Page 80 of The Life She Had

“You’re welcome,” he mouths.

I arch my brows. He gestures toward the deputies and pantomimes throwing something. In other words, that opossum didn’t just happen to tear out at an opportune moment. Tom had set it running.

I turn my attention toward the deputies. They’re farther in now, the older one snarling because he’s calf-deep in mud.

I catch Tom’s eye, and I don’t apologize. I put a hand to my mouth and shake my head. Understanding sparks in his eyes. However good his intentions, sneaking up on a woman and covering her mouth never says, “I come in peace.”

He considers and then nods, mouthing, “Fair enough” and “Sorry.”

I gesture at his jaw, and I mouth, “We’re even,” and he chuckles under his breath, and I relax. There’d been a moment, seeing him, when his intentions had not been clear, when I wasn’t sure he really did come in peace.

A moment when I doubted. When I wondered what the hell he was doing here. I still do.

He motions for me to follow him. He picks his way through the swamp more expertly than I could, and in the distance, while we can no longer hear the deputies’ voices, it’s obvious from their tone that they’re in retreat.

It’s only when we reach the back of Tom’s lot that he speaks, answering my questions before I can ask them.

“I was coming to see you,” he says. “I couldn’t sleep, and I thought I’d check in on you. I was cutting through when the cops spotted someone, and I sent that possum running, in case it was you.”

He pauses at the back door. “I didn’t mean to spook you.”

“Let’s get inside, and I’ll tell you how it went with the police.”

Celeste

After tossing and turning in bed, I decide to go downstairs. I pause at Daisy’s door. I turn the knob as quietly as I can. The door opens enough for me to peek in and see an empty bed.

I check my watch. It’s past one. Where’s Daisy? I glance up toward the attic, remembering my earlier suspicions, but I already know she wasn’t behind the camera. I still open the attic. It’s dark.

I head downstairs to more darkness and silence.

“Daisy?” I call, but I know I’ll get no answer. If she couldn’t sleep, she’d be reading. I suppose her love of reading suggests I may be wrong about her intellect. Still, it’s not as if she reads high literature. It’s basic airplane material, quick and unchallenging.

Which is also the sort of book I prefer. I’ve been known to roll my eyes at women who brag about only reading “literature,” and yet here I am, insulting Daisy’s reading material when it matches my own.

God, I want to shake myself sometimes.

When there’s no sign of Daisy on the main level, I recall an easy way to check whether she’s in the house. She always puts her shoes at the door, like the nice girl she is.

Daisy’s shoes aren’t at the door. Knowing she’s been distracted, I check both doors and her room. I also check outside in case they’re muddy from being behind the property.

No shoes here, no shoes there, no Daisy-girl shoes are anywhere.

I open the front door and step onto the porch, staring into the blackness.

Snuck out in the night to visit Tom, Daisy?

Huh.

Not what I expected.

Not at all.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com