Joe let his mouth relax and stared intently at the man in the mirror. He was older and smarter now. He'd seen more than his share of injustice and violence, and it showed in the lines around his eyes, the taut pull of skin over his cheekbones. And lately, he swore he could sometimes see the Carmine Bellacera of his childhood staring back at him-except that his dad never went in for the reclusive writer look; it was GI Joe all the way to the grave.
Joe smiled sadly. He would turn thirty-eight next month holed up someplace alone, where no one knew his real name.
He went back to the boxes, knowing that he'd have to be completely insane to approach that woman before Roger could get him out of here.
He needed to stay alive, stay focused on the trial, and on his duty to Steve and his family. He couldn't afford this distraction.
But damn.
She'd grown from pretty girl to beautiful woman, and he hadn't been there to see it.
And knowing that made him feel more alone than he'd ever felt in his life.
It was only nine, so if she were good, she'd use this time to do her Tae Bo tape. No, wait-Charlotte had recently read a magazine article that said it was self-defeating to label yourself "good" or "bad" when the focus should be on the behavior itself. The article said that people make just two kinds of choices in life: harmful ones and helpful ones.
So after she checked on the kids, she headed downstairs and made the choice to find the box of Triscuits and the can of squirt cheese. Then made the choice to sit at the kitchen table and chow down.
"You only live once," she said to no one, popping another salty, crunchy, squishy, artificially flavored tidbit in her mouth, thinking the whole time of the Chippendales dancer next door.
After a few more savory concoctions, Charlotte stuck the cracker box under her arm and tucked the squirt cheese in her shorts pocket and wandered out to the back patio. Though the days were growing longer, it was fully dark by now, and the neighborhood was quiet. She took a seat at the patio table and propped her feet on an empty chair.
Right after Kurt died, more than a few well-meaning people had asked if she planned to sell the house. The answer was no, not if she could help it
She topped another cracker, a little shocked at how lbud the aerosol sounded out here in the quiet.
She loved her home-the acre of yard that provided privacy and plenty of play room for the kids and Hoover, the mature shade trees, the roomy floor plan. She loved that her children felt like they belonged here. She loved that they felt close to Kurt.
What she didn't love was the mortgage-$1,500 a month, every single month, even after refinancing.
She munched down hard on the Triscuit, wiping a few errant crumbs off her scout leader shirt.
She'd told herself countless times that it could have been worse-Kurt could have died with no insurance instead of a modest amount. He could have died leaving a mountain of debt instead of a few conservative investments. It's just that no man thinks he's going to drop dead at age thirty-four. And no woman thinks she's going to walk into the family room to rouse her napping husband for dinner only to find him cold.
The bottom line was they weren't prepared for the wage earner in their family to die. And Charlotte refused to go out and get a full-time nursing job with the kids this young. They needed her attention. They needed her time. They needed her-because she was all they had.
Multi-Tasker, Inc., was something she could do while the kids were in school. It was something she could juggle in the summer and something she could set aside if one of them was sick. With the life insurance and social security* it made them just enough money to squeak by.
She squirted out a big, sloppy pile of Day-Glo cheddar on a cracker and shoved the whole thing in her mouth.
She immediately stopped chewing and her ears pricked.
Thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba…
It sounded like muffled gunfire. She choked down the cracker and sat up straight, her ears straining to identify its source.
Thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba… Then she heard a loud "Uhmph!"
Charlotte shot to her feet and stared up toward the children's bedroom windows. It wasn't coming from there.
Thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba…
Bonnie and Ned's house was quiet. And it wasn't coming from the Noonans' over the back fence because they were still in Florida and their security system could wake the dead.
Thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba…
Her head whipped around-it had to be the Chippendales guy!
Charlotte gathered her snacks and tiptoed around to the driveway, where she stood half-hunched in the darkness, listening,
"Uhmph! Uh! Mmmm, mmmm, uhmph!"
"Good Lord," Charlotte whispered to herself. Still hunched over, the Triscuits tucked close under her elbow, she glanced furtively up and down the street, making sure there were no cars or dog walkers coming. She then slipped past the pine trees to the edge of her property and sidled up to the privacy fence around the Connors' in-ground pool and patio.
The sound was definitely coming from behind the fence, but it wasn't the pool pump. It wasn't mechanical.
Charlotte pressed her face up to the fence boards, and though she tried several angles-twisted around until her neck hurt-she couldn't quite find a way to align her eyeball with the small vertical slits. She sure couldn't peek over the fence-it was nine feet tall! So all she saw was a sliver of light and indistinct movement.
Thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba, thud-a-ba… "Uhmph!"
Someone was being murdered! That had to be it She suppressed her gasp and skittered away from the fence, racing full speed to her own patio, running inside the back door. Hoover lay in wait, hair on end, ready to pounce- and his whole big body shuddered with relief that it was only her.
She slipped him a Triscuit. "Good boy, Hoov."
Charlotte bolted the lock on the family room double doors. She did the same to the laundry room door leading to the garage; and the front door.
Then she took the stairs two at a time and, for lack of any other source of reassurance, she spoke to Hoover.
"We may have a situation on our hands," she said.
The dog blinked and yawned, exposing a set of huge white canine teeth. He waited briefly for some kind of command, then burped and went into Matt's room, where he collapsed in a heap.
"You call yourself a watchdog," she muttered.
Then she saw them.
The spy binoculars sat precariously on the edge of Mart's small desk, the lenses reflecting the hall light. She grabbed them, slinked down the hallway to her bedroom, and locked her door.
Now if this wasn't, the lowest point in her life, she didn't know what was. She was going to spy on her new neighbor! And after the lecture she'd given Matt that very afternoon!
But that sound-it could be anything, right? And those animal noises! If it wasn't murder, maybe he was injured. What if her new neighbor was having some kind of spasm or epileptic fit and swallowing his tongue?
She turned off all the lights in her room. She stood at the window facing the drive and tried to figure out how to focus the binoculars. She certainly wouldn't be discovering any new solar systems with these cheap plastic things, but she hoped they could at least put her mind to rest about the tongue swallowing.
She aimed out the window, and in the light from the Connors' patio she guided the binoculars through the tree branches, located the fence, and tilted down until she could see the pool area.