Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(22)

He can’t bear the thought of anything happening to her. She’s all he has in this world—and all he needs.

His concern evaporates a few moments later when a pair of headlights swing into the driveway just as he’s putting the keys into the ignition.

Cora parks her car beside his pickup, jumps out, and scurries toward him with her own insulated lunch bag dangling from her hand. She’s wearing a conservative top and slacks and comfort shoes, but five minutes from now, he knows, she’ll have changed into slim-fitting jeans, black biker boots, and a short-sleeved shirt that reveals her tattoos. Her glorious dyed-black hair—the same shade as what’s left of his own—will be released from its clip to tumble down her shoulders.

God, he loves this woman.

He climbs quickly out of the truck and greets her with a fierce embrace and a passionate kiss.

“Mmmm,” she says, “I wish you weren’t leaving.”

“Me too. But I’ll be back, baby.”

She sighs and tilts her forehead against his. “I know. I just miss you when you’re gone.”

“I miss you more. You’re my everything.”

“You’re mine.”

It’s how they always say good-bye. They smile at each other and exchange one last kiss.

Then Chuck climbs behind the wheel and watches her until she’s disappeared inside, safe and sound for the night.

Interesting.

Concealed in the shadows of an overgrown rhododendron, Jamie ponders what just happened.

Ever since a chatty—for a price—prison deliveryman informed her that Charles Nowak was the main guard on Jerry’s cell block that fateful night, Jamie has been plotting the man’s death. Suddenly, though, the plan seems unnecessarily lackluster.

You’re my everything.

Those words had reached Jamie’s ears loud and clear.

Food for thought.

Guess life wouldn’t be much worth living without your everything, now would it, Charlie?

Sometimes, death isn’t the worst punishment a person can endure.

Don’t I know it.

A light flicks on inside the house, pooling from the window right above Jamie’s head. Standing on tiptoes, she glimpses the room—a bedroom—and Charlie’s wife walking right toward the window.

For one hair-raising moment, Jamie is certain she’s been spotted.

The woman reaches toward the glass.

But her hand goes to the window lock between the top and bottom panes. She turns it and lifts the sash from the bottom, opening the window a few inches.

Well, how about that? It’s like she’s inviting you in . . . but of course she can’t see you. The light puts a glare on the glass.

No, she has no idea someone is lurking out here in the night, watching her.

Just like the others.

Kristina . . . Marianne . . .

They had no idea that someone was watching them through the window. They both died because of what they did to Jerry.

This woman . . .

She’ll die because her husband helped to kill him.

Yes. She’ll die. Not him.

She’ll die tonight.

And then Charles Nowak will know what it’s like to lose someone you love.

“Mack?”

He jumps, startled, and turns to see Allison standing in the doorway of the sunroom.

In her hand is a glass of diet iced tea. She buys it by the gallon and drinks it every night before bed—not the healthiest habit, she admits. But she’s been doing it for years, long before they moved to the land of health fanatics who would just as soon lace a drink with strychnine as they would ingest artificial sweeteners and caffeine.

She’s changed from jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers to sweats and slippers. It’s harder and harder to recall the fashionista he first met ten years ago—but that’s fine with him. She was a little too glamorous, he thought when they first started dating, and that intimidated him. He was, after all, a middle-class kid from Jersey.

Little did he know, back then, that Allison was a welfare kid from the Midwest.

“Sorry,” she says, “I didn’t mean to scare you. I got the kids down. What are you doing?”

He shrugs. “Just checking out the color. It looks pretty good, doesn’t it?”

“The paint?” She smiles. “It looks great. Hudson was right. It is a happy shade, you know?”

“Yeah.” Mack had been hoping, when he detoured into the sunroom on his way from the living room to the kitchen with an empty glass, that some of this golden happiness would seep into him. But standing here, all he feels is the same monochromatic melancholy that flooded him around Labor Day and refuses to recede.

It will, though, eventually. It always does.

For now, he’ll just have to live with it.

“We need to get those back up tomorrow,” Allison gestures at the corner where he’d piled the window shades before he started painting.

“I don’t know . . . don’t you think it’s kind of nice to have them uncovered? It lets the sun in.”

“During the day. But right now . . .” She indicates the three walls of exposed glass. “Anyone can see in.”

“Only if they happen to be standing in our yard. It’s not like there’s a clear view from the street.”

That’s one reason this house was so appealing to them when they bought it, having grown weary of the lack of privacy when they lived in the city. Here, dense, tall hedgerows effectively screen the borders of the property.