JULIA STOOD IN her new kitchen that night, using two of the six burners on the restaurant-style range.
Bubbles nudged the surface of the water in one pot, signaling that it was almost ready for pasta. In the other, meatballs from the frozen food section bobbed in sauce from a jar. Their meal would be neither creative nor fancy, merely fast and filling, which met her—and more important, Calvin’s—requirements.
He waited impatiently at the table, picking the croutons from his salad and crunching them audibly between his teeth.
“You have to eat the lettuce too,” she reminded him. “And you should wait until we’re both at the table, and—hey! Stop feeding the dog!”
Jake danced at his feet, awaiting another crouton. A few slices of mushroom lay untouched beside him on the floor.
“He’s like me,” Calvin said, unperturbed. “He doesn’t like mushrooms either.”
It was a flagrant violation of a newly established rule, but Julia wasn’t paying attention. She stared at the expanse of tiled floor, wondering exactly where Leslie Harper had been found.
But if her death had been accidental—the deadly mixture of booze and pills that killed far too many people—wouldn’t it make sense that she’d have been in bed, or sprawled on a sofa in front of a television? Sure, people drank all the time while cooking. Julia herself had a glass of Chianti at her elbow.
But who guzzled wine, popped pills, and then wandered around the kitchen? Besides, the pills had been in the upstairs medicine cabinet. Harper would have had to wander back downstairs before face-planting on the kitchen floor.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she murmured.
“Mom. Mom.”
Jake barked. Julia looked up.
“Your water. It’s boiling.” Calvin pointed to the water, which was boiling so furiously it splashed onto the stovetop.
“Right. Sorry.” She dumped in the pasta and gave it a quick stir.
Her phone rang. No ID on the number, but she answered it anyway, just in case, hoping it was one of the people from the creek calling on a Tracfone.
“Hello?”
“Julia.” Something familiar in the voice, speaking in low, confidential tones. “How are you tonight?”
“Who’s this?” She tucked the phone between chin and shoulder and put a couple of bowls in the microwave to warm them. She picked up the wooden spoon again and gave the pasta another quick stir.
“A friend. Someone who cares about you.”
Julia dropped the spoon. She left the kitchen quickly, moving down the hall until she was sure she was out of earshot from Calvin, Jake close at her heels.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“You ask a lot of questions.” That same silky, confiding tone, pitched low, neither discernibly male nor female. “So did Leslie Harper. And now you’re in her house. In her kitchen. The very spot where she died. Do you believe in coincidence, Julia?”
She gasped and fumbled for the phone’s off button, her hands shaking. By the time she found it, her caller had already hung up.
Deputy Wayne Peterson was at her door within fifteen minutes.
“Oh God, thank you.” Julia held it together until she opened the door to the reassuring sight of someone who would Handle It. Her voice cracked damnably. “I didn’t want to call 911 over just a phone call, but …”
He held up a hand. “Stop. A, you should have called 911, and B, since you didn’t, I’m glad you called me. Stay here for a few minutes. I’m going to check around the outside of the house.”
She closed the door and locked it behind him, then watched the sweep of his flashlight as he made a circuit of the house and yard.
“Mom? I’m hungry.”
She’d yanked Calvin from his chair and fled into the hall as soon as she’d hung up with Wayne. She’d had the presence of mind to turn off the flames under the pots on the stove, but the pasta had probably turned to mush anyway.
“Just wait a few more minutes. We’ll eat as soon as Deputy Peterson goes home.”
“But why are we in the hallway? Why can’t we go back into the kitchen?”
Why? Because of the darkness beyond that rear wall of windows where someone lurked, watching her as she moved about the kitchen preparing a dinner for her child.
She jumped as Wayne rapped on the door. She ran to unlock it, Jake at her heels, yapping fiercely.
“Well?”
“No sign of anyone. Not that I expected anything, but you never know. Sometimes somebody gets careless, drops something. It happens.”
Calvin clutched Bear-Bear, the stuffed toy that now shared top billing with Jake as his favorite companion, Julia herself a distant third. He pressed himself against her legs and peeped around her.
“Who’s this big fellow?” Wayne stooped and offered a hand. “And who’s his furry friend?”
Calvin hung back.
“Smart boy. You shouldn’t talk to strangers unless your mom says it’s okay.”
She nodded to Calvin. “It’s fine.”
He took Wayne’s hand. “I’m Calvin,” he whispered. “This is Bear-Bear.”
“And what about this very scary guard dog?”
