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The sickening sensation ebbed, but she still eyed the door uneasily. Her heart was suddenly pounding, as if she expected a snake to be on the other side, waiting to strike when she opened the door. Her reaction was … new, and definitely disturbing. On any other day she’d have answered the door like a normal person, with curiosity but also confidence. Now she was very wary of who might be on the other side, and she couldn’t bring herself to relax. What should she do now? Maybe if she was quiet, whoever was on the other side would go away. On the other hand, maybe it was a burglar checking to see if anyone was at home before circling around to the back and breaking in, in which case she could yell Who is it? or even look through the peephole, if she could steel her nerves to take that chance.
But before she could do either, a familiar voice called out, “Yoo-hoo. Lizette, are you home?”
Her heart returned to a normal rhythm; her muscles uncoiled. Not a snake, just a busybody—a busybody who actually said “yoo-hoo,” for God’s sake. Who did that, outside of old sitcoms?
With a different kind of dread, Lizette blew out a breath, resigned herself, and opened the door. Her next-door neighbor stood on the porch. Maggie Rogers lived in the house on the left, and she’d been there as long as Lizette could remember—which, evidently, was only about three years. Maggie was a widow, too young for retirement but living well enough on her late husband’s insurance money. She had silvery gray hair cut in a short, slightly edgy, and definitely fashionable style, a pretty face that looked younger than her hair said she was, a trim and athletic figure, and a small yapping dog that was, oddly enough, almost exactly the same color as her hair.
The dog was in her arms, peering at Lizette with beady dark eyes. Lizette normally liked dogs. She just didn’t like dogs that looked as if they had rodent DNA. To keep from being hypnotized by that beady gaze, she forced herself to look only at Maggie.
“Are you all right?” Maggie asked. “I saw your car in the driveway and I was so worried.” Maggie stepped forward and Lizette automatically stepped back and, bingo, just like that, Maggie was inside without having been invited. Lizette was annoyed with herself for not standing her ground, though she had to admit her normal modus operandi was to avoid confrontation, to not speak up, to be … passive.
Maggie held the dog close in her arms, to keep the little varmint from jumping down and playing “can’t catch me” throughout Lizette’s house. Her gaze scanned the room, but that was nothing unusual. Every time Lizette had encountered Maggie, the other woman had checked out everything, as if looking for some little clue that Lizette had a secret bondage fetish, or drug addiction, or anything else salacious. She was doomed in that, because Lizette couldn’t think of even a tiny salacious detail in her life—damn it. “You never miss work,” Maggie said almost accusingly, as if Lizette had disrupted her life by being sick.
Okay, it was kind of creepy that Maggie knew s
o much about her schedule, but not surprising. Maggie was the type of woman who sat where she could see out her windows and keep tabs on all her neighbors, a champion curtain-twitcher. Lizette managed to keep her expression neutral. Even if she did have enough money that she never needed to work, this woman needed a job in the worst way. Her day revolved around watching her neighbors and monitoring their every move; she gave real meaning to the phrase “get a life,” because the only one she seemed to have belonged to everyone around her.
Still…“I don’t feel well,” Lizette found herself explaining. The sweatpants and tee shirt she wore, along with no makeup and a face that had been, at last glance, much too pale, should have given that away. Give Maggie an F in observation skills.
“I was afraid of that. What can I do to help?” Maggie finally looked directly at Lizette, her pale blue eyes probing, alight with curiosity. “God, you do look awful,” she added, sounding sincere.
Gee, thanks, Lizette thought sarcastically, then felt guilty because, even if her main motivation was curiosity, Maggie had come over to check on her and offer to help. “Nothing major, just a bug. I’m feeling somewhat better now. I still haven’t tried any solid food, but I’m keeping liquids down. As a matter of fact, I was about to change clothes and go to a pharmacy or Walmart to pick up a few things.”
“I’ll be happy to do that for you. Just give me a list.”
Aspirin, Pepto-Bismol, an ice bag, a throwaway cell phone… The items ticked off in her head. She shut that inner voice off before it triggered another attack.
“Thanks, but I think the fresh air will make me feel better.” That was a polite enough way of saying “Thanks but no thanks, and bye-bye.”
But Maggie didn’t take the hint. She went to the sofa and sat down; the dog squirmed to get down, but she held him tighter. Glancing down, she saw the photo album that was open on the floor near the coffee table. “Oh, you’ve been looking at old pictures.”
“Yes.” Lizette stood at the end of the couch and looked down at her neighbor, who had made herself comfortable and showed no sign of taking the hint and going home. An idea niggled at her; maybe she could ask Maggie if she remembered exactly when Lizette had moved in—was it three years ago, or five?—but that was a strange question to ask anyone. Not only that, what if the house was bugged?
Maggie gave her a strange look. “Are you all right?”
“Hmm? As well as I’ve been all day, so far. Why?”
Maggie made an odd sound in her throat, one of either concern or curiosity; sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the two. “You were humming. Not that humming is strange,” she added hastily, “just that you had the weirdest expression on your face.”
“Sorry,” Lizette said, though she wondered why she was apologizing for humming. When one of those thunderbolt headaches threatened, switching her thoughts to the song she’d heard yesterday had become so automatic, she’d barely been aware that she’d started to hum. “You know how annoying it is when you hear a song and then can’t get it out of your head? Like that old Oscar Mayer wiener song? That kind of thing.”
Suddenly she found herself wondering exactly why Maggie was here. Why had she come over, instead of just calling? Before, she’d simply accepted the woman as the stereotypical nosy neighbor, but what if she wasn’t? Lizette covertly studied her visitor. Exactly how old was she? Fifty, maybe? She could be younger than that; the silvery gray hair made her look older, but she wasn’t what anyone would call elderly. Her skin was smooth, a lot smoother than her hair color should indicate. She didn’t wear a lot of makeup, and what she did wear was tasteful and almost undetectable, which took skill. And beneath the baggy, nondescript outfit she wore, she was trim. Was she also muscular? In good physical shape? Maybe. She didn’t move as if she had any problems with arthritis or worn-out joints.
Maggie’s hands were all but hidden in the thick, long hair of the yapper. Lizette studied what she could see, because hands could say a lot about someone’s age. What little she could see seemed to be smooth and spotless.
And the dog. The ornate collar could be hiding anything—a camera, a voice recorder—
Lizette grabbed her coffee cup and stepped back. This time she didn’t sing or hum aloud, but she let the song play in her mind, concentrating on the words until they drowned out everything else. Normal, her mind shouted behind the lyrics, be normal.
“I’m sorry,” she said swiftly. “My manners are terrible. I’ll blame it on the bug; I haven’t been sick in so long I can’t remember the last time. Thank goodness these things don’t last very long.” She headed for the kitchen. “Would you like some coffee? I’m going to make a fresh pot.”
“That sounds great,” Maggie chirped, killing Lizette’s hopes that instead of accepting she would say she’d just wanted to check that everything was all right, and now she’d get back home.
Lizette breathed deeply as she stepped into the kitchen. Normal.
Almost an hour had passed before Maggie finally took herself and the yapper—whose name happened to be Roosevelt, which came close to taking first place for the most incongruous name for a tiny dog she’d ever heard—back to her own house. What kind of woman would have such a lengthy visit with someone who’d had such a recent bout with a nasty bug? A hypochondriac who wanted to really be sick for a change? Someone who was so hungry for companionship she’d run the risk of catching the bug herself? Just a nosy neighbor? Or was she snooping around trying to find out … what?
Every time Lizette reached that point in her thought loop, a headache would threaten and she’d have to mentally back away.
