trotted over and sat next to me.

I looked at my dog and scoffed. “Please tell me you’re kidding. Is this how you looked when she came back? We’re trying to make a good impression and both your ears are inside out.”

He blinked at me, and I had to laugh. He had a pink lipstick kiss on his forehead.

I smiled and flipped his ears back and let out a long breath. “How you think we did, buddy? Think she’ll call us?”

He looked over at me, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

Then I noticed my black hoodie was missing from the hook by the front door.

Chapter 12

Alexis

I was on a run with my next-door neighbor, Jessica, on the trails by our house. I’d gotten home from Daniel’s a few hours earlier. My friend Jessica was forty-five and statuesque. She was an OB-GYN at Royaume Northwestern and married to a lawyer named Marcus.

She hated him.

“How can you tell when it’s time to put salt in the water softener?” I asked.

“My hair tells me,” she said flatly. Jessica was always a little crabby.

“What?”

“When my hair stops feeling soft, I know the thing’s out of salt. Why?”

“I have to do it now that Neil’s gone.”

“I’ll come over and show you. I’m the one who does it at my house. Heaven forbid Marcus lift a finger.” She checked her watch. “So where were you?” she asked. “You missed bunco at Gabby’s last night.”

“I know,” I said. “I was out of town.”

She looked straight ahead. “If you’re getting work done, I want to know where.”

“What?”

“New York? L.A.? You’re glowing. Was it that new light therapy? A peel? Don’t be selfish, we share this information.”

“I didn’t get work done.”

She looked over at me and studied the side of my face. “Okay. Then where were you?”

I went quiet for a second. Mostly because her legs were longer than mine, and I had to run harder to keep up and I couldn’t talk through it like she could. But also because I needed to gather my thoughts.

I’d called Jessica because between her and Gabby, she was the one who’d be the most receptive to what I was doing with Daniel. And I was going to have to tell them eventually.

My neighbors saw everything.

Everything.

They watched their security cameras from their phones at work like it was their favorite channel.