Page 5 of Take Your Breath Away

“I’m sorry?”

“A points card.”

“No, no, I don’t have one of those.”

When the groceries were bagged and in her cart, the cashier said the total was fifty-five dollars and twenty-nine cents.

“How you paying?”

The woman reached into her purse and brought out three twenties. “Cash,” she said.

“Okey dokey,” the cashier said.

The woman had her hands on the cart and was turning it around to point it toward the exit when the cashier said, “Lady, your change?”

She’d been so distracted, she hadn’t thought to wait for it. She held out her hand, took the money, and dumped it into her purse.

She wheeled the cart out into the parking lot and opened the tailgate on a black, mid-2000s Volvo station wagon. She put the bags in, closed the tailgate. Affixed to it was a license plate with letter and numbers smeared with enough dirt and grime as to be illegible.

She got behind the wheel and waited the better part of a minute for other cars to pass before she backed out. Given that it was a Saturday morning, when a lot of people did their week’s shopping, the parking lot was busy.

“Don’t have a fender bender,” she said to herself. That was the last thing she needed.

Once she was out of the lot, she headed across town into one of Milford’s west end neighborhoods.

She put on her blinker when she saw the Mulberry Street sign and turned down it. There was a lot of activity in the neighborhood today. Being the second of April—one day too late for April fool’s, she thought grimly—many homeowners were engaged in yard cleanup. Raking leftover debris from the fall before, jamming it into paper recycling bags. Men wielding leaf blowers that made as much racket as a low-flying jet. A woman ran alongside a girl, no more than five years old, as she learned to ride a bicycle. Two other women stood at the end of a driveway, one of them still in pajamas and a housecoat, each holding a mug and chatting.

What a nice neighborhood, the woman in the Volvo thought. Like something out of one of those 1950s TV shows. Not that she was old enough to have seen them when they first ran, but hey, was that June Cleaver over there, bringing a tall glass of lemonade out to Ward? Was that young Opie running past with a slingshot sticking out of his back pocket?

To think that something so horrible could happen on a street such as this.

Oh, there it was. Her destination was just up ahead.

She put her blinker on again, waited for a kid on one of those motorized skateboards to whiz past, then steered the Volvo into a driveway. She noticed that at the house next door, a man was sweeping the steps of his front porch. She put the car into park, got out, and went around back to raise the tailgate. She grabbed two bags, came around the side of the car, leaving the tailgate open, and it was at this point that she actually gazed upon the house.

It was, clearly, a new build, judging by the architectural style. Sharp angles, huge panes of glass. Solar panels built into the roof. A modern, contemporary design.

The woman stopped, as though she’d bumped into an invisible wall.

“What …”

The man sweeping his porch glanced over in her direction.

The woman turned her head to look at the house to the left, then the house to the right, as though confirming to herself that she was in the right place. Finally she focused on the number affixed to the door of the house she stood before.

Thirty-six.

“Where …”

She dropped her groceries to the ground. A carton of eggs toppled from one, the lid popping open and a single egg shattering onto the driveway.

“Where is my house?” she said aloud. “Where the hell is my house?”

The front door opened and a teenage girl with pink highlights in her hair and wearing workout sweats poked her head out. “Can I help you?” she said.

“Where’s my house?” she cried, a frightened edge in her voice. “An old house. Red brick. A porch, a railing. Where the hell is it?”

The man next door took several steps in her direction.