Don't Say a Word (Strangers Series) (6 page)

CHAPTER 10

ALLIE AWOKE SLOWLY, taking a mental inventory of what day it was and what had happened the day before.

It was Monday, the only day of the week she worked from the wellness center. The rest of the week she worked from home. Sammy would be going to preschool for the day, like he did every weekday. The girls were still at the house. Carrie had had another night terror last night. Johnny—

Oh, God.

Johnny.

Is he still here?

Opening her eyes, she turned to find Johnny still lying on the other side of the bed, sound asleep. She groaned. She blinked at Piglet, who lay on her back, her spindly legs pointed toward the ceiling. Her front paws stabbed at the air; she was running in her dream. Allie looked down at the cot and realized Sammy was gone.

She shot upright.

Almost without exception, when Sammy woke up before her, he waited in bed quietly, playing a game on the iPad or with his minifigures. It was rare for him to leave the room by himself before she woke up.

She scrambled out of bed and hurried down the hallway. The living room was empty. The kitchen was empty, too. She could both smell and hear coffee brewing, but where was everybody? Adrenaline flooded her veins.

Where’s Sammy?

Catching movement in the backyard, she rushed to the sliding glass doors and quickly zeroed in on her little boy. He was just on the deck. A few feet from him, Bitty walked around, tending plants. Allie exhaled loudly.

Christ, you’re going to end up giving yourself a heart attack! Relax. Stop being so overprotective.

Willing her pulse to slow to a normal pace, Allie pressed a palm to the cold glass of the sliding doors and watched her son play. Already in his school clothes, he was lining up Marvel minifigures on one of the deck’s wooden railings.

Zoe was in the oversized coat she’d arrived in, standing a few feet away from him. Her lips were turned down, and she was squinting up at the gray autumn sky. Carrie sat, stone-like, in a deck chair, her eyes squeezed shut. She was clutching the stuffed bear she’d arrived with, holding it tight to her chest.

Through the glass, Allie could hear the
slap slap
of Bitty’s flip-flops, the shoes the woman wore year-round. The sound soothed Allie because it was so familiar. After a life full of unknowns and inconsistency, familiarity was comforting.

Bitty always took the foster kids outside as much as possible. She said that they needed fresh air, a chance for their bodies to produce vitamin D. She also didn’t like for them to sleep late very often. She said oversleeping and a lack of routine fostered depression, something a lot of the kids were already suffering from to various degrees. So she rarely let them sleep past eight in the morning, and she made sure their days had structure.

Allie opened the sliding door and hugged her body against the cool fall air. “Good morning.”

Bitty looked up and smiled. “Good morning, sweetheart.”

The girls both glanced up at her, their faces impassive. Carrie’s eyes looked almost swollen shut from her crying jag the night before.

Sammy saw Allie and his face lit up. “Mommy!” he shouted and ran to her as though he hadn’t seen her in days.

When he reached her, she lifted him off the ground and kissed his cool cheek. “Good morning, sweet boy.”

“Good morning, Mommy! Look what I do!” He wiggled to get down, then ran to his minifigures. “Mommy! Look what I do!” Sammy shouted again, pointing at his toys. “I orgorize them into good guys and bad guys. See?”

“You did that all by yourself?”

He nodded, beaming.

“Good job, honey! You’re a great organizer.”

Smiling, he returned his attention to his project.

“Sleep well?” Bitty asked.

“Mm hmm,” Allie said, taking a lungful of chilly air. “Thanks for getting him dressed.”

“Of course.”

Allie stared at the gray, cloud-filled sky, then out at the gloomy woods behind the yard. She remembered the sound she’d thought she heard the night before. The strong sense of being watched.

It was nothing. Just forget about it,
she told herself.

She turned to Bitty. “Is Sammy okay out here with you while I get ready?”

“Sure. Go do your thing. He’ll be fine.”

The hot spray of the shower thundered down, pelting every inch of Allie’s skin. She turned to let it hit her face and felt the blood rush to her forehead, her cheeks, her chin.

She thought about this new chapter of her life. In terms of her career, she was following in Bitty’s footsteps as a wellness practitioner. She was drawn to the work for many reasons, but mainly because it was so rewarding and flexible. She worked part-time at a wellness center in the next town on Mondays, then took clients in her own small practice over the phone, two to four days a week. She liked the flexibility of the schedule and of feeling she was making a positive difference in people’s lives.

Her thoughts went to the girls. She wondered what their lives had been like before their parents’ murders. Had they been happy? What had they been like before? Had their parents’ murders significantly changed them? Suddenly she had a strong desire to know.

Allie turned off the spray and toweled dry. She dressed quickly, looking in the mirror only to apply minimal makeup. Because of her BDD, her looks had been an obsession for most of her life. Even now, if she wasn’t careful, she could easily worry about how she looked for several hours each day. Bitty told her she suffered from BDD for several reasons, not the least of which was because of the lies her mother had told her as a child, seeding thoughts of deficiency in her mind.

Seeds she continued to fertilize as Allie grew older.

Allie could still picture the glaring disapproval in her late mother’s eyes. The look of disgust on her face as she’d shake her head.

How I made such an ugly child is beyond me. We’re going to have to figure a way to hide those looks of yours, girl.

