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I change my clothes and leash up the dog. She trots happily beside me as we set off down the sidewalk. At least I’ve made someone happy tonight. Lickie’s tail is in constant motion as we make slow progress down the block. She stops to sniff the ground so often that it will take us fifteen minutes just to walk down Clark Street toward the water.

The salty ocean breeze tangles my hair, but it doesn’t cool my churning thoughts.

On some level I appreciate that Tim showed me his stripes early on. Two or three months of dating is nothing, really. Just a blip. The whole thing would feel so much worse if he’d strung me along.

In hindsight, I should have realized we wouldn’t go the distance.

Shame on me for thinking we could. I should have known he had one foot out the door. There were signs. Like the time I met his mother—but only by accident.

We’d been standing by the Whole Foods cheese counter, shopping for a spontaneous picnic. An attractive woman in her sixties had leaned between us, laying a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “If I’d known you were here I would have sent you a shopping list.”

I knew that Tim was staying with his parents. He’d come home to Maine to help his father after a surgery. And now he was staying on a few more months, deciding whether or not to make the relocation permanent.

Still, it took me a second to realize who this woman was. Tim must take after his father, because his mom was shorter, rounder, and frankly warmer than her son.

Tim had been startled to see her. He’d stumbled through an introduction. “Mom, this is my friend Rowan.”

My friend . Okay, ouch.

His mother clearly wasn’t fooled, though. “How lovely to meet you!” she’d said in a voice that sounded like she meant it. “I didn’t know Tim was dating anyone new.”

Ouch again. Here I was, congratulating myself for trusting my heart to a man for the first time in years. And Tim—who saw his parents every day—hadn’t even mentioned me to his mother.

I liked her immediately, though. She had a quick smile and a warm laugh. Her shopping basket contained the same strawberries I’d chosen, as well as a bar of dark chocolate with salted almonds, and I’d filed that away as a little piece of intel I might need later.

Joke’s on me. I won’t be bringing dark chocolate to any Kovak family gatherings, will I?

Lickie stops to sniff a fire hydrant, just like a dog in a cartoon. That makes us both clichés. The bitter woman, pushing forty, surreptitiously walking the dog toward the guy who dumped her, hoping for a glimpse of the new girlfriend.

Just a glimpse, though. If I see him with a date, that will tell me everything I need to know. I swear I’ll stop letting this man live rent-free in my head.

I meander onto Orange Street, where the view opens up to the Fore River, and Casco Bay beyond. Twilight is rapidly deepening, the river turning an inky gray-blue. In the distance, I can see the headlights of the cars snaking across the bridge. And the wind has kicked up, chasing the day’s humidity out to sea.

This bit of Portland crouches on the edge of a tall bluff, the mansions facing the water. This whole end of town is full of nineteenth-century homes, but none of them approach the size and grandeur of the Wincott Mansion.

It’s not until you make that final turn onto Bond that you can see the scale of the house. The square turret. The peaked rooflines. The stone railings on her porches.

That’s not what draws my eye, though. Even in the waning light, it’s easy to spot Tim’s shiny black Tesla facing the darkening water.

Another gust of anger blows through me. We’d sat there together so many times. Since I wasn’t ready to introduce Tim to my daughter, and Tim is staying with his parents, we didn’t have many private evenings together. On several chilly spring nights, when we weren’t ready for the date to end, our best option was sitting in his car before he dropped me off at home.

Sitting here without me is just plain cruel.

Lickie stops to sniff a lamppost, and I pull out my phone and open the FriendFinder app one more time. I tap Tim’s glowing icon, and his profile pops up, complete with the photo of his smiling face that I snapped one day at the farmers market.

Enough, Tim Kovak. I’m tired of thinking about you. We’re done here.

Then I do what I should have done long before. Unfollow this user?

This time, I tap yes to confirm.

The new woman—whoever she is—can have him. Good luck to her. I mean that.

Mostly.

Lickie gives the leash a tug, and I follow her up the sidewalk, toward the mansion. She huffs softly as she pads off the concrete and into the grass.

The wind cuts through my sweater, and the distant honk of a boat’s horn dies on the breeze. The darkened mansion hovers, as if she’s watching me, her old windows like hooded eyes.

Twilight has deepened the brown sandstone into foreboding purple shadows. It will be a while before we reinstall outdoor lighting, but even after we do, the mansion will never look warm and inviting. It was designed to impress, not beckon.

Lickie squats by a shrub, and I start to feel self-conscious. Odds are good that Tim has spotted us by now. Unless he and his date are staring into each other’s eyes.

These are my stomping grounds. Literally. And I have every right to be here. But stalking must not come naturally to me, because I feel more dread than anticipation as we draw nearer to his car.

Suddenly, Lickie strains at the leash and lets out a friendly bark. “Hey!” I yelp, jerking her back. “Bad dog.”

Another bark has me squinting past the house, toward a clump of trees at the back of the property. But I don’t see anything back there except the contractor’s toolshed.

“Stop that,” I grumble.

For one more long moment, I keep my eyes trained on Lickie, as if watching her tug at the leash is fascinating. We amble a few crucial paces farther, and then I finally glance casually at the passenger’s side of Tim’s car.

The light is dim, though. A more experienced stalker probably would have anticipated this. So when I can’t quickly pick out a face on this side of the glass, I have to stare a little longer.

But it doesn’t help. I don’t see anyone there. The seat is empty. In fact, there’s no motion at all inside the car.

My gaze sweeps the sidewalk across the street. Maybe they went for a walk. It’s a nice night, after all. It begs the question—how much effort am I really willing to put into spying on Tim? One mile? Two?

We pass the car, and I look over my shoulder, in case Tim is in the car alone. Maybe I’m a fool, and he’s sitting there returning emails. He likes working in his car. I called it his “office.” It was our little joke.

There’s no glow from a laptop screen, though. So I’m about to pass by when my attention snags on the driver’s side door. I think it’s open a couple of inches. Which is weird. I draw closer for a better look. Yup. Definitely ajar. Maybe he needed some air? And now I’m standing here like a loser, staring at the car.

“Lickie, come.” I give the leash a gentle tug.

If Tim’s alone in there, I’ll say a casual hello. That’s something a completely sane ex might do, right?

The closer I get, though, the less sense the scene makes. A shadow seems to lean against the driver’s window. And it looks like Tim himself.

Something dark and oily drips from the open door and onto the pavement below.

“Tim?” My voice comes out sounding high and strained.

He doesn’t answer.

The dog whines. She lunges forward, her nose dropping to the glistening liquid on the ground.

I’m close enough to grasp the door handle. “ Tim? ” When I move the door, he moves, too.

Lickie and I jerk backward as he rolls out of the car and tumbles mostly to the pavement, face-first.

A gasp punches from my chest when I look down. My mind isn’t quite able to make sense of what my eyes just showed me. Blood. Everywhere. And as he rolled past me, I saw a whole lot more of it.

Also, his face. It wasn’t right. At all.

I gasp out another breath. Shock makes me stupid. I stand there for one more beat, before slowly squatting down to grasp his shoulder. “Tim.”

He feels solid under my hand. He feels like Tim. But I’m terrified as I roll him a few inches off the ground and get a look at his jaw and throat. Splintered is the word that leaps to mind.

I fall back onto my ass. There’s blood on my shoes.

Lickie whines, her ears flat on her head.

“Oh my God.”

Oh my God.