The Woman in the Window(96)

And what a story—what an evil story. I shiver as I return to the living room, switch off the lamp. That poor woman. That poor child.

And Jane. Not Alistair, but Jane.

A tear runs down my cheek. I touch my finger to it and it gloms onto the skin; I look at it, curious. Then I wipe my hand on my robe.

My eyelids sag. I walk up to my bedroom, to worry, to wait.



I stand at the window, scanning the house across the park. No signs of life.

I chew a thumbnail until it leaks blood.

I pace the room, walk circuits around the carpet.

I glance at my phone. Half an hour has crept by.

I need a distraction. I need to calm my nerves. Something familiar. Something soothing.

Shadow of a Doubt. Screenplay by Thornton Wilder, and Hitch’s personal favorite among his own films: a naive young woman learns that her hero isn’t who he pretends to be. “We just sort of go along and nothing happens,” she complains. “We’re in a terrible rut. We eat and sleep and that’s about all. We don’t even have any real conversations.” Until her Uncle Charlie pays a visit.

She remains oblivious a bit too long for my liking, frankly.

I watch it on my laptop, sucking at my wounded thumb. The cat wanders in after a few minutes, bounds into bed with me. I press his paw; he hisses.

As the story coils tighter, so too does something within me, some unease I can’t name. I wonder what’s happening across the park.



My phone buzzes, crawling across the pillow next to me. I seize it.

Going 2 police





11:33 p.m. I drifted off.

I step from bed and snap the curtains to one side. Rain batters my windows, sharp as artillery fire, turning them to puddles.

Across the park, through the smear of the storm, the house is dark.

“There’s so much you don’t know, so much.”

Behind me, the film is still playing.

“You live in a dream,” sneers Uncle Charlie. “You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? Use your wits. Learn something.”

I slope toward the bathroom, in the length of light falling through the window. Something to help me get back to sleep—melatonin, I think. I’ll need it tonight.

I swallow a pill. On-screen, the body falls, and the train shrieks, and the credits roll.



“Guess who.”

This time I can’t dismiss him, because I’m asleep, though aware of it. A lucid dream.

Still, I try. “Leave me alone, Ed.”

“Come on. Talk to me.”

“No.”

I don’t see him, don’t see anything. Wait—there’s a trace of him, just a shadow.

“I think we need to talk.”

“No. Go away.”

Darkness. Silence.

“Something’s wrong.”

“No.” But he’s right—something is wrong. That stirring in my gut.

“Man, that Alistair guy turned out to be a freak of the week, didn’t he?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I almost forgot. Livvy has a question for you.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Just one.” A flash of teeth; a curving grin. “A simple question.”

“No.”

“Go on, pumpkin. Ask Mommy.”

“I said—”

But already her mouth is at my ear, piping her hot little words into my head, her voice that full-throated rasp she uses when she’s sharing a secret.

“How’s Punch’s paw?” she asks.



I’m awake, with instant clarity, as though I’ve been doused with water. My eyes spring wide. A spine of light runs across the ceiling above.

I roll from bed and pad to the curtains, throw them back. The room fades to gray around me; through the windows, through the rain, I see the Russells’ house shouldering an unholy sky. A jagged seam of lightning up above. A deep toll of thunder.

I return to bed. Punch whines quietly as I settle in.

How’s Punch’s paw?

That was it—the knot in my stomach.

When Ethan visited the day before yesterday, when he found the cat draped along the back of the sofa, Punch slid to the floor and wriggled underneath. I squint my eyes, replay the scene from every angle. No: Ethan didn’t see—couldn’t have seen—his lame leg.

Or could he? Feeling for Punch now, closing my fingers on his tail; he rustles against me. I check the time on the phone: 1:10 a.m.

The digital light spangles in my eyes. I squeeze them shut, then peer at the ceiling.

“How did he know about your paw?” I ask the cat in the dark.

“Because I visit you at night,” says Ethan.





Monday, November 15





95


My body bucks in shock. My head twists toward the door.

Lightning ignites the room, torches it white. He stands in the doorway, leaning against the frame, his head haloed with rainwater, scarf loose at his neck.

Words lurch off my tongue. “I thought—you went home.”

“I did.” His voice is low but clear. “Said good night. Waited for them to go to bed.” His mouth curls in a soft little smile. “Then I came back here. I’ve been coming here a lot,” he adds.