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CHAPTER1
The doorbell rangand Cygny Devoy picked up her cellphone and looked at the doorbell camera. The man standing outside was all too familiar. “Hey, Stan.”
“Hey, Miss D. Do you want me to leave the bag in the same place?”
Cygny blew out a breath and mustered up a smile even though Stan couldn’t see her. Her old dance teacher had always told her to smile, because people can always tell if you don’t. “Yeah. Thanks, Stan. Drive safe, okay?”
The gangly teen turned full face to the camera and grinned wide enough that she could see his braces. “Thanks, Miss D. You, ah… um. You be safe too.”
Cygny blew out a breath and nodded. “Thanks.”
Stan set the bag down on the stand beside the door and waved as he walked away to his scooter parked along the curb.
She watched him drive away before she got up from her desk and made her way to the front door.
Drawing in a fortifying breath she opened the door and picked up the bag and disappeared back inside.
Just before the door closed, she saw a man across the courtyard lift his hand in greeting. The door had already been about to close, but even if it hadn’t, she would have been hard pressed to return the greeting.
She’d moved into the complex because she wanted to be alone and the majority of the residents were retired and living a quiet life.
Just like she wanted to.
No, needed to.
Looking out of the window at the side of the door, Cygny saw the man slowly drop his hand, shrug, and then turn away.
Standing there she watched him walk away and tried to ignore the feeling that she was no better than a stalker.
Or a spy.
Ha.
Ha.
Yeah, she made herself laugh.
Not.
The man opened his door and turned around to look back toward her door.
Leaning back away from the window, Cygny laughed at herself.
“Wow. Losing your touch, old girl.”
Locking the door and the extra deadbolt, she walked back to her desk and set the bag down onto her desk and sat down, casting a long sideways glance at the dining table behind her.
There was a small collection of Amazon boxes on the surface and a pile of mail beside them.
Any thought of cleaning off the table to sit there was erased in favor of the rumbling in her stomach.
With a sigh, she opened the bag and took a deep breath and was rewarded with a lungful of Thai Yellow Curry and sweet jasmine rice.
“Yum.”
Cygny pulled out the to-go container and set it on her desk.
She reached in for the napkins from the bag before reaching for the box at the edge of her desk. Opening it she took out her spoon and wiped it on the napkin even though she’d washed the whole set after breakfast.
The whole space around her was silent as the movie she had been playing in the background had stopped… sometime.
It was stupid, she realized, sitting there in the silence, eating at her desk, all by herself.
For a moment, she turned and looked at the screen of her iPad perched on its stand on the other side of her desk. The screen had gone dark since the movie was over. Then at some point it started to run the slideshow of photos she kept saved in her device.
Most of them were landscapes, flowers, animals. Pictures without any human life in it.
Just the way her life was, she scoffed at herself silently.
Brilliant.
The photos shifted and a few images popped up in quick succession. Photos of Beck Morrisey in Arizona. Beck with a saguaro cactus. Beck standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. And one image with both of them standing at an overlook in Canyon de Chelly.
The single photo with herself in it.
The last time she’d been comfortable around anyone.
Something told her to pick up the phone and call Beck, but the last thing she wanted to do was talk to Beck when she was feeling lonely.
Beck could always tell when she was in a mood, probably because the majority of the time that they’d spent ‘together’ had been on the phone.
Or random secure apps.
