Page 12 of Just One Look

She thought,That’s a dangerous question to answer,and said, “My new house. For the next year, anyway.”

“Hope they’ll have a cup of tea for you,” he said. “It’s a long journey. Heaps of cafés in Ponsonby, though. You’ll be spoilt for choice, and if you’re a surgeon, you can probably afford it, eh. Try Dizengoff, maybe, about halfway down the main road. Always popular. Or Archie’s. Hard to see it, as it’s tucked away into an alley, but they do a good brekkie, I hear.”

So—not so much urban predation as New Zealand friendliness. The friendliness was confusing. She wasn’t used to it.

All the way up the hill to the top, the buildings older here. Shops lined both sides of the street, most still closed up tight this early on Sunday morning. The driver pointed at a place whose doorwasopen, said, “Dizengoff,” and then turned onto a smaller street, full of trees and greenery, the houses set back from the street, and she thought,Nearly there.

One more turn, and a glint of blue in the distance. That would be the harbor, on the other side of the steep hill that dropped off below her house. She’d have a perfect view of it from both dining room and bedroom, and a deck where she could sit and watch the boats coming and going from the yacht harbor and the lights of the Harbour Bridge going on at dusk, not to mention seeing across to the North Shore. She hadn’t been able to believe her luck when she’d seen the pictures.

A few houses lined the seaward side of the little street, some coolly modern, others the older, chocolate-box villa type, all of them white. The driver stopped at a black metal number on a white wooden fence, jumped out, pulled her suitcase from the trunk, and said, “Here you are, then, love.”

“Thank you,” she said, then trundled her suitcase to the gate, unlatched it, and thought,You’ve done it now, Elizabeth. You’re here.

And stop worrying.Neurosurgery is neurosurgery, and neurosurgery is what you’re here to do.

The front door looked to be around the back. Made sense, since all the view was back there. She’d go in and take a shower. Unpack her suitcase. Open the doors onto her new deck and look at the ocean—whoops, the sea. The harbor. Whatever. Take a walk to shake off the stiffness and find something to eat, then do some grocery shopping and drive the route to the hospital so she’d be prepared in the morning.

It was a new place, but all it took was planning. She led an orderly life. New Zealand was an orderly place. It was perfect.

The body of the house sat behind a garage, and the whole thing seemed much smaller than it had looked in the pictures.But charming,she told herself, finding the key under the pot, exactly where Peter had told her it would be. Though there was a roar coming from somewhere, and from inside the house, she heard barking.

Loudbarking.

Deepbarking.

That would be her new dog.