THE POLICE CRUISER PULLED up in front of Tessa’s house on a Tuesday afternoon while the kids were in school.
Harry was out for a run, and Tessa was home alone. Tessa had been encouraging Harry to exercise because she hoped it might reduce his stress, but now she wished she hadn’t. He came home sweaty and red-faced, often with reports of beating his previous mileage. Harry was up to something like thirty miles a week now, and his face was so thin his cheeks looked sunken. His transformation reminded Tessa of the one Matthew McConaughey had undergone for Dallas Buyers Club, where he’d morphed from muscular and healthy to sallow and fragile in a few short months. But McConaughey had won an Oscar for that transformation, then he had returned to a healthy weight. To himself.
Tessa wasn’t sure what made her walk into the living room and look out the window—a sixth sense?—but when she did, the black-and-white car was parked by the curb. As if keeping surveillance.
She was grateful she wasn’t holding anything, because her hands began to tremble and nausea rose in her throat. The doorbell hadn’t rung, had it? She was certain she would have heard it. So the police officer must still be in the car.
What would an innocent person do, someone who had no knowledge of a crime? Would she run out to the car and ask the police officer why he was there, perhaps feigning fear at the thought of a criminal being on the loose?
No, Tessa thought. She’d wait, and look perplexed but eager to cooperate when the doorbell rang.
She went into the kitchen and ran cold water over a paper towel and dotted it against her wrists and the back of her neck. She took deep breaths and stared at her hands, willing them to stop trembling. The sudden silence of the house felt eerie. She could hear the almost imperceptible ticking of the kitchen clock.
When the doorbell rang, she nearly screamed.
She wiped her palms on her jeans, forced herself to slowly inhale and exhale once more, then went to open the door.
“Mrs. Campbell?” the young cop asked. He lowered his mirrored sunglasses and Tessa took in a shaky breath. He was a baby—maybe just twenty-two or twenty-three. They wouldn’t have sent a baby cop if they knew.
“Officer, come in,” Tessa said. She stepped back. Her voice was a little higher than usual but the cop wouldn’t know that.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
He stepped over the threshold and looked around. Their living room was neat and clean. The daily newspaper was spread across the coffee table, open to the crossword puzzle Harry had been working on that morning. There wasn’t anything here amiss, nothing that would trigger suspicion.
“I’m Officer Chapman, just here as a courtesy,” he said. “We got a call from Detective Robinson from your old town.”
The female detective assigned to the case, the one with big, watchful eyes and an ever-present notebook.
“Yes,” Tessa said. “I met her.”
“She asked me to check in, see how you’re doing,” the officer said.
“How nice,” Tessa said. “Can I get you some coffee? Or some cookies, or . . . ?”
Her voice trailed off.
“Actually, coffee and cookies sound really good,” the officer said, and suddenly he was a boy again. He was of no threat to her.
Tessa hurried into the kitchen. She’d reheat this morning’s coffee that was still in the pot so she wouldn’t waste precious minutes brewing a fresh cup. Harry had been gone for almost an hour. He’d be back any minute now. She tore open a package of sugar cookies and put five on a plate, then snatched three back.
“Cream and sugar?” she called out.
“Please,” Officer Chapman said.
She wondered what he was doing in the living room. If he was looking around.
She pulled the glass carafe off the warming burner before it was fully hot and sloshed some into a cup, then added sweetener and cream. She brought everything back into the living room and set it on the coffee table.
“Please sit down,” she said. She could hear the kitchen clock ticking again. “Or actually, I can put that in a to-go cup if you need to get back to work?”
“Oh, I can take a five-minute break,” the officer said.
Of course he could—Newport Cove was one of the twenty safest communities in the country. What did he have to do, other than give high-fives to little kids and respond to a report of a cat up in a tree?
Tessa sat across from him and crossed her legs and pushed the corners of her mouth upward, hoping her expression resembled a smile. She could see the street in front of the house. No sign of Harry coming down it.
“I guess you wanted to move away,” the officer said.
“We did,” Tessa said. “After everything that happened . . . well, it seemed like a fresh start was a good idea.”
“You might want to give your contact information to Officer Robinson,” the officer said. He dunked a cookie in his coffee and took a big bite. “She wasn’t aware you’d moved.”
“She wasn’t?” Tessa said. “I’m sorry. It was sort of an impulsive decision. We just fell in love with this area.”
Officer Chapman took another sip of coffee. Hurry! Tessa wanted to scream.
“What brought you down here again?” he asked.
Tessa suddenly went very still. The officer’s eyes were fixed on hers. She’d let down her guard because he was so young. She’d been wrong to do that.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harry jogging down their street. He stopped short when he saw the police car.
“Like I said before,” Tessa said. “We just wanted a fresh start. And the weather here is a little milder, which is nice.”
“You don’t have any family here, though?” the officer said. He picked up a cookie and crunched into it, his eyes never leaving hers.
“No,” Tessa said. “Of course, we didn’t have any in our old neighborhood, either.”
Somehow she felt certain Detective Robinson would be checking to verify that.
“Detective Robinson mentioned there wasn’t a photo of your son in Danny’s house,” Officer Chapman said.
“No, there wasn’t,” Tessa said. Meet his eyes, she reminded herself. Don’t volunteer unnecessary information. No tells.
“Is your husband home?” Officer Chapman asked. He finished the cookies and wiped his fingertips on his pants.
“Not at the moment,” Tessa said. Her throat was so dry she couldn’t swallow.
She heard the back door opening and coughed to mask the sound. Harry was in the house now. Would he come into the living room? “Well,” she said loudly as she stood up. “I should probably start fixing dinner.”
It was two o’clock in the afternoon. Another misstep.
Officer Chapman got to his feet. Any second now, Harry would walk into the room and he’d do something—run away or confess or start crying. He was so fragile.
Tessa strode to the front door. She held it open, knowing she was being rude—worse than rude, she was acting strangely.
She sent a mental message to Harry: Don’t move. Don’t say a word.
“Have a good day, ma’am,” the officer said. “Thanks for the coffee and cookies.”
Tessa closed the door behind him a split-second before Harry entered the living room.
“What’s wrong?” Harry asked.
“Nothing!” she said. “Everything’s fine!”
“Why were the police here?” he asked.
She looked him in the eye. “A fund-raiser. I wrote a check.”
Harry nodded and she could see his body relax. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to take a shower.”
Tessa managed to wait until she heard the water turn on upstairs before she allowed herself to fall onto the couch, her legs too weak to hold her up.