Kevin O'Brien - Disturbed

The police asked if Angela had mentioned any other strange goings-on. Molly remembered the attempted breakin at Larry’s house two weeks ago. “She said the kitchen window screen had been removed,” Molly recalled. “But it didn’t look like anything was missing.”

The police already knew about it. Angela and Larry had reported the incident twelve days before.

The two detectives said they wanted to talk to Jeff as soon as he came home. His flight was due into SeaTac at 3:55. “Where’s Mr. Dennehy flying in from?” one of the cops asked.

“Washington, D.C.,” Molly replied. “He’s been there since Monday.”

“Where was he staying?”

“The Capital Hilton,” Molly answered. But then she remembered talking to the hotel operator earlier. Molly watched the police detective writing it down, and decided not to say anything.

The cops said they’d be back to talk with Jeff.

As Molly showed them to the front door, she glanced outside. Two TV news vans were parked in front of the house. No one had rung the bell yet. But the vans had attracted a few onlookers. Three strange cars were parked on the block, and about a dozen people stood in the middle of the street, gawking at the news vans and the house. An older couple had their bikes with them. They must have been out for a ride when they spotted the TV news trucks.

Half hiding behind the door, Molly watched the reporters and cameramen rush out of their vans to interview the two policemen.

Molly noticed yet another van crawling down the cul-de-sac, but this one was a moving van.

The vehicle made an incessant beeping noise over a chorus of hissing and grinding as it backed into Kay’s old driveway next door. Molly couldn’t help thinking that the new neighbor had picked one hell of a lousy day to move in.

The police hadn’t been gone five minutes when Lynette Hahn came by with Courtney, Carson, and Dakota in tow. She’d pulled the kids out of school so they could help Chris and Erin through this awful tragedy. Just in time for lunch, she’d also brought along enough McDonald’s to feed a small army. It was actually a good call. With a Happy Meal and Lynette’s bratty kids to distract her, Erin seemed to perk up a little. She and the little monsters parked themselves in front of some cartoons on the Disney Channel.

Chris remained barricaded in his room. He didn’t want to see anyone — including Courtney. So she spent most of the time sitting at the breakfast table, sipping a milk shake and texting friends on her iPhone.

Molly never thought she’d be grateful for Lynette Hahn’s company, but she was. Lynette helped screen the calls, and twice she chased away reporters who dared to ring the doorbell. And having not had a scrap of food all morning — when she was eating for two — Molly was glad for the cheeseburger and fries. She devoured them.

She was able to steal a moment and brought some of the food up to Chris’s room. She gently knocked on his door.

“Could you go away, please?” Chris called, in a voice hoarse from crying.

“I know you don’t want to see anybody,” Molly said, leaning close to his door. “But you need to eat something. There’s a double cheeseburger, large fries, and a Coke for you. I’m leaving it outside the door here.”

He didn’t respond.

“Chris?” she said. “I just want you to know, you were so good with Erin this morning. The way you took care of her and got her to calm down, I think your mom would have been very proud of you.”

“Thank you, Molly,” he said, still raspy. “Can you leave me alone now?”

“Sure, Chris,” she said. Then she left the McDonald’s bag and the Coke by his door.

In the upstairs hallway, she could hear Lynette down in the family room, chiding one of her children: “If you want to make yourself sick to your stomach with even more candy and more soda pop, Dakota, you just go right ahead.”

Molly felt a little sick herself. Either she’d eaten that burger too fast, or the baby was stirring things up. She hurried into the master bathroom and stood over the toilet for a few minutes, hoping the nausea would pass. As she tentatively stood there, Molly began to weep. She wasn’t sure why. She’d never liked Angela very much.

She remembered Angela telling her at lunch yesterday how scared she was. She’d talked about calling a truce. The person calling Angela must have been responsible for hiring the investigator in Chicago, for the smashed pumpkins, and for Chris’s broken locker.

Molly hadn’t told the policemen about any of those things. They just didn’t seem to have anything to do with the cul-de-sac killings.

But maybe they did.

Suddenly, she felt her stomach churn, and she thought for certain she was going to throw up. But she held back and took a few deep breaths. The awful sensation passed — for now.

When she came back out to the hallway, she smiled a little. The McDonald’s bag outside Chris’s door wasn’t there anymore. At least he was eating something.

In Erin’s room, the bed covering was askew. Molly stepped in to straighten the quilt on the bed. Leaning beside Angela’s rocker, she glanced out the window — at the crowd in front of the house. Now there were three TV news vans, a cop car, and about thirty people just gaping at the house.

Next door, movers were unloading furniture from the van and hauling it into Kay’s old house.

Natalie, in her usual running attire, jogged down the block, passing people on her way back to the Nguyens’ house. Her dark blond hair, in a ponytail, slapped back and forth between her shoulder blades. She barely slowed down to see what everyone was gawking at.

Down the block at Hank and Frank’s old place, Jill’s car was parked in the driveway. In a first-floor window, Molly could see the flickering light of a big-screen TV.

Stepping away from the window, she put a hand on the back of Angela’s rocking chair. Molly remembered something else the now-dead Mrs. Dennehy had said to her yesterday.

“Do you think it’s possible somebody is trying to pit us against each other?”

She easily blended in with the rest of the crowd loitering in front of the Dennehys’ house. Another patrol car had come up the street and parked beside the TV news vehicles. For a while, the only thing the crowd had to look at was the furniture being unloaded from the moving van parked next door. But now, Lynette Hahn was giving them a show.

Standing on the Dennehys’ front stoop as if the place were hers, Lynette held her youngest child, Dakota, in her arms while the TV news cameras rolled. “Angela was a wonderful mother, a great neighbor, and my dear, dear friend,” she announced with tears in her eyes. She patted Dakota on the back. “It’s such a tragedy, and so senseless. Two of the nicest kids you’d ever want to meet are now without a mother. We’re on a cul-de-sac here. Angela moved from one cul-de-sac to another. You never think anything like this will happen to someone you know, someone you care about and love. But it just goes to show — until this maniac is caught, none of us who live on a cul-de-sac in the Seattle area is safe. . ”

The crowd seemed pretty mesmerized. But then, what did they know, a bunch of idiots who had nothing better to do than follow TV news vans around?

They had no idea what Lynette Hahn was really like.

Courtney Hahn’s former guidance counselor at the high school had referred to Lynette as a “royal pain in the ass.” She used to phone Ray Corson constantly with complaints — and at his home, too. Why wasn’t her daughter given the solo in the school concert? How could the coach let Courtney sit on the bench for the entire first half of the volleyball game? Why did she only get a C+ on that English literature test?