Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(20)

“Well, he got the sunroom painted, but he was so preoccupied he barely gave them the time of day. He promised he’d take them out for ice cream after dinner one night, and that never happened, which isn’t like him.”

“Uh-oh—were they upset?”

“They must have been.” She sighs, remembering what it was like when her mother broke promises—a frequent occurrence—and her own vow to never break a promise to anyone. “But you know how it goes with my girls. In their eyes, Daddy can do no wrong.”

“Wait till they turn thirteen,” Randi says darkly. “Then nobody—including Daddy, but especially you—will be able to do anything right.”

“Terrific. Can’t wait.”

“You know, it’s really too bad you guys couldn’t go to Disney this year. Or even Vermont. I’m sure not getting a vacation made all of this much harder on Mack.”

“That, and . . .” Allison trails off, not sure whether she should even bring it up.

“What?”

“It’s nothing, really.”

“When people say that, it’s always something, really.” Randi leans forward and props her chin in her hand. “I’m an expert bullshit detector, you know. It’s my favorite claim to fame.”

Allison smiles briefly. “So I’ve heard.”

“Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Did you by any chance hear about Jerry Thompson?”

Randi, of course, knows who he is. She frowns. “What about him?”

“He killed himself in prison last weekend.”

“Really? Well, good riddance, right? You must be so relieved.”

“I am.” Allison absently uses a napkin to wipe a smudge of crumby paste, courtesy of J.J., from her hand.

“You don’t seem convinced.”

“It’s just . . . I don’t know, I guess I expected to find some kind of peace knowing he’s dead, but . . . it’s kind of the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

She hesitates, not wanting to admit that the news seems to have dredged up a whole new wave of paranoia, leaving her jumpy and uneasy the last few days—and for no conceivable reason.

Now, more than ever, she should finally be able to put the whole nightmare behind her.

“I guess it just brought back a lot of bad memories,” she tells Randi. “And I keep remembering how wrong I was about him. Kristina herself said he gave her the creeps, and I told her he was harmless. The next thing I knew, she was dead. How could I have been such a terrible judge of character?”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Allie. You barely knew the guy. We can never really be sure what’s going on in someone else’s head, even someone we think we know well, let alone a virtual stranger.”

“I know, but . . . even after she died—after I saw him there that night—there was some little piece of my brain that wouldn’t accept that he was the one.”

“Until he attacked you in your apartment and almost killed you.” Randi shakes her head grimly.

“No—not even then. I never saw his face, and I was so sure it was someone else . . . Right up until the police arrested him and he confessed.”

“Serial killers are cunning. They fool people. Look at Ted Bundy. My cousin Mindy was at Florida State back in the seventies when he killed those sorority girls. She’d seen him hanging around campus, and he seemed totally normal.”

This isn’t the first time Randi has brought that up.

Allison shudders, remembering the horrific details of how Bundy crept into the Chi Omega house in the middle of the night to rape and murder sleeping young women. It was eerily similar to what Jerry did to Kristina Haines and that other woman, Marianne Apostolos.

“Mindy said no one ever would have guessed in a million years that the guy was a homicidal maniac,” Randi goes on.

“I know, but . . . Jerry wasn’t like that. He was kind of bumbling and dim-witted and . . . I don’t know. What’s the point of even talking about it? It’s over.”

“Exactly. You can’t beat yourself up over one lapse in character judgment. You’ve had a great track record ever since, right? I mean, you married Mack, and you have me for a best friend . . .” Randi offers her most charming smile.

Allison has to laugh, but she’s still feeling inexplicably uneasy inside, remembering what it was like to see a figure looming in her bedroom in the dead of night.

She just prays she’ll never experience sheer terror like that again.

But of course you won’t, because Jerry Thompson is dead and no one else in this world has any reason to harm you.

It’s strictly by choice that Chuck Nowak has worked the third shift for most of his seventeen-year career as a corrections officer at Sullivan Correctional. He’s always been a night owl; he’d much rather work until seven in the morning than get up at that ungodly hour to start the day.

Not only that, but if you’re going to be locked up with a few hundred dangerous felons, you’re better off doing it after lights out, when the vast majority of them are asleep.

The only drawback to the night shift: the love of his life—his wife, Cora, whom he married a few years ago—is a nine-to-five medical receptionist across the river in Beacon. Five days every week, they’re ships passing.