Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(45)

That’s fine, when all she has to do after the kids are down is crawl into bed herself.

But when there’s more to come—like this past Friday night—she’s in trouble. They’d hired a sitter again—this time, the teenage niece of Hudson’s kindergarten teacher—for their anniversary dinner at Mardino’s, their favorite Italian restaurant. Allison had looked forward to it all week.

But of course she didn’t want to leave the house until after J.J. was safely asleep—well after eight o’clock, which was unusual for him. He must have picked up on her extra-nervous energy, or maybe he was just teething.

In any case, Allison yawned through dinner, and by the time the dessert menu came, she could barely keep her eyes open.

“Maybe you should order an espresso,” Mack suggested.

“I can’t drink caffeine now. It’ll keep me up all night.”

He shrugged. “Take a Dormipram.”

“No, thanks. That’s your prescription, not mine.”

He’d actually stopped taking the medication for a few nights after she alerted him to the sleep-eating, but that didn’t last for long. The insomnia came roaring back with a vengeance, and he was miserable.

Now that he knew what it was like to actually get a good night’s sleep—and that it was possible—Mack decided he’d rather deal with the drug’s side effects than with chronic insomnia.

“Maybe Dr. Cuthbert can put you on something else,” she suggested, but Mack balked at going back to see him, saying there’s no way he can take time off from work for another weekday appointment.

He claims he hasn’t had any more issues with sleep-eating, but Allison isn’t so sure. She hasn’t heard him getting up in the middle of the night, not that that means anything, since she sleeps so soundly she never stirred when he was doing it.

She’s been hiding the sweetened cereal and other food he was gobbling down in the night, just in case—so far, so good—but she can’t stash the cold stuff anywhere but the fridge. The other day, right before the storm, she was almost positive four containers of yogurt had vanished overnight, along with half a gallon of her favorite diet iced tea, yet the empty containers weren’t in the trash.

Maybe she was mistaken about the contents of the fridge, though she doesn’t want to do a new inventory right now—she’s trying to keep it closed to prevent spoilage until the power comes back.

Or maybe a sleepwalking Mack is now going to great lengths to hide the evidence of his midnight binges.

When his sister, Lynn, called to check on them earlier today, Allison mentioned it to her, needing to confide in someone—but not one of her local friends. They all gossip, and Mack would be mortified if it got around town.

She remembered Lynn mentioning once, when they were all staying at the beach house together on vacation, that her brother used to walk in his sleep as a child. Today, Allison brought it up, asking for more details.

“It was the creepiest thing,” Lynn said. “He’d walk into the room with his eyes wide open, but he was completely out of it. I’d get freaked out, but I wasn’t allowed to try to wake him up.”

“Why not?”

“Dr. Victor—he was our pediatrician—told my mother that you should never wake a sleepwalker.”

“Why not?” Allison asked again.

“He said the person might get aggressive and violent. Trust me, I wasn’t about to take any chances with that. My brother used to wrestle me sometimes—just normal kid scuffles—and I knew how strong he was. So I’d just let him do his sleepwalking thing and stay out of his way.”

“What did he do?”

“You know—just sort of walk around like a zombie, talking to himself sometimes, or to us. It was complete gibberish. Kind of funny, looking back now. But at the time, it scared the shit out of me.”

“Did he ever eat in his sleep?”

“Maybe . . . I don’t remember. Why? Is he at it again?”

“I think so.”

“Well, don’t worry. He’s harmless—as long as you don’t try to wake him up,” Lynn added with a chuckle. “Listen, I know I can be a real chatterbox, and I don’t want to keep you on the line—you said your battery is going.”

She was right—it was, and Allison hung up reluctantly. She wants to talk to Mack about it, tonight, and about an idea that got stuck in her mind a while back, when Ben and Randi offered to let the MacKennas borrow not just their au pair, but their nanny cam.

Those cameras, she recalls, were so tiny and so easily concealed that no one would ever guess that they were there.

What if Allison were to set up a few around the house to catch Mack sleepwalking and sleep-eating?

She’d tell him, of course . . .

Or would she?

I don’t know. It’s probably a bad idea. I wouldn’t want anyone keeping an eye on me, and it doesn’t seem fair to do it to him.

She just wonders whether it might help if he saw himself.

As the girls make their way around downed branches toward the reassuringly lit-up house next door, Allison’s cell phone vibrates in her back pocket. She pulls it out, noting that it feels sticky. J.J. got his hands on it earlier, and of course threw a full-blown tantrum when she wrestled it away.

A glance at the caller ID reveals that the call is from a private number—Mack’s cell phone, most likely. It always comes up that way.