Calvin managed a smile. “Jake.”
“Does Jake have a favorite toy?”
“Benny. His turtle.”
“A turtle?” He turned to Julia.
“It’s stuffed. Sort of. He shreds a little more of it every day. Benny’s down to two legs. It’s a constant battle to keep Bear-Bear from meeting the same fate.”
“If that’s what he does to Benny, just think what he’d do to a bad guy.”
Calvin rewarded him with a giggle. Julia, though, imagined Jake—still mostly fluff and lingering puppy fat—up against some shadowy figure bent on harm. Her hands, which had finally stopped shaking, began to dance anew. She knotted her fingers behind her back.
“Tell you what. Why don’t you and Jake play with his turtle for a minute while I talk to your mom?”
Julia nodded permission, waiting until Calvin and Jake descended toward the basement playroom. When she turned back to Wayne, his face was grim.
“Couple of things. You got any whiskey in this place?”
Julia rushed for the cupboard and found a glass. “I’m sorry. I’m so rattled I didn’t even offer.”
“Not for me. For you.”
She pointed to a cabinet over the refrigerator. He retrieved a bottle, poured a healthy splash into the glass, added a little more, and handed it to her.
She sipped, coughed, and drank again.
He waited until she put the glass down.
“First things first. Get some curtains for these goddamn windows. All of them. And get your locks changed. Here.” He pulled a business card from his pocket and wrote a number on the back. “Here’s a guy I’ve used. He’s good. Tell him I told you to call and that I said to put you in front of all his other customers.”
“A locksmith! Really? After all, it’s not like he threatened me.” No, Julia thought, he just scared the shit out of me. “You don’t think he’ll try to break in, do you?” She drained the glass.
“Probably not. And new locks probably aren’t necessary, but you’ll sleep better. He’s probably just some guy who walked by, saw you through the window, and decided to have some fun. An opportunist. You’d be surprised how many serial peepers we’ve got in this town.”
“No, I wouldn’t. I defend them, remember? Anyway, it wasn’t that kind of call.”
“I don’t guess you recorded it.”
“It’s illegal without permission in our state. You know that.”
He gave her a pitying look. “If he calls again, hit record and worry about the legalities later. I’m a cop, and I’m telling you that.”
She tried to smile. “And I’m a lawyer and I’m telling you I absolutely will.”
“Good girl.” He looked around the kitchen. “I haven’t been in this place since …” He stopped. “Not just the night we found her. And before too. She hosted meetings for us sometimes. She’d call the city cops, some of us deputy sheriffs, cook up a storm, and pick our brains about reform.”
“Sounds lovely.” And it did. But her present moment was anything but.
“Wayne, he—I’m just guessing it was a he; I really couldn’t tell—knew where her body was found. How would anyone know that?”
He sat down at the table and gestured for her to do the same. “Probably half the town knows by now. You know how things are in Duck Creek. The sister flies in, talks to the neighbor or some of Leslie’s friends. She tells them, they tell everyone they know; next thing you know, Chance Larsen’s printed it on the front page for the benefit of the three people left who didn’t know.”
She dug her hands into her hair, then knotted it into a bun at her nape, trying to seem purposeful. “But the person told me to stop asking questions. Wayne, it’s like you said—a lot of people in town are talking about this. Asking the same questions I’m asking.”
He reached across the table and patted her arm. “Which is exactly why I think it’s just some jackoff—I know, not literally in this case, at least probably not—messing with you. I’m sorry to point out the obvious, but it’s probably someone who recognized you, maybe one of the frequent fliers, realized that you’re living in Leslie’s house now, and is trying to turn the whole thing into some B movie haunted-house scenario.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I really do. Now, you’ve got a little boy to feed, and a dog, too, unless you want him to finish eating that turtle. I’m going to head out. If—and truly, Julia, I consider it a big if—anything like this happens again, you either call 911 or me right away. And get those locks changed.”
“Thanks, Wayne.” It came out small and choked, but Julia was too grateful to be properly mortified.
Only later, after she’d double-checked that the deadbolts were fastened, propped chairs beneath the front and back doors for good measure, and had another whiskey and crawled straight into bed, forgoing the pleasure of a bath, did her mind snag on something Wayne had said.
She reached for her phone and clicked on the Bulletin’s website, searching for the names Chance Larsen and Leslie Harper.
Wayne had theorized that her caller had read the details of Leslie’s death in one of Chance’s stories. But he couldn’t have. Because that particular detail had never made its way into print.