Prologue
Lovely 3-BR Cape Cod w/finished basement on a cul-de-sac—no thru traffic! Located in one of the 20 safest neighborhoods in the U.S.! Immaculate condition! Wood floors! Southern-style porch overlooking fenced yard! Tranquil neighborhood Gorgeous neighborhood
Kellie Scott frowned, her fingers hesitating over her keyboard. “Peaceful neighborhood,” she murmured. “Serene . . .”
“Bucolic,” Miller Thompson suggested, leaning over her shoulder while he read the flyer copy on her computer. He exhaled and she felt a brush of warm breath against her bare arm.
“That’s it,” she said. “Thanks.”
She watched Miller stroll away, then she finished the flyer before going into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. It was only her fourth day on the job, but she felt confident she could sell the kitchen in this office as a vacation property to harried mothers (as if there were any other kind) of young children. She imagined the copy she’d write: Floors that don’t crunch disturbingly under your feet! A spotless refrigerator with sodas and bubbly water lined up like little soldiers! A table that isn’t covered in dried Play-Doh and sticky juice boxes!
Her blood pressure seemed to drop twenty points every time she walked in here and realized she didn’t have to clean rotting vegetables out of the crisper or make dinner for a ten-year-old girl who refused to eat much of anything except cheese or bacon and a seven-year-old boy who seemed to subsist on baby carrots and celery.
“My daughter is on the Atkins diet and my son’s trying the supermodel diet,” she’d joked to her in-laws during their weekly family dinner last Sunday. Her sister-in-law had responded quickly (some might say aggressively) by ladling a large helping of broccoli and rice onto her own son’s plate.
Here, though, in this hushed office with tasteful beige walls and mahogany furniture, no one judged her. Here she was Kellie 2.0—a sleeker, improved version of herself. She curled her hair and wore mascara and skirts. She never had to hide in the bathroom and whisper when she needed to make an important phone call. No one wiped runny noses on her sleeve.
“Ready for lunch?” Miller asked, poking his head into the kitchen.
“Lunch?” Kellie repeated. She had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple in her shoulder bag. She’d planned to eat at her desk.
“Don’t tell me you’re planning to eat at your desk,” Miller said. “It’s tradition for the senior agents to take out the new hires during their first week.”
She felt her cheeks heat up. The last time she’d gone to a restaurant alone with a man was when she and her husband, Jason, had dined at the Olive Garden three weeks ago. He’d ordered the carbonara Never Ending Pasta Bowl and had complained of a stomachache afterward.
“Sounds great,” she said lightly.
This was all part of reentering the workforce after being a stay-at-home mom for a decade. You bought a pair of high heels. You made intelligent conversation about interest rates and whether kitchen renovations held their value in a resale. You ate lunch with colleagues—sometimes tall, distractingly handsome ones whose woodsy cologne lingered after they walked away from your desk.
Besides, Miller probably just wanted to learn more about the neighborhood. Kellie’s home was right down the street from his new listing, which was why he’d asked her to write the flyer copy and assist him with the open house. She could tell prospective buyers that Mr. and Mrs. Brannon had lived there for nearly fifty years, and that the neighborhood was called Newport Cove. That it was the kind of place where children played hopscotch on the wide sidewalks, and residents greeted one another by name and collected newspapers for each other when they went on vacation. Where all of the streets were named for flowers, and neighbors held block parties on balmy summer evenings. “Bucolic.” That was the perfect word.
“Sell it to good people,” Kellie’s best friend, Susan, who lived five houses down, had urged. “Make sure they have kids.”
“I will,” Kellie had promised.
A contractor was repainting every room in the vacant house and replacing the wall-to-wall carpets with modern, glossy wood flooring. A stager would bring in bouquets of bright flowers and accent pieces on Sunday morning. Kellie was going to bake chocolate chip cookies so the kitchen would smell irresistible.
The house reminded Kellie of a girl getting ready for a school dance, slipping into a new dress, fastening a sparkling bracelet around her wrist, dabbing on perfume. Wondering if someone across the room would smile at her, then make his way over and offer his hand.
