Kris could not see the woman’s eyes, but she could feel them. Staring out across the lake. Staring straight at her.
Kris raised a gloved hand and gave a friendly wave.
The woman did not return the gesture. She remained motionless. Staring.
“Whatever,” Kris grumbled. She turned her attention back to the plank, powering up the sander once more and smoothing another section of damaged wood.
She could still feel the woman watching. Those unseen eyes were boring into her from a quarter of a mile away. She tried to lose herself in the work, driving the sandpaper harder and harder over the plank, minute grains of dust drifting up into the air around her. But the woman was watching. She knew it.
An invisible hand began to creep up her back to the base of her neck. She focused on the steady rhythm of the sandpaper eating away at the jagged, uneven surface of the plank.
The flesh on the back of her neck prickled as that invisible hand gripped her in its cold fingers.
She’s watching you, her shadow voice taunted. She’s still watching you …
“Dammit,” Kris exclaimed sharply. She switched the sander off and tossed it onto the dock. It bounced across the next few planks before coming to a stop, sandpaper-side up, like an overturned turtle.
Kris looked to the woman across the lake. Still there. Still staring.
In this town …
“Time for a break,” she said aloud as if to give herself permission. She stood up, her knees and back aching from holding her crouched position.
She called out, “Sadie,” as she walked away from the dock and the lake and that damn staring woman.
Sadie was no longer swinging. She sat on the freshly sanded seat, the tips of her shoes barely touching the ground beneath her. Her head was turned. Kris could not fully see the little girl’s face, but there was movement in her cheeks and at the corner of her mouth, as if Sadie were speaking aloud to the empty swing beside her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THEY ATE DINNER at the breakfast nook instead of their usual spot at the bistro table on the back deck. Kris told herself that it was too hot to eat outside, despite the fact that the evening had brought with it a cool breeze that tossed the tops of trees and rippled the water.
Sadie could barely sit still during the meal. She bounced in her seat, holding her fork like a weapon, shoveling mounds of spaghetti into her mouth until it overflowed with stringy noodles dripping with thick red marinara.
“Slow down. You’ll choke,” Kris warned her.
Sadie chewed the mouthful of pasta and swallowed hard.
“Done,” she said, pushing the plate away. She quickly wiped her mouth on a paper towel, balled it up, tossed it on top of the remaining spaghetti, and hopped up from the bench. She dashed away, through the great room and down the hall.
“Where are you going?” Kris called after her, even though she already knew the answer.
“To play,” Sadie’s voice called from the end of the hall.
Kris looked down at her own plate. She had barely touched her food. The mound of red sauce atop the noodles was beginning to congeal. She drained the last sip of pinot noir from her wineglass and reached for the bottle at the center of the table. Barely an inch swirled at the bottom as she lifted it toward her glass.
When they’d sat down for dinner, there was still three-quarters of a bottle left. Had she already drunk the whole thing?
A wave of shame washed through her, but it quickly retreated, dulled by the buzz of the alcohol. She forced herself to eat a few bites of pasta before finally crossing the kitchen and dumping what was left in the trash can under the sink.
From overhead came the drumming of footsteps. Kris looked up at the ceiling, tracking the sound as it raced from one end of the second floor to the other. Suddenly there was a shriek of laughter, so loud and unexpected that it sent an electric jolt surging through Kris’s body
“Jesus,” she muttered, a smile creeping to her lips as the shock was replaced by joy.
It sounded as though Sadie were playing a game, tag or hide-and-seek. Kris stood with her hands resting lightly on the edge of the kitchen sink, listening as Sadie’s laughter drifted down through the floor above.
She was sure that it would take multiple requests for Sadie to come downstairs at bedtime, but surprisingly, at ten minutes to nine, she was already in her room, under the covers, teeth brushed, face washed, pajamas on.
“I’ll be ready for bed soon,” Kris told her.
“You don’t have to sleep with me tonight,” Sadie said in that matter-of-fact way.
Kris cocked her head. “Oh. You sure?”
For almost two weeks, this had been their nightly routine, both climbing into bed in the dim pink room, Sadie falling asleep as she stared up at the ceiling, Kris on her side looking out into the darkness beyond the reach of the night-light.
But now Sadie nodded enthusiastically, seemingly eager to have the room to herself.
“Okay,” Kris said, still thrown by the sudden request. She kissed Sadie on the forehead, pulled the covers up over her shoulders, and walked out of the bedroom. She swung the door shut until the latch bumped gently against the jam, so it would stay open just a crack.
In the bathroom, Kris was reaching for her toothbrush when, for no discernable reason, she paused. She rested her hands on the edge of the sink, her back hunched slightly.
For a solid minute, she stared at herself in the mirror.
A strange sensation began to worm its way under her flesh. She felt herself separating from that reflection, the face opposite her becoming its own entity. She could feel it staring out at her from that two-dimensional world behind the mirror, its gaze unbroken, its eyes scrutinizing her as she scrutinized it.
The face seemed slightly older than hers. The hint of shadowed circles hung under its eyes. Shallow lines cut away from the edges of its eyes. Its hair, a dull reddish brown, the color of an old penny, brushed its shoulders like the brittle branches of a wilting plant.
This was not her face.
The longer she stared at it, the more she hated the thing in the mirror. What right did it have to pretend to be her? What reason could it possibly have for this cruel masquerade?
She felt a disorienting sense of vertigo, and her scalp prickled.
Gripping the edge of the sink, Kris closed her eyes and tried to regain her balance. For a moment, she was sure she would faint. She dug her fingers into the sink’s porcelain lip until the dizziness subsided. Only then did she open her eyes again.
She was staring down at the hands of the mirror woman, blue veins rising across their backs, thin fingers swollen slightly at the knuckles.
They’re your hands, Kris, her shadow voice purred.
Yes. There was no denying this. She owned them, just as she owned her face and her body and every second of the forty-one years that had brought her to this moment.
“Life is a vampire,” she whispered.
Snatching the pill bottle from her toiletries bag on the floor, she quickly popped the top and tossed a Xanax onto her tongue. She swallowed it dry, wincing at the bitter taste. She started to replace the lid, then paused.
She could take one more. Just for tonight. She might need it if she was really going to sleep in that bedroom.
No, she told herself. Stick to the routine. One in the morning. One at night.
Twisting the lid back into place, she dropped the plastic bottle back into her bag before she could change her mind.