The Watcher Girl(18)

Before I can process her words, she’s flitting about the kitchen, grabbing her purse and keys and shoving a bottle into a diaper bag, like a woman on a time-sensitive mission.

I rise. “No worries. I’ll get out of your hair.”

Campbell walks me to the door, stepping lightly, and when I turn to wave goodbye, I catch a sullen expression on her face—the same one I’ve seen on my father before when he’s watched me walk away. Same one I’ve seen on the faces of men I’ve dated over the years. Unspoken longing.

Some people aren’t good at being alone.

“Do you maybe want to get coffee sometime this week?” I’m not typically this friendly, and I know she’s in a rush, but she’s clearly starved for human contact, and Sutton’s in Baltimore, so . . .

Besides, she still hasn’t told me how they met.

I have questions. She has answers.

Was it a storybook meet-cute? Or did he spot a woman with my likeness and plant himself in her path so he could make his dashed dreams a reality? I don’t want to believe he’s capable of the latter, but given the evidence—it’s not as far-fetched of a notion as I’d like it to be.

“Really?” Her straight lips curl at the sides, and her brows lift. “I’d love that.”

I pull my phone from my leggings pocket, and she rattles off her digits so quickly I almost miss a number.

“I’ll get ahold of you sometime this week,” I say.

“Perfect.” She lifts on her toes, gives me a quick wave, and closes the door behind me.

I’m halfway down the street when her garage door screeches open and she peels out of the driveway. When she passes, she gives me a wave and a two-second smile that fades the instant she thinks I’ve looked away.

And then she’s gone.

Funny how quickly her demeanor changed the instant Sutton called. That intrinsic sweetness and desperate friendliness vanished, replaced with a frantic, frenzied excuse for a woman—almost as if she was afraid of what would happen if she didn’t do exactly what he asked that instant.

I walk the three blocks home with a slight limp, making mental lists of all the questions I’m going to need to work into our next conversation. If she’s always this much of an open book, I should be able to get all the information I could possibly need before I place myself in my ex-boyfriend’s path.

At first I simply wanted to know how they met—but now? I want to know if she’s fearful of him. Because if she is, then perhaps I should be, too . . . afraid of the man he’s become.

The phone call in private. The social isolation. The complete control he has over her.

Is he . . . abusing her?

In a roundabout way, this is my fault.

He wasn’t like this before. I did this to him. I broke him.

For the past week, I’ve been convinced that I need to help Sutton.

I never could have anticipated that I’d be saving his wife instead.





CHAPTER 6

I’ve been thinking about Campbell a lot lately. More than I thought I would. More than I should. More than I’ve thought about Sutton.

I order a black coffee and find a booth in the back of the Riverton Café in downtown Monarch Falls Tuesday afternoon. I make sure there’s plenty of room for her stroller or car seat or whatever contraption she’ll be bringing for Gigi.

I also pilfer a coloring book and some broken crayons from the kiddie section of the shop, though I have no idea if she’s old enough for that. Odds are Campbell will come prepared because she seems like a good, doting mother, but I don’t want to risk this conversation being cut short because of a crabby, understimulated child.

Checking my watch, I attempt to quiet my mind. It’s three minutes till. She’ll be here soon.

It’s been two days since our last chat, and every day with my father and Bliss feels like a bizarre eternity.

This morning I walked outside to take a phone call and interrupted their poolside meditation hour. Only a woman named Bliss Diamond could get my father to meditate—and for an entire hour. With Tibetan singing bowls, no less. I can only imagine how amused his neighbors must be every time he hooks a new girlfriend and enters into a new phase of life. The man sheds his old skin like a snake.

The bells on the shop door jangle, and I gaze across the coffee-scented space to find Campbell wrestling her stroller through. A blonde woman with an asymmetrical haircut steps out of line to help hold the door, and Campbell thanks her with blushing cheeks and a self-effacing smile.

She’s endearing. Unpretentious. Sweet but not shy. Plain but not ignorable. Wonderfully average.

I can see why Sutton chose her.

She’s the antithesis of me—which makes her safe.

I slide out of the booth and wave until she spots me.

She points to the coffee bar, implying that she’s going to order a drink first, and I nod. It’s like we have an unspoken language already. A connection. Literally.

I wait in patient silence, practicing my questions over the grind of coffee beans and the whirring of the cappuccino machine. A barista calls out for a “Robbie” and then a “Millie,” followed by a “Patricia” and an “Antoine,” before he gets to Campbell’s order.

“Sorry I’m late,” she says a few minutes later. Placing her coffee on the table, she turns back to unbuckle Gigi from her stroller before whipping out a baggie of Cheerios.