The house deserved a good family. A special family. Kellie hoped whoever was meant to find it would come soon.
• • •
“A Southern-style porch overlooking a fenced yard!” Tessa Campbell read aloud to her husband, Harry. “A bucolic neighborhood!”
“What is a Southern-style porch, exactly?” Harry asked.
Tessa frowned. “Maybe one with pillars? But the point is, it’s in one of the twenty safest neighborhoods in the country. Plus it’s on a cul-de-sac.”
Harry sighed and scrubbed his hands through his short salt-and-pepper hair. “Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” he asked. “Uproot the kids? Leave our friends?”
“Are you kidding me?” she asked. “What’s the alternative? Stay here, with all the . . . the reminders?”
They spoke this way to each other now, in a kind of code. To anyone watching, they’d appear to be a normal couple enjoying a lazy summer evening on their wooden deck. A casual observer wouldn’t notice that Harry was on his third gin and tonic, or that the circles under Tessa’s eyes were the dark purple of an eggplant, or that Harry had a new, compulsive habit of tapping his foot against the floor.
Tessa gently closed her laptop.
“A fresh start is exactly what we need,” she said. “School doesn’t begin for a few weeks. It’s only a half day’s drive. We could head down Saturday night and stay in a motel. We’ll book one with a swimming pool, turn it into an adventure. We’ll spend the day checking out the town and the schools. If we like it, we could try to settle on the house fast.”
“If we move all of a sudden, won’t it look . . . ?” Harry began.
“No,” Tessa said firmly.
Harry drained his glass and Tessa wondered if he’d refill it again. Rat-a-tat-tat thrummed his foot against the wood floor.
“We need this,” she repeated.
Relocating wouldn’t be an issue for Harry’s job; his IT company’s headquarters was based across the country, in California, and he flew there for a few days every week or two but worked the rest of the time from home. Money wasn’t a concern, not since his generous stock options from his last job, a technology start-up, had kicked in. They didn’t have any family nearby, and the kids were young enough that they’d make new friends quickly. There were a dozen little reasons why a move wouldn’t be a bad decision. And a single enormous one why it was vitally necessary.
She could hear the kids arguing inside and she gauged the intensity with an experienced ear, determining that it didn’t require her intervention yet.
The sun eased lower in the pink-tinged sky, and the aroma of meat grilling on their next-door neighbor’s barbeque drifted over. She liked their neighbors; they were a retired couple who brought by extra tomatoes and zucchini from their garden. She liked this house, too. Tessa had stenciled artwork onto her children’s bedroom walls and had finally found the perfect shade of slate blue for the living room. They’d expanded eighteen months ago, bumping out into the backyard and creating a master suite and a cook’s kitchen that spilled into the family room.
She desperately wanted to walk away and never see any of it again.
Harry stood up and went to refill his glass. He’d lost weight, and his khaki shorts sagged around the waist. Tessa watched her husband take another long sip of his gin and tonic. The cold glass was sweating in the warmth of the August air and a few droplets rolled down Harry’s fingers before splashing onto the wooden deck.
Suddenly, she saw him again as he’d been on that night, reaching down to touch the dark red blood his shoe had tracked onto their kitchen floor, his eyes dazed. What happened? he’d asked her over and over. What happened?
Lost in the vision, Tessa didn’t realize Harry had spoken until his damp fingers clutched her arm. She flinched, then hoped he hadn’t noticed. She didn’t want him to think she was afraid of him. She had to be the steady one now; to convince him she could guide them through this.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll go Saturday.”
She stood up, picking up her own wineglass, which was still half full. She’d dump the remainder in the sink. One of them had to stay sharp and between her insomnia and Harry’s drinking, it would be too easy to slip. “I’ll tell the kids,” she said. “We’ll have fun.”
Fun. An impossible concept. But the kids might enjoy the trip, at least. And once they were settled in a new place—in a safe place—she and Harry could try to find, if not joy, some measure of peace. A respite from the memories that were everywhere.
She left him there on the porch, sipping his drink too quickly, his eyes blank as the darkening sky.
I’ll save you, she thought. I’ll save all of us.