Page 9

There was no answer. After twenty or thirty seconds, I knocked again, with more force.

A moment later, the door opened. A woman about my age, with long, dirty-blonde hair, stood there. Her thin lips were set in a line, but not overtly unfriendly. She had dark eyes that were wide open in a way that made her look startled. She said nothing.

“Hi. I’m Emily, one of your new neighbors.” I gestured toward our house, mostly concealed by trees, but with a few gaps exposing the back of the house. I held out my hand.

“Do you need help?” she asked.

“No, I⁠—”

“Who is it, Jordan?” A woman appeared behind her. This must be Linda. She had long, thick dark hair with bangs that fell almost to her eyelashes. Looking at them made me want to blink my eyes as I imagined the irritation in my own eyelashes. She was in her mid-forties and had the same wounded-looking eyes and pointed chin as the woman who I now knew was Jordan. Jordan’s mother? It looked that way, although she seemed young to have a daughter my age.

“I’m your⁠—”

“It’s one of the new owners,” Jordan said.

“I wanted to introduce myself,” I said. “Since we’re so close, and there’s no one else.”

Both pairs of eyes narrowed.

I laughed. “I don’t mean I came only because I have no other choice for neighbors. I hope you know that.”

They both gave me half smiles.

A phone timer chimed from somewhere inside the house. “I need to get that.” Linda disappeared down the hallway without revealing what it was she needed to get. There clearly wasn’t anything in the oven since the power was still out.

“Do you need help clearing branches or something?” Jordan asked.

“No. I just wanted to say hi, like I said.” I smiled.

She didn’t return my smile this time. “I saw people by your pool in the middle of the night. Don’t you know it’s dangerous to be outside in an electrical storm? Especially near a swimming pool.”

“I think that’s only if you’re in the pool.” I wasn’t sure why I felt compelled to correct her. Proximity to the swimming pool wasn’t the point she was trying to make.

“Why was someone out there?” she asked.

“It must have been the wind. No one was out there.”

“How do you know?” She moved closer, peering into my eyes.

“The storm kept me awake until almost morning and no one left the house. I would have heard them.”

“Would you? In a storm like that?”

“The thunder was gone by one a.m. or so.”

“I saw someone,” she said. “I was watching for a long time, so I know what I saw. You all aren’t from this area. You need to take these storms seriously. They’re dangerous.”

“Okay. But no one was out there.” I shivered. She sounded so sure of herself. But why was she watching our house? Sitting on their front porch gave her a direct line of sight through a gap in the trees, but why was she watching us in the middle of a dangerous storm? “Maybe it was a wild animal? Or a prowler?”

“No one goes prowling in a thunderstorm. And wild animals usually walk on four legs, in my experience.”

“Why were you watching our house?”

“I like to keep on top of everything that goes on around me. That’s how you stay safe—by being observant. I’ve always kept an eye on that house.” She pushed her hair away from her face.

“You must have been sleepy or all that rain created illusions. No one was out there.”

“I know what I saw. You need to tell them it’s not safe. They could be killed.”