Chapter 5: The Neighbor Who Waited Too Long
Karen Whitfield answered before the first ring finished.
"Thank you for calling back." Her voice was older, cautious.
"I wasn't sure you would."
"How did you get my number?"
"Your daughter.
She gave it to me once when she was playing in the front yard.
She said, 'This is my mommy's number in case I need her.' " A pause.
"She was four at the time."
My throat tightened.
"What did you want to tell me, Karen?"
"I've lived on this street for eleven years.
Barbara has been here for nine.
We were friendly at first.
Neighborhood friendly.
Then about two years ago I started noticing things."
"What kind of things?"
"The little girl.
Chloe.
I'd see her on the back porch at odd hours.
Sometimes after dark.
I assumed it was summer, kids stay up late, I didn't think much of it the first time.
But then it kept happening.
Different seasons.
Different weather." She stopped.
"Last November she was out there in the rain.
Just sitting on the step.
No umbrella.
No coat."
My mother was watching my face.
"Did you ever say anything to Barbara?" I asked.
"Once.
About eight months ago.
I went over and knocked on the front door and said I'd seen Chloe outside alone and I was a little concerned.
Barbara told me Chloe had a behavioral issue and the fresh air helped her calm down.
She said it very pleasantly.
Like it was the most reasonable thing in the world." Karen's voice tightened.
"I wanted to push back.
I didn't.
I've regretted it since."
"Why are you calling now?"
"Because tonight I saw you find her.
I was in my front room and I heard the gate and I watched you carry her to the car." She paused.
"And I saw Barbara's face when you drove away.
That's when I knew I couldn't wait any longer."
"What did her face look like?"
"Not worried.
Not ashamed." A beat.
"Angry.
Like she'd been caught doing something she fully intended to keep doing."
I stood up from the table and walked to the window.
"Karen, would you be willing to write down what you've seen?
Dates, times, anything you remember?"
"I already have.
I started keeping notes in January.
I have a notebook." She hesitated.
"I have photographs too.
I took them from my upstairs window.
I didn't know what I was going to do with them.
I just felt like someone should be recording it."
My hand gripped the phone tighter.
"Can I come and get them tomorrow morning?"
"I'll be home all day.
Come whenever you're ready."
I thanked her and ended the call.
My mother was already on her feet.
"She has photographs," I said.
"I heard."
"Dated photographs.
From January."
My mother went to the kitchen drawer where she kept the notepad she used for grocery lists.
She tore off a clean page and set it on the table with a pen.
"Start writing down everything you remember from tonight," she said.
"Exact words, exact order.
While it's fresh."
I sat down and picked up the pen.
I wrote for forty minutes.
The dinner.
The gate.
Chloe's feet on the cold porch.
Barbara's voice.
Daniel's silence.
Each clip on the memory card.
My mother's phone call.
Karen's name and what she'd said.
When I finished, my hand was shaking slightly.
My phone lit up on the table.
Daniel again.
This time a text.
*Rachel, please.
I know I handled this wrong.
Can we talk?
I'm not at my mother's.
I'm at home.
Please come home.*
I read it twice.
My mother read it over my shoulder.
"What do you want to do?" she asked.
"Not tonight," I said.
I put the phone face-down.
But twenty minutes later, while I was making up the spare bed for Chloe, a second text arrived.
This one wasn't from Daniel.
It was from Barbara.
*You have no idea what you've started.
Daniel knows things about your family that you wouldn't want made public.
Think carefully before you take this any further.*
I stood in the doorway of the spare room holding my phone, reading those two sentences again.
Chloe was asleep on the bed behind me, one arm around the stuffed rabbit she'd carried in from the car.
I walked back to the kitchen and showed my mother the screen.
She read it.
Set the phone down.
Looked at me.
"That," she said, "is a threat."
"Yes."
May you like
"Screenshot it."
I already had.
