Neighborly(90)

Someone must have texted her and told her not to answer the door. They might have told her I’m onto her, that I’m coming for her just like I posted on GoodNeighbors. Because normal people don’t ignore someone that insistent. Normal people are, at least, curious as to who needs to see them that badly at 7:40 a.m.

I go to the window and look out at the street, hoping for some inspiration, willing the next step to come to me, and that’s when I see Hope heading for her car.

I don’t like the idea of manipulating someone’s child, but June may have poisoned mine. Besides, Hope’s a teenager. A rebellious one, I’ve heard, and I’ve got to try to use that to my advantage.

“Hi,” I say as Hope’s hand is on the driver’s door of her Audi. “We’ve never officially met. I’m Kat, your neighbor.”

“I know. I’m Hope.” She doesn’t make eye contact or smile. Her hand’s still on the door, but she hasn’t opened it. So that’s something.

“Good to meet you. Your mother’s told me all about you.” Actually, June’s said practically nothing about Hope in all our time together, and next to nothing about herself. I didn’t even realize how solipsistic all our conversations had been. “She said when you were little, you were in the same hospital as Sadie.”

Hope makes a noise of obvious contempt. “What doesn’t she lie about?”

“You were never in a hospital?” I glance up at the house to see if June’s by a window, watching us. We seem to be in the clear, but I still have to act fast.

Hope shakes her head, disgust splashed across her features.

Those features. They’re strangely familiar. I’ve never seen Hope up close before, and I peer at her, trying to see beyond the mime-white face paint, and the heavy eyeliner, and the red lipstick. I know this girl, don’t I?

I stare at her, and she stares back, with bold annoyance. It’s the first time I’ve really looked into her eyes, and now there’s no mistaking it. I looked into those eyes a million times when I was growing up. Those are Ellen’s eyes.

Then I’m seeing June’s face in my mind, despite all the times she shifted so that her hair was partially covering it. I can see Ellen’s face—with some sort of time-lapse photography like she’s on a milk carton—and I superimpose and cross-reference and, yes, there’s been some surgery (definitely her nose and probably her chin, and could they have done something to her cheekbones, or is her face just that much thinner?) and colored contacts, but some essential Ellen-ness remains. I was just too self-obsessed, and too Sadie-obsessed, to see it.

Yet I must have sensed it. Because when I sat with June at the hospital, there was this feeling of comfort right away. We were capable of companionable silence of a sort that usually takes years to achieve. And I opened up to her so easily, in a way I never would have ordinarily. I thought it was just the circumstances, but it was something else, something more. Some part of me felt like the woman in front of me was someone I’d known forever. Because I had.

After all these years, Ellen and I found each other.

“Are you, like, having a seizure or something?” Hope asks. She looks like she really wants to get the hell away from me, but she’s making sure I’m OK first. So there’s some decency in her. She might be wayward, but June raised her better than everyone thinks.

“Sorry. It’s just . . . I was knocking on your door a little while ago. Did you hear it?”

“Yeah. Mom said not to answer it. She said it was someone trying to sell us something. But then, she’s always ridiculously nervous about things like that. Stranger danger!” Hope is clearly mocking her mother. Does she know anything about Ellen’s history? Does she know her mother’s real name? Who her grandfather is?

“I wanted your mom to sign a petition for funding for Children’s Hospital. They took such good care of Sadie.”

“So Sadie’s OK now?” Hope’s concern proves she’s not a bad kid at heart.

I smile. “She’s better than OK.” I can’t forget my purpose here. “When I was your age, I was really good at forging my mother’s signature. For when I got a bad grade or something. Are you, by any chance, good at that?”

She gives me an honest-to-God smile. “I’m excellent.”

“I’m only asking because I have to get the petition in later this morning, and I want to have as many signatures as possible. I’m sure it’s something your mom would support.”

“Why don’t you just text her? Tell her you were the one at the door.”

I’m trying to think of some other way to trick Hope, which feels kind of wrong and dirty but unavoidable, and that’s when she says, “Have you already tried my uncle?”





CHAPTER 36

It’s not easy, biding your time, nerves jangling, everyone drinking except you. Inhibitions being lowered, laughter becoming more bawdy and raucous, and you’re just waiting. Just hoping you can finish this, tonight.

Watch your back. No, watch your front. Someone just might stab you in the heart.

It was a new e-mail address, another series of numbers. I forwarded it to the police, but they said it was untraceable. Big promised that he and Little would start interviewing my neighbors tomorrow and that a squad car would drive by my house several times a day. So the threat is getting a little more real, from their perspective.