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9

Another ninety-degree August day gives me a good reason to stay inside. The real reason I don’t want to see any of my neighbors has far less to do with the weather and far more to do with feeling exposed after all that forced friendliness at the party and that bizarre encounter with Aaron. I can’t let people know too much about me. That only leads to them asking questions about things they shouldn’t know about.

The air conditioning feels good as I sit down at my desk. It’s Sunday, so I won’t be working today. That doesn’t mean I won’t be searching for anything and everything I can find out about Caroline Townsend, though. After last night’s resounding success learning all about crazy Aaron, I feel good about today’s prospects to finally reveal just who the beautiful woman in the green house truly is.

That’s what I’ve decided his nickname needs to be. Crazy Aaron. Ever since I moved here, I’ve felt bad for him because his story is truly tragic. Last night changed that, though. It’s one thing to be a sad guy. It’s something else completely to be showing up on your neighbor’s doorstep—a neighbor who’s been nothing but respectful, by the way—and creeping him the hell out with bizarre questions about what God sees and knows.

No thanks. Now he gets to be Crazy Aaron, and I plan to stay as far away from him as possible.

Lifting my arms above my head, I stretch and then crack my neck before I open my laptop. Caroline’s secrets won’t stay hidden from me any longer. I can devote every hour of this day to finding out exactly who she is and what she’s hiding.

I glance over at the window and see Kimmy and her brood in the street. It looks like she’s headed over to Marilyn’s. Jesus, please don’t let this be for another party. Isn’t the next one in September? That’s what she said last night. I need at least a month to recover from yesterday’s.

Instead of walking to Marilyn’s, they turn and make their way to Caroline’s. I notice Kimmy seems to be walking a bit slower today. She keeps shifting baby Misty from her right hip to her left, and as I watch her try to corral those boys, I see she’s limping. Something’s wrong with her right leg.

Instinctively, I wonder if she and Tim were up late doing bedroom acrobatics. She probably pulled a muscle during them. You’d think he’d learn to stop at four, especially since he came right out and said he never wanted that many kids in the first place.

Oh, well. Some people never learn. I don’t understand why Kimmy doesn’t stop the madness, though. She’s the one who’s left alone with them all day, every day. You’d think she would be looking forward to some time to herself once they all are old enough to go to school.

I guess she prefers to be nothing more than an incubator. And party planner. It’s too bad she doesn’t realize that she has a real knack for that. If she didn’t have all those kids to take care of, she might even be able to make a business out of her talent.

Tough luck for Caroline, though. Bright and early on a Sunday morning, the last thing anyone wants is to be visited by Kimmy and her disobedient ducklings.

As I watch them standing on her front porch, I see her answer the door, and the look on her face is nothing short of disgusted. I’d feel the same way if Kimmy and her family showed up on my doorstep at nine a.m. She lets them into her home, though, smiling as if she actually likes having her privacy invaded like this.

She’s certainly more polite than I am. I would have made Kimmy and the rest of her people stand out on the porch to tell me what she has to say, even in this heatwave that doesn’t seem to want to end.

I see her glance up the street toward my house and wonder what Kimmy just told her. Was it something about me? That wouldn’t make any sense. I was nothing but nice and neighborly during that entire party yesterday. In fact, I couldn’t have been nicer if I tried. What the hell would Kimmy have to say about me?

Then I remember that weird conversation with Aaron. I have no idea how long he wandered around the cul-de-sac last night. Is it possible he ran into Kimmy or Tim? I wonder if he asked them that same ridiculous question about God seeing what we do.

Not that Kimmy would care. Everything she does is out there for anyone with eyes to see. Tim’s a different story, though. Who knows what he does at that job of his? Is there a special someone at work nobody knows about?

Or who he thinks nobody knows about?

I’m still not convinced Aaron hasn’t been snooping around about everyone in this neighborhood. If he has any of the research skills I think he might, it wouldn’t be difficult. He stays in his house nearly every day and night, so he’d have the time. He’s got a perfect view of the neighborhood from his front window. I know because I have almost the same view and see everything that happens when people are in their yards or out in the street.

What if he found out about some piece Tim has on the side at work? What if he asked him about it last night? Or maybe he just asked that nonsense about God knowing what we do and Tim put two and two together. If Kimmy was right there when Aaron asked that, she may have wondered why her husband became upset.

