Page 3

2

The dog days of summer have settled into Raven Terrace before Kimmy and Marilyn have a chance to get their party underway. All week, I’ve watched them scurry back and forth from one house to the other with armfuls of party goods, in addition to Misty, of course.

This week, however, the three boys have joined their mother in the party planning. The three of them look like rogue ducks following behind her each time she has to hurry over to Marilyn’s house. The oldest can’t take two steps without stopping in the road to pick up a pebble or a coin he’s found, and the twins never take a breather from their constant battling one another.

Always dressed identically, they make it difficult to tell them apart, but I’ve noticed the one has a deformity on his left hand that the other doesn’t. It’s nothing very big, but his pinky sticks out from the rest of his fingers. He’s the instigator of most of the fights, from what I can tell. Probably has some deep-seated issue from being injured, maybe at birth. Whatever his problem is, he never gives fighting his twin a rest.

So every few minutes, Kimmy goes traipsing across the street to Marilyn’s house with the disobedient ducklings following behind and Misty on her hip. Oddly enough, she never turns around to yell at the boys on these missions to get the party planned. She must be too focused on the Dog Day Extravaganza to do her usual screeching.

I speak for the entire neighborhood when I say thank God for that. Someone needs to figure out a way to keep Kimmy constantly distracted so she never barks at them again. It’s not like it does anything to stop them from acting out. They do it no matter if she yells or not.

For her part, Marilyn doesn’t appear as frantic while she’s making her way to Kimmy’s house. Then again, the older woman never seems in a hurry. She’s been around for a long time. Perhaps now is her time to slow down and take it easy. Or perhaps it’s simply her personality to not get flustered. She never acts like she’s out of sorts when that drunk fisherman she calls a husband comes home from the lake. He never has a single fish with him. Just poles and that tackle box.

Is it that she’s merely happy he isn’t out with another woman, so drinking while he pretends to fish each day is preferable? People will accept a lot of shit to keep their lives in equilibrium. Women especially, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she’s accepted that this bargain is one she can live with.

In the two months since I moved into this neighborhood, I’ve never seen anyone visit Marilyn and her husband with children. In fact, I’ve never seen anyone visit them at all. I think they might be childless. That would explain the wincing Marilyn seems to do a lot whenever Kimmy’s boys misbehave.

And just when I think I should turn away from the window because it’s always the same thing day after day in this cul-de-sac, a new person joins the party planners. The woman from the green house.

She looks younger than usual today with her dirty blond hair up in a ponytail as she tries to herd Kimmy’s boys across the street. Dressed in a white T-shirt, jean shorts, and yellow flip flops, she looks so fresh and new compared to the haggard mother of four and the elderly rose tender.

Her name is Caroline. Caroline Townsend. She’s twenty-seven with blue eyes. She rarely spends much time outside her home since she moved in, so today’s appearance with Kimmy and the kids is surprising.

Caroline intrigues me. I’ve searched online for everything I can find out about her, but I’ve come up with little. Her social media presence is sparse yet enough if someone is a busy working professional.

Except that I see no evidence of that being the case.

Someone her age, particularly a woman, usually spends more time on social media. She has only a Facebook account. No Twitter. No Instagram. No TikTok or Tumblr. I even checked Only Fans in case that’s where she’s making the money to afford living in this suburb of Philly. Nothing.

That leaves me with two ideas. Either she’s just a shy person who doesn’t like social media, which is possible, or she’s hiding something. My gut says the latter is more likely, so I’m making it my mission to find out what pretty little Caroline Townsend from 12 Park Circle is keeping from the world.

I’ve checked out every single person in this neighborhood. It’s easily done since that’s part of my position as a human resources consultant. My job is to find out what potential employees are concealing from the companies I work for. You’d be stunned to find out how many secrets people have.

Not that I ever am.

I know all about secrets. My life is an elaborately constructed facade to make sure no one finds out mine. I appear to be a mild mannered thirty-something year old man who works from home and happily attends the neighborhood functions. I keep my lawn at the appropriate height, always making sure to pay the landscaper a little extra so it never gets too high. That would make my house stand out from the others, and that’s the last thing I want to do.

You see, Amanda Michaels was my first kill but not my last. The way to keep that fact from being found out is to blend in with everyone else in the world. I look exactly like someone who has nothing to hide would. But who I truly am is nothing like the mask I wear.

So it’s clear Caroline Townsend must be hiding something because she’s doing exactly the same thing I am. She looks like someone who’s normal and belongs, but every fiber of my being says she’s hiding something behind that all-American girl facade.

And I intend on finding out exactly what that something is.

Two hours later, I haven’t paid attention to a single thing going on outside because I’ve been hellbent on finding out just who Caroline is. Unfortunately, all I’ve found is a Facebook account with a handful of friends and pictures of her new house here on Park Circle. What’s suspicious is she doesn’t seem to have anyone who she went to high school with on her friends list. Normal people usually do, assuming they went to high school. I’m not getting a dropout vibe from dear Caroline, so I’m going to guess she graduated from somewhere nearly a decade ago.

