You Owe Me a Murder(46)


August 23


8 Days Remaining


This might have been a huge mistake, but knowledge is power. It had been hours since I’d talked to Alex, and I knew I needed to learn whatever I could if I wanted to gain control of the situation. I’d waited until everyone was busy before slipping out of Metford. I spent a couple hours in a remote coffee shop before heading here. I glanced over my shoulder, but no one seemed to be paying me any attention. I paused, backing up against a building and pretended to check my phone, thus giving a chance for everyone who’d exited the Tube station at the same time to disperse.

A slight Indian man stopped to stare into the darkened bookshop window across the street and I focused in on him. Was he following me? I guessed him to be midthirties, but he walked as if he were a hundred and ten. He had three large reusable blue plastic carrier bags with him. One of them was bursting at the seams with a box of diapers. He seemed more likely to be a sleep-deprived new dad.

The Indian man trudged down the street without even glancing over. If he was following me, he was doing a pretty lousy job. I checked the map on my phone even though I had it committed to memory. I slipped down Baker Street toward Regent’s Park.

The pedestrian gates were closed for the night. The thick trees surrounding the sidewalk made the park look eerie, as if I went inside, there would be a candy house staffed by a witch just waiting for innocent people to stumble past. I followed the path along the park until I saw the side street I was looking for.

For a second I contemplated turning around and going back, but I had come this far. I had to check it out. I crossed the street and examined the house numbers out of the side of my eye, doing my best to appear as though I knew where I was going.

There it was. Assuming Google Maps wasn’t wrong, I was looking at the address Nicki had given me. The house next to it was for sale the way she had described, so that confirmed it. They were linked together—?a row of town homes, most with a single green box hedge in a planter on the stoop and black wrought-iron gates across the front. You couldn’t tell them apart except for the house numbers and the different colors people had used to paint the front doors.

The downstairs was dark, but there was a light on upstairs, filtered through the curtains in a big bay window that arched out over the front of the house. I could just make out the gate that would lead to the garden in the back. I couldn’t tell if the light was out back there like Nicki had promised, but I was willing to guess it was.

It was a nice night to commit a crime. Maybe that was why Nicki wanted me to kill her mom tonight. The moon was almost nonexistent, just a tiny sliver of a crescent, like a water ring on a wooden table. The cloud cover kept any stars hidden. I’d worn the fleece Nicki had suggested, the hood pulled down low, hiding my face.

Someone moved in front of the window. It had to be Nicki’s mom, but she hadn’t passed out as Nicki had said she would. In fact, she looked pretty damn sprightly for an alcoholic who had been drinking all day, not at all like someone who wouldn’t even notice an intruder sneaking into her bedroom with pills or a pillow.

Not that I had any intention of going inside. I just wanted to see the place. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but it was just a house, like every other house on the street. I walked to the end of the block and then turned to retrace my steps. The next day must have been garbage pickup, because everyone had bins out. I bent down, pretending to tie my shoes, and peered into the recycling box in front of Nicki’s place. Inside there was one empty bottle of Chardonnay along with stacks of papers and empty cans.

Nicki said the house had been her grandparents’. She and her mom had moved in with them after the divorce. When her grandparents had still been alive, her mom had held it together. Once they died, Nicki’s mom no longer bothered and slid from drinking too much to being a flat-out drunk.

At least that’s what Nicki said.

I had no way of knowing if she was lying. If anyone knew that the truth was sometimes elastic, it was me. She’d fed me a story of an alcoholic mom who wouldn’t let her have her own life, but that might not have been the truth.

I saw a woman across the street walking her tiny corgi dog in my direction. I couldn’t let the opportunity go by. “Hi,” I called out, and then crossed over to her. I plastered a smile onto my face and hoped she couldn’t tell how nervous I was. “Do you live in the area?”

“Yes . . .” She pulled her pink sweater tighter around her.

“My parents are looking at maybe buying that house.” I waved to the FOR SALE sign over my shoulder. “They’re out at the pub tonight trying to get a feel for the area.”

“At the Hound and Whistle? A block over?” The woman’s dog snuffled my feet. “That’s the best one, or there’s the wine bar, Sour Grapes, down the lane just a bit, but it gets more tourists.”

“I was just curious what you thought of this neighborhood. It seems pretty quiet.”

She looked at me. “Yes, and we like it that way. No wild parties around here—?most people are a bit older.”

I nodded seriously. “Do you know much about the people who live in the house next door?” I motioned to Nicki’s place.

The woman shifted and then fished a dog treat out of her sweater pocket and fed it to the corgi. “There you go, Winston.” She wiped her fingers on her pants. “The owner’s all right. She’s had her share of trouble, keeps to herself, mostly.”

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