In the den, I flipped on my television and perched on the edge of the couch, waiting for the nightly news. A few moments later, my fingers prickled, and a shiver crawled up my spine as I saw his name scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen. Martin Nesbitt, my tenant’s husband, had been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping.
About time they focused on the right people and the right place, I thought, relieved. Martin Nesbitt looked like a killer, one of those never-thought-he-was-a-killer-because-he’s-so-handsome types that always made me suspicious. Officer Ellie James was on the screen, too, leading a cuffed Martin Nesbitt into the police station.
“Can you tell us if these two missing women are related in some way?” a perky reporter shoved her mike at Officer James.
Two women? My stomach lurched. I was out of Camels, but I’d managed to find a stale pack of Parliaments downstairs. I lit one, puffing so hard I forgot to breathe through my nose. Finally, I stood up from the couch and stubbed it out, just as a flicker of movement outside my window caught my eye.
Something bubbled up inside me as I tiptoed over to the window and leaned closer into the glass. The windowpane was behind my TV, so I couldn’t get as close as I liked.
My own face peered back at me, murky and frightened. Am I scared of my own reflection now? Sheesh.
But then a white ghostly palm smacked the glass and I jumped back, screaming in terror.