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She clearly remembered locking her doors before she left. Zoey had been with her and Charlotte had asked her to push the scooter to the alley while she’d turned the key.
She made herself step inside. She reached for the switch, and her living room burst into light. She felt it in the air, making her skin prickle.
Someone had been in here.
She stepped quickly and lightly across the living room and peered into the kitchen; then she went to her bedroom and looked under the bed and in the closet.
She’d left her scooter on the patio with the doors open in case she’d needed a quick escape, but now she dragged her scooter inside. She locked the doors and secured the dead bolt. Jelly-legged, she went to the couch and sat. She dropped her helmet and backpack to the floor and put her head to her knees, taking deep breaths.
She hated how close to the surface her fear still was after all these years, simmering like a watched pot. What were the chances it was someone from her old life? Wasn’t the more logical explanation that it was Benny, thinking there was more money to steal? Or even Lucy made more sense. She tried to calm down by reminding herself that in her early days after running away, she had lived in a few dodgy places that had been broken into. And nothing had been taken because, like now, she didn’t keep anything worth stealing. Benny had lucked out with the money she’d had on her that night.
She lasted two hours, two hours of pacing in the dark, periodically going to the patio doors to look out. Every noise sounded like someone trying to get in. More than once she’d grabbed her keys and helmet and went for her scooter, determined to push it out and drive to the all-night café called I Hate Mondays near the library at the center of the island. But she couldn’t make herself go out. Teenaged Charlotte had beenfearless.Why couldn’t she call upon that right now?
The next time she looked outside, she noticed Mac’s lights were now on across the garden. Without another thought, she slipped out and walked around the garden to his patio.
It only took a few seconds for Mac to pull back the curtain after sheknocked. Seeing her, he immediately opened the door and stepped out. His hair was damp and he smelled like soap, like something fresh and green. He was wearing striped cotton pajama bottoms and a black T-shirt, but no socks. For some reason she felt comforted by the normalcy of his pale, freckled feet. She stared at them until he said, “Charlotte? What’s wrong?”
She finally looked up at him. She was short, so she was used to most people being taller. But with Mac it wasn’t just height, it was breadth, and she wanted to step forward and bury herself in his chest. “When Zoey and I got home, I discovered someone had been in my condo.”
“What?” he said, looking across the garden. “You were robbed?”
“No. But my door was ajar, and I know I locked it before I left.”
“What did the police say?”
“I didn’t call the police,” she said. “Nothing was taken this time.”
Pause. “What do you mean, this time?”
She’d walked right into that one. What had she been thinking? This had been a bad idea. She wondered if he would notice if she started backing away gradually. Maybe he would think he’d imagined her as she slowly faded into the night.
“Charlotte?”
“The night Lizbeth died, some money went missing from my condo.”
He looked confused. “Lizbeth robbed you before she died?”
“No,” she said, rubbing her forehead.
He lowered his voice. “Lucy?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so. But I’m sure Zoey would think that, which is one of the reasons I didn’t tell her. I’m sorry. I just got spooked and I wanted to tell someone.”
A few uncomfortable moments passed before Mac said, “Would you like to come in?”
His hesitation made it clear that he was only asking to be polite. She tried to force a smile, but the muscles in her cheeks felt tight with embarrassment. After that meal tonight, she’d thought… “No, that’s okay,” she said. “I’m going to go now.”
“I don’t mind, really.” He turned and opened his door, standing back to let her enter. “Come in. I’ll show you.”
She waited the length of a few heartbeats before she walked by him and inside.
There was even more comforting normalcy here. Area rugs overlapped and zigzagged across the stone floor. A half-filled glass of amber liquid was on the coffee table. On the far wall was a huge television on mute, with several Medusa-like cords connecting to boxes below. Something moved on the brown sectional, and she turned to it.
“You have a cat,” she said, surprised. It was an odd-looking cat with no hair on its back and strange ears, but with beautiful green eyes focused on Charlotte. As soon as it saw that it had Charlotte’s attention, it meowed several times with a soft, creaky voice, as if there was a lot it needed to tell her.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell Frasier. She’s absolutely no danger to those birds. She was a stray and badly burned behind Popcorn a few years ago. When she’s not talking, she sleeps, mostly.”
“What’s her name?”
