Page 30 of Two Couples

“I don’t know what to tell you. This is a safe area. I suspect you brought trouble with you.”

“How would we do that?”

“What did the deputy say about the vandalism?” Linda asked.

“She said they can’t do anything about it, which is really frustrating. I’m not sure I believe her.”

“The officers I’ve encountered in my years here are usually more helpful than that.”

“Well, this one wasn’t.”

“It’s possible that because you’re outsiders, she doesn’t trust you.”

“Isn’t it their job to trust the public? They exist to defend and protect us. They shouldn’t be deciding who’s worthy of their time and who isn’t.”

“True.” Linda pushed her thick, dark hair away from her face. Immediately, her bangs fell back over her eyebrows. “But what we think we should do and how we actually behave are often vastly different.”

“They’re supposed to be trained to have good relationships with the public they’re defending.”

“You have to be realistic. I don’t think you believe that yourself—that deputies or police officers don’t occasionally have subtle biases they’re not even aware of. We all have them.”

“She seemed friendly enough. Then, she refused to do anything,” I said.

“I thought the deputy talked to your husband?”

“She did.”

“Then how do you know what her attitude was like?”

“He told me about it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Shouldn’t your husband be asking me these questions?” She took a step closer to me. “It’s possible she sensed your husband was hiding something. She might have wanted him to sweat it out for a while. Cops have very strong instincts about human behavior. It’s as if they just know what people are thinking, what secrets they’re keeping, what crimes they’re hiding, because they’ve experienced so much.”

Was it my imagination that she emphasized crimes more than the rest of her words? Or was I so nervous, I believed she also had strong instincts and could see right through me?

As I walked past our SUV, I saw a torn scrap of paper from a grocery bag. Had the note torn when I pulled it out from under the wiper blade? Or was this new?!

Glancing at the house, hoping no one was watching, I scurried up to the driver’s side window, facing away from the house. I grabbed the paper and turned in the other direction so I was hidden by our vehicle. I turned it over and read the words scrawled with black marker in all upper case.

I’VE BEEN WATCHING YOU FOR LONGER THAN YOU KNOW.

TWENTY-THREE

EMILY

Samantha came charging out to the back deck where I’d just moved my lounge chair into the shade. She stood with her arms tightly folded across her ribs. “I’m worried about the vandalism.”

I resettled myself on the chair and tossed my hat onto the deck beside me. “You seem really stressed out. Try to relax. Maybe you should open a bottle of wine. I’ll have a glass too.”

Despite my smile, her lips remained rigid. I sighed and crossed my ankles. “Why are you worried?”

She sat on the chair bedside me. She ran her fingers through her hair, then coiled it and wound it into a bun, tucking the ends beneath the knot. I always admired women who could do that. No matter how many times I tried, my hair immediately began to slide down my head like a melting ice cream.

She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Linda said our car window was smashed because we somehow brought trouble with us.”

“That’s not cool,” I said. “And it’s not true.” I laughed. “How dramatic. I don’t know what her deal is, but you can’t bring trouble. Does she think we piled vandals into the backs of our SUVs?”

“She strikes me as a low-key person. I don’t think she’d say that just to upset me. She also said it’s possible the deputy wasn’t helpful because she sensed Patrick was hiding something.”