Pen Pal(27)

He blows a bubble, pops it, then grins at me. “We can do that.”

I stick out my hand, and we shake on it.

Which is when I happen to glance over Jake’s shoulder out my office window and notice someone standing in the yard, down near the water’s edge.

Partially hidden by the trunk of a tree, the figure appears to be a man. Though he’s too far away to discern any facial features, and his eyes are obscured by the brim of the hat he’s wearing, I have the distinct feeling that he’s staring right at me.

I catch a glint of white as the man bares his teeth like an animal.

A gust of wind whistles down the chimney. Goose bumps form on my arms. A shiver of fear runs through my body, chilling me to my bones.

“I’ll get my equipment from the truck and get to work,” says Jake.

I glance in his direction as he walks out of the room. When I turn back to look out the window, the man by the tree is gone.





15





Feeling rattled but also brave because Jake is in the house—and it’s daytime—I decide to take a walk out to the water to investigate.

Bainbridge Island is only a thirty-five minute ferry ride from Seattle, but it feels as if it’s on a different planet. Much of it is covered in thick cedar woods or dedicated to nature preserves, but there’s a quaint downtown area with cozy coffee shops, boutiques, and restaurants. Miles of trails that follow the rugged coastline and hilly interior make it a hiker’s paradise. At five miles wide and ten miles long with a population of only twenty-five thousand, the island is small, but is also a perfect spot for people who work in the city but don’t want to live there.

Michael and I settled here when he accepted the position as head of the PhD program at the University of Washington.

That seems like a lifetime ago.

I was a different woman then. A younger, happier woman who hadn’t yet tasted any of life’s bitter betrayals.

How na?ve we are when we’re young. How easily we trust that the sun will keep rising and setting, warming our days. And what a terrible blow it is to discover it isn’t the sun that makes things bright, but the people who love us, so that when they’re gone, everything is plunged into darkness.

The property covers more than two acres. It’s forested with mature evergreen trees and separated from the water’s edge by a long stretch of lawn and a narrow, rocky beach. Bundled in a heavy winter coat with a knit hat pulled down over my ears, I cross the back porch and take the steps down to the lawn, then follow the walking path to the water.

I avoid going anywhere near the dock or glancing in the direction of the boat tied to it.

Michael christened her Eurydice. I always hated that name. I told him it was bad luck to name a boat after a nymph from Greek mythology who got trapped in the underworld, but Michael said he liked it. He found it romantic that Eurydice’s husband, Orpheus, loved her so much, he followed her to hell to beg Hades for her release.

When I pointed out that the story ends in tragedy, Michal just laughed at me. “It’s only a story,” he said, and gave me a hug.

As it turns out, I was right. Greek myth or not, doomed is doomed.

Hindsight is a real bitch sometimes.

When I arrive at the tree I saw the man standing under, I look closely at the ground. If I can find footsteps, I’ll be able to tell where he ran off to. The ground is muddy around the trunk and bare of grass, so I should be able to spot something.

But there’s nothing there.

No footprints. No disturbed earth. No sign of the person who stood and stared at me.

My hair whipping around in the cold breeze, I turn and look back toward the house. From here, I can see directly into my office. The house sits slightly higher than the shoreline, but my office windows are large and the room is brightly lit. My drafting table faces the door, so when I sit there, the light and the window are at my back.

Which means someone might have been standing here staring at me as I’ve worked for some time now, and I wouldn’t have known.

I look both ways down the shore. It’s empty. My only company are the seagulls wheeling overhead and the dark waves lapping restlessly at the shoreline.

Whoever he was, he’s long gone.

A glint from the ground near my shoes catches my eye. I lean down and pick a coin out of the mud. I wipe it off with my thumb, and my breath catches.

It’s a buffalo nickel.

Minted between 1913 and 1938, the coins can be worth anywhere from thirty-five cents to three million dollars, depending on the year and condition. This particular coin is stamped 1937. It’s a D type, which shows the buffalo with only three legs instead of the usual four, and is worth exactly $2,560.00.

I know that because Michael had it valued. It had been his grandfather’s. He carried it everywhere with him. He swore it brought him luck.

And I found it buried in the mud under a tree a stranger was spying on me from behind.

My heart beating faster, I curl the coin in my fist and hurry back to the house, trying to convince myself that cold tingle down my spine is only the wind.





A few hours later, Jake has finished installing the security system.

Aidan has still not returned.

Jake shows me how to use the system hub, which he mounted on the wall in my office next to the light switch inside the door. Then he installs the app on my iPhone so I can view the video feeds in real time, so in case someone rings the doorbell, I’ll be able to see who’s there without leaving the room. He also put a camera above the back door that captures a wide-angle view of the yard.