In fact, up until only six months ago, Allie never would have let Johnny—or anyone, for that matter—see her without a full face of makeup. She could still clearly remember the first day she’d shown herself to him with a completely bare face, almost trembling with shame. She’d fully expected him to look at her with disgust like her mother had often done. But if he noticed anything was different about her, he didn’t show it.

It had astounded her.

It had also empowered her, if just a little. But she still had a long road of healing in front of her, so aside from basic hygiene and tidiness, she forced herself not to pay much attention to her appearance. She also took care not to catch her reflection in car windows, rearview mirrors, or the glass of framed photos.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Back in her bedroom, she tiptoed around, gathering her purse and laptop, trying her best not to wake Johnny. But as she started to walk out, she heard him grunt and stir in bed.

“What the hell was wrong with that girl last night?” he asked. “Jesus, I thought an animal was mauling her.”

Allie glared at him, then started again for the bedroom door.

“Hey, hey, no. Come back here, beautiful,” he said. When she turned, she saw him patting the bed. “Take care of your man’s needs,” he said in a tone that she supposed was meant to sound playful and sexy but did nothing but repulse her.

“Oh, right. Like you take care of mine?”

Johnny’s smile vanished. “Hey. Easy, tiger. Come on, seriously. Get back in bed with me.” He rubbed the curly hairs on his chest. “Just for a second.”

But she was done dragging out their unhealthy relationship . . . done even talking to him until she was prepared to have The Big Talk . . . after work.

Without a word, she left the room and went to the kitchen to pour herself some coffee.

When Allie reached the kitchen, she found a piping-hot cup of coffee already waiting for her. Sammy’s
Lego Movie
lunch box was also beside it. She opened it up to find it was already packed.

Allie smiled inside.

In so many ways, Bitty understood Allie’s needs better than Allie even did.
Women should have wives, not husbands,
Allie thought, not for the first time. They just seemed better suited mentally and emotionally. It was too bad she wasn’t attracted to women.

Realizing she now had several spare minutes before she had to leave to bring Sammy to preschool, she pulled on her jacket and walked outside to join everyone on the deck.

Since she’d last been outside, the sun had sliced through the gloom. Sammy was in the yard now, pushing leaves around with a toy rake. Zoe was sitting cross-legged on a stone paver in the yard, picking blades of grass. Carrie still sat in the deck chair, her eyes squeezed closed.

Allie sat on a rocking chair and took her first sip of coffee, enjoying its heat as it glided down her throat.

She sipped and kept an eye on the tangle of loblolly pines that bordered the yard as she watched her son play. It was the only part of their home that she didn’t trust. Although she’d spent most of her childhood playing in woods just like it, they now creeped her out.

Once their financial situation was healthier, she’d have a fence built. A tall privacy fence so she wouldn’t have to look at the trees beyond it. But she needed to focus on just covering the basics for now, because money was tight. From what she’d gathered from recent collectors’ calls, Bitty was having financial problems, and Bitty wasn’t someone who usually had issues with money. Allie wondered if the financial problems were due to depression. After all, she’d been grieving the loss of a close friend, back in Louisiana, for a long time now. A man whose death she still hadn’t seemed to have completely come to terms with, leaving her perpetually sad and somewhat withdrawn.

As Allie turned her attention back to Sammy, she thought she saw movement in the pines behind him. She frowned and leaned forward in her chair. She watched closely, but the only activity she saw was the shivering of pine needles in the cool breeze.

Hardly anything unusual.

Or dangerous.

You’re just creeped out because of yesterday,
she told herself.
You need to stop.

Bitty sat down in the rocker next to her.

“How are they doing?” Allie asked, pointing her chin toward the girls, her voice low.

“As well as can be expected, I suppose,” Bitty said quietly. “Carrie still hasn’t said a word. Zoe speaks only when spoken to.”

As they sat, rocking and drinking their coffee, the breeze kicked up, blowing Allie’s hair into her face. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the warmth of the sunshine on her eyelids for a while, then decided to take the opportunity while they were alone to tell Bitty about the second phone call the previous evening, and the truck that had been on their property. Bitty rocked quietly for a few moments, listening.

When Allie had finished, Bitty sat silently and sipped her coffee, her face blank of emotion. But Allie could see the wheels in her head turning.

“Think there’s anything to be concerned about?” Allie asked.

Bitty shook her head. “Probably not.”

Piglet started to howl. Allie opened her eyes to find Sammy shaking a young peach tree, trying to get the dead leaves to fall to the ground. For some reason, Piglet seemed to be frightened of trees, and had the same reaction any time Sammy was near one.

Piglet’s howls grew louder, more mournful. “Piglet, stop!” Allie called. The dog turned in Allie’s direction and cocked her head to one side.

“I said, stop,” Allie repeated.

The dog just stared at her, panting.

Allie turned back to Bitty. “Johnny’s still here. But he should be leaving soon,” she said, embarrassed to admit he hadn’t left yet.

Bitty nodded.

Allie watched her son lose interest in the tree and begin walking around, crunching dried leaves and pine needles under the toes of his sneakers. Every once in a while she saw him steal curious glances at Zoe.

“Want me to pick up anything on my way home?” Allie asked. “Any groceries?”

“Thanks, but I’m taking the girls back to the Child Advocacy Center this morning, then we’re going to do some shopping. We’ll get whatever we need while we’re out.”