Just as I did right after she moved in, I spent the afternoon scouring the internet for any information on her and found little. She purchased the green house for nearly four hundred thousand dollars, which sends red flags up all over the place for me since I’ve seen no signs she works. Now yes, she may have won the lottery or she may come from money, but neither of those possibilities are borne out from her Facebook account.

Perhaps she won the lottery when she was much younger and she’s weeded out all the people who only want a handout online, but I examined her entire history on Facebook and found nothing to indicate she ever even played the lottery, much less won.

So maybe she comes from money. The only problem with that is there are no friends on her list that could be her parents. As much as children might not like having their mothers and fathers join them online, the reality is they do. Anytime I see a job applicant who doesn’t have parents as friends on Facebook or other social media, I immediately search to find out if they’re still alive. Nearly always, if they aren’t online with their kids, they’re dead.

Caroline has no one who could be her parents as friends online, but when I search for deaths with the name Townsend, nothing matches. I’ve looked through death notices and obituaries in a hundred-mile radius from here, and nobody matches.

My expertise tells me that Townsend isn’t her real name. Or maybe it’s a married name, but there again, I’ve found no evidence of her being married.

So who is Caroline Townsend and how can she afford a home in this development right outside of Philadelphia on a salary that doesn’t seem to exist?

Without a social security number, I can’t check to see if she’s having money withheld from any job. I can do a credit check, though. I’ve held off on doing that until now because while the people who pay me to consult don’t much mind me searching anyone whether they’re applying for a job at one of the companies or not, they do tend to question when I run credit checks on people who aren’t potential employees of theirs.

My fingers hesitate over the keyboard on my laptop for merely a second or two before I type in her name to search her credit. If anyone asks, I’ll make up something to cover myself. They always believe me. Why wouldn’t they? It’s not like they think I’m some homicidal maniac stalking some woman who lives a few houses away from me.

I look out the window while I wait for the credit report to populate. Kimmy and the brood are hiking their way back to her house, but this time each of the boys has an armful of white butcher paper and bottles of paint. Good luck with that.

However, Caroline is nowhere in sight. Did she stay behind at Marilyn’s?

A glance over toward that yard gives me my answer. There next to a red rose bush she and the older woman stand talking. Each of them smiles and nods, and every so often, Caroline throws her head back in laughter. I wouldn’t have thought anyone would find Marilyn that amusing, but perhaps I was wrong. Maybe she is that funny.

Except I’m never that mistaken about people.

My job is to find out everything there is to know about a person, and in the ten years that I’ve been doing it, I’ve gotten very good at reading people. I can tell when someone’s lying, and I can tell when they’re nervous or scared.

Marilyn is never that hysterical, so why is Caroline pretending to be that entertained by what she’s saying?

I turn back to look at my screen and see a credit report much like most people’s. Her score needs a little work, but that’s mostly because she doesn’t have a long history of credit.

Another red flag.

How does a woman in her late twenties not have a decent length credit history? Her longest credit card only goes back three years. She has no student loan debt. No car loan. Most surprisingly, no mortgage.

I snap my head around to look out the window at Caroline as she stands laughing with Marilyn. Nothing about this woman makes sense. No mortgage? How the hell did she buy that house?

Then it dawns on me. The house isn’t hers. It’s mortgaged to another name. That must be it.

Quickly, I begin searching the property to find out who’s behind Park Circle’s newest resident. Now I’ll have something to work with because once I find out the name of the man or woman who owns the house, I’ll be able to piece together some details about little miss green house.

My hands shake at the thought that I’m about to unravel at least part of the mystery of Caroline Townsend. I scan the words in front of me to find out the true owner of 12 Park Circle. My heart beats wildly as I feel the truth just seconds away.

And then I see it. This isn’t possible.

The owner of 12 Park Circle, Raven Terrace, Pennsylvania is Caroline Townsend. She purchased the home for just over four hundred thousand dollars less than a month ago.

Not possible. Someone has made a mistake. Who is this woman and what is she hiding?

I have to know. It’s going to kill me if I don’t find out. I will unravel this mystery. It will just take more time and something I generally don’t like to engage in very often.

Personal interaction.

That will happen at the Dog Days of Summer party Kimmy and Marilyn are so busy planning at this very moment. I’ll talk to Caroline and find out all I can about her. If I can, I’ll find a way to get inside her house so I can search for any papers that will tell me who she really is and how she’s able to afford that house.

Happy to know I won’t be forced to accept whatever lies she’s telling, I make my way over to the front window and watch her still talking to Marilyn. The laughing has stopped, though. I follow their gazes and see they’re looking at Aaron’s house next door.

That explains why nobody’s having a good time anymore.

The older woman sees me and waves, and although I usually prefer not to engage when I’m working, I make an exception to that rule today and return the gesture, adding a smile to make it seem like I’m not watching them.

Caroline turns to look at me, and for a moment, I don’t see the usual friendly neighbor expression everyone but the mourning husband next door gives me whenever they see me. No, the look she gives me is nothing short of piercing.

I wave and smile to her too, and after a few seconds, her expression brightens and she waves back, giving me a big smile. But I know she doesn’t mean it. Her first look was her true one.

The question is why is Caroline Townsend so unhappy to see the mild-mannered consultant who works from home and doesn’t bother anyone? Perhaps she knows out of all of these people, I’m the one who can learn the truth of who she really is.