Maybe that limp isn’t from sex but a fight she and Tim had after Aaron stopped by. He likes to preach patience and accepting things like some big spiritual guru, but I bet he has a temper when it comes right down to it. Aaron and his cryptic bullshit may have caused a knockdown drag out fight, which would explain that limp of Kimmy’s.

I let my mind run wild with conjecture for a little while as I watch Caroline’s green house for any sign of Kimmy and the kids leaving. It’s been fifteen minutes by the time I realize how long I’ve been fantasizing about what may have happened last night. What the hell are those two women talking about for that long?

Finally, the white front door on the green house opens and out come the three Marshall boys like they’ve been shot out of a cannon. I hear their mother scream for them to stay out of the street before I even see her, but as usual, they don’t listen and a few seconds later, the three of them are fighting in the middle of Park Circle.

Nearly a minute passes before Kimmy walks out with Misty stuck to her hip, followed by Caroline. Both of them are smiling and neither one looks up the street toward my house, so I’m sure whatever they talked about had nothing to do with me. I’m not entirely convinced it had nothing to do with Aaron, though. I can definitely imagine Kimmy feeling like it’s her neighborly duty to warn everyone that the ghost of our street has taken to walking around at night being creepy.

She does take her responsibilities as our neighbor very seriously.

Caroline waves as Kimmy and the ducklings walk back across the street to their own house. That limp of hers looks even worse than it did before, and when she goes to sit down on her front steps, I notice she takes it very slowly. I wonder what happened to her.

Lost in thought as I watch Kimmy and her kids, I don’t see Caroline leave her porch until out of the corner of my eye I notice she’s walking up the street. Is she planning to visit Marilyn today, or perhaps she’s going to Aaron’s house? Maybe she’s headed there to talk to him about how it’s not okay to wander the streets at night freaking people out. I can see her doing that. Kimmy would never be able to have that kind of discussion with any of us. It wouldn’t be neighborly. Plus, I don’t think she has a mean bone in her body, and I have no doubt she’d think it would be cruel to say something like that to a man still in mourning for his dead wife.

Dressed in white jean shorts and a black tank top, Caroline looks like the picture of summer beauty. I watch her as with each step she gets closer and closer to my house and possibly might see me staring at her, but I don’t care. Somewhere deep in my mind, the memory of Amanda Michaels rises up, and for a long moment, I think I’m seeing her walk up the street. Caroline reminds me so much of her this morning.

How odd I never noticed the similarity in the way they walk. All those hours Amanda and I would stroll through the woods as she chattered on and I listened come back to me now, and it’s like those fifteen years that have passed disappear.

Then an idea creeps into my brain. It’s only a fragment of a thought, actually, but it burrows its way into my consciousness until I can’t think of anything else.

Caroline Townsend must die.

I’ve never thought that before this very moment. Even when I couldn’t find out anything about her and wanted to punch my hand through my laptop screen in frustration, I never considered killing her. Or when I sat with her last night and we talked. Still the idea of killing her never occurred to me.

But it does now, and I realize I won’t be able to think of anything else when it comes to her from this moment on.

I must kill Caroline Townsend.

A knock at my front door tears me out of my daydreaming, and I jump up out of my seat, shocked I didn’t see her walking up my sidewalk. I silently tiptoe over to the door and look out through the peephole to see the woman herself standing on my front porch.

My heart races at the possibility of what she could want. First, she walks right into my house, and now she simply invites herself up here to visit? Everyone else might think she’s nice, but to me, she’s got no damn manners.

I glance down at the doorknob as I question whether or not it’s locked. She wouldn’t just walk in, would she? She’s not that rude. No, she can’t be. Nobody in this neighborhood would like her if she was.

She knocks again, making me jump in surprise as I stare at the door directly in front of me. I hold my breath as I wait for the next knock, but it never comes. When I look out the peephole again, I see her turn and walk back down the sidewalk out to the road.

Relieved, I run over to the window and watch her through the curtains as she walks back down the street. Why did she come here? What did she want? We aren’t close enough for her to just drop in whenever she feels like it.

My heartbeat slowly returns to normal when I see her walk back onto her porch. But then she turns around, and I know she’s looking up here at me, at my house. Why? What did Kimmy say to Caroline to make her come up here?

Instantly, my mind travels to what it always does at times like this when I don’t know what’s happening. Someone found out what I’ve done. They know.

They all know I’m a killer.