Keri checked her watch. One last batch of cookies was in the oven, but she needed to hurry. Her shift would be starting soon, and she still needed to shower. As she waited for the timer to ding, she grabbed one of the cookies off the cooling rack and munched it while gazing through the window at the neighboring house. She felt sad for empty houses. Houses were supposed to be lived in. They were supposed to have kids. She wished that Emma had a next-door neighbor she could play with.
Keri’s eyes narrowed as she watched the house.
Was that a shadow? Was that someone moving around inside? She leaned over the sink and took a closer look, but she decided that her eyes were playing tricks on her. It was getting dark, and the wind kept throwing sheets of snow across the glass that made it hard to see.
Ding.
The cookies were done. She took them from the oven and moved them to the cooling rack, and then she washed her hands and switched into high gear. She didn’t have much time. She flew into the family room, where her daughter was playing, took a few seconds to do a little dance with her and Elmo, and then said, “I have to take a shower, okay?”
“Okay!” Emma said.
“We need to go soon. I’ll drop you off at Mrs. Allen’s, and Daddy will pick you up when he’s done with work. Are you ready to go? Do you have everything in your backpack?”
“Okay!” Emma said again, which meant she wasn’t listening at all.
“Emma? Are you ready to go to Mrs. Allen’s?”
“I’m ready!”
No, her daughter wasn’t ready, but Keri just shook her head. Some battles weren’t worth fighting. She headed for the bedroom at the back of the house and took the world’s fastest shower. When she was done, she blow-dried her blond hair and shivered as she found fresh underwear in her dresser. Her uniform was laid out on the bed. She was half-dressed when Emma strolled in, carrying Elmo.
“Can Elmo come with me to Mrs. Allen’s?” she asked.
“Sure,” Keri said. Sorry, Mrs. Allen.
“Can I have a hot dog for dinner?”
“You can have whatever Mrs. Allen makes.”
“I want a hot dog,” Emma said.
“Well, I’ll make hot dogs tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Emma said. “Oh, you missed that woman.”
Keri stared at her daughter. “What?”
“The woman next door. The one you want to meet. She came out of the house while you were in the shower. I saw her.”
Keri’s blouse was half-buttoned. She ran to the bedroom window and peered outside, but no one was in the yard. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“How long ago?”
“I don’t know. A couple of minutes.”
“I can’t believe it!”
Keri ran for the front of the house, where she shoved her bare feet into her husband’s oversize boots. She opened the door and stomped awkwardly out into the yard. A leafy oak tree blocked her view of the street, but she hiked through the snow to the end of the sidewalk. Halfway down the block, she could see someone hurrying away on foot. Even at that distance, she recognized Lisa Power. She thought about shouting after her, but Lisa was already too far away. And she really didn’t want to be a creepy fan.
Disappointed, Keri went back inside and kicked off the wet boots. Emma was waiting for her in the kitchen, eating another cookie.
“Did you talk to her?” Emma asked.
“No, I missed her.”
“Maybe she’ll come back.”
“Maybe,” Keri said. “Anyway, I need to get to work, and you need to load up your backpack.”
Keri returned to her bedroom to finish getting ready. She saw her phone sitting on the nightstand, and on impulse, she grabbed it and dialed one of the women in her book club.
“Hey, it’s Keri,” she said when her friend answered. “You’ll never believe it. I just missed Lisa Power. All year I’ve been trying to meet her, and I take a five-minute shower and blow my chance.”
There was a long pause on the phone.
“You just saw Lisa?” her friend asked.
“Yeah, she was back at her parents’ house. Emma spotted her.”
“Was she coming or going?”
“Going. I know you two are friends. Do you know if she’s back here for a while? I thought maybe I could leave her a note and see if I can bring over some cookies and coffee tomorrow.”
“I really don’t know,” Laurel March replied. “I’ve been trying to find Lisa myself.”
31
Lisa heard her phone ringing as she walked down Conley Avenue toward where the Camaro was parked. She’d meant to turn it off, in case they tried to track her through the cell towers. She grabbed the phone from her pocket to power it down, but when she did, she spotted a name on the caller ID that she hadn’t seen in a long time.
Noah.
Her brother was calling.
She stopped dead on the street, listening to the phone ring, feeling it vibrate in her hand. She made no move to answer it. When the call went away, she couldn’t even bring herself to push the button to shut the phone down. She stayed where she was. A minute later, she was still standing there, and the phone rang again.
Again, it was Noah.
Part of her wanted to take the call and ask him for help. Part of her wanted to take the call and scream at him. She didn’t do either. She simply stared at his name on the screen and then waited until it disappeared. Not long after, a bell chimed, telling her that she had voice mail.
She didn’t listen to it.
Lisa shoved the phone back in her pocket and continued to the end of the street to find the Camaro. It was dark now, and she didn’t worry about being seen. Lights had come on in the houses around the neighborhood, but if anyone looked outside, she was nothing but a shadow. She got in the car and drove, but she could feel the weight of the phone in her pocket, reminding her that Noah had left a message.
The next band of snow arrived with the cold evening, falling in heavy wet flakes and gathering on the ground. She headed for the river, taking a roundabout route to avoid the main roads. She went east and south and then cut back toward the water on a rural highway. No other cars passed her coming or going. She thumped over railroad tracks and knew she was close to the point where Purdue would have climbed off the train in the pouring rain. Her headlights lit up the barren terrain he would have crossed. It must have been a long walk for a boy who had just lost his mother and had nowhere to go.
A long, miserable walk that ended at the bank of the Red Lake River.
Lisa knew the road she was trying to find. It was called Riverbend Trail, and she’d been there countless times, but she still had to keep her eyes wide open in the dark. She knew she was close when the pavement ended and turned to rough gravel under her tires, but even so, she almost missed the turn. There were no lights or landmarks out here; everything looked the same. She spotted a Dead End sign ahead of her, and she braked hard, turning right onto a cross street and driving through an inch of white slush. Fall trees loomed on both sides of the dirt road, and long driveways led toward riverside homes that were built a comfortable distance from their neighbors. She couldn’t see the water, but it was close by. In the summertime, you could smell it from here, a little dank, alive with the whine of mosquitoes. She drove until the road curved like a horseshoe, and that was where she stopped. She turned off the Camaro’s engine.