Kevin O'Brien - Disturbed

Molly reached out to her, but Courtney’s mom slapped her hand away.

“For two years, I lived here — and we were all very happy. Then you moved in,” Mrs. Hahn said. “And everything changed. Two of my neighbors — my best friends — were killed within six months of each other, a freak accident and a murder. Kay had dinner with you the night she died. Angela met you for lunch just hours before she was murdered. Do you expect me to think it’s all just a coincidence? I swear to God, I must have been out of my mind to leave my children in your care today. . ”

“Lynette, you don’t know what you’re saying,” Molly replied.

Mrs. Hahn backed away from her. “Something’s truly wrong with you,” she said. “Maybe you’re not so different from your brother, the one who shot all those people. Deaths and accidents and tragedies — they have a way of following you around, don’t they?”

“Lynette, your children are waiting for you and they’re tired,” Molly said in a steady voice. “Go home.” She turned and headed toward the door.

Chris heard it open and shut a moment later. Downstairs, he could hear Molly’s muffled crying.

He watched Courtney’s mother, slump-shouldered, wander toward the street, where Carson and Dakota waited for her.

He thought about what Mrs. Hahn had said, about all the bad things that had happened after Molly came to live here. But she’d left something out, something important.

Courtney’s mom must have forgotten all about Mr. Corson.

With a pair of tongs, she held the little, rubber-like blond doll over a Sterno flame. She had to be careful to burn just one side of it — so she could match how Courtney had been burned. The whole right side of her face is toast , wrote one of her classmates on Twitter. It might have been easier to just color half the doll’s head with black Magic Marker, but that would have been cheating. Besides, it was important to her that the doll was actually burned. The slightly melted rubber face made all the difference in the world.

She hadn’t a clue where Courtney would be when she pressed the Talk button on her rigged iPhone. So now she’d have to start shopping around for a little model car that looked like Courtney’s Neon. The thought of smashing up the front of the model car made her smile.

She had plenty of miniature trees in her supply of dollhouse accessories. She just needed to find one that was the right proportion to the car.

The patch of fabric from Courtney’s black pullover was in a plastic bag on her worktable. She would burn a bit of that, too.

She’d stopped work on the Dennehy dollhouse to create this little reenactment of Courtney’s accident.

But she would get back to the Dennehy house soon enough.

With a pile of American Express and Visa bills, and her Edward Hopper wall calendar, which usually hung in the kitchen, Molly sat at Jeff’s desk in his study. On the calendar, she always marked the dates for Jeff’s trips and noted the city in which he was staying.

It was four-fifty in the afternoon, and she should have been up in her studio, working on her cola illustration. But Molly couldn’t focus on that.

Instead, she was trying to match Jeff’s travel dates and locations on the calendar with different purchases on his bills. Most of the time, he used his Visa for those business trips, and most of the time, Molly came up with a match. All the charges for his trip to Boston five weeks ago — the hotel, restaurants, taxis, a Barnes & Noble purchase, CVS Pharmacy, Logan Airport Gift Shop — were on his Visa bill.

Yet she couldn’t find any expenses during his two-day trip to Denver the following week, though it was marked on her calendar. She noticed one or two gaps like that nearly every month, usually brief trips, too.

It didn’t make sense. Why pay for most of his trips with this Visa card, and then sometimes not use the card at all?

Jeff must have had another credit card account, one she didn’t know about. Maybe the bill was sent to his office.

Molly was about to look at his checkbook when she heard a car horn honking. She glanced out the window and saw Rachel’s black Honda Accord in the driveway next door. Rachel stepped out of the car and glanced toward the house. She was wearing a sweater and jeans, and her brown hair was all windblown.

Molly went to the front door and opened it. “Hey, there,” she called.

“Sorry to honk the horn,” Rachel said. “I figured I’d rope you into helping me with some groceries. I went berserk in Costco. I mean, how can I pass up five pounds of snack mix? Do you have a few minutes to help a shopaholic in need?”

Molly laughed. “Sure, give me a second.” Ducking back inside, she went to the basement doorway and heard the TV down there. “Erin, I’m going next door to Rachel’s house for a few minutes,” she called. “Okay, honey?”

“ ’Kay,” she answered.

Molly threw on her heavy cardigan and headed out the door.

“I have enough Charmin here to last me until the rapture,” Rachel observed as they were carrying in the last of the groceries from the car. Molly followed her into the house with two light bags. She was taking it easy, because of the baby.

Except for a framed poster of the Eiffel Tower on the wall, Rachel hadn’t done anything yet to Kay’s old kitchen. The appliances were all white, and the breakfast nook was a little booth with built-in red leather cushioned seats. A window over the booth looked out to the wooded backyard. Rachel’s phone and an old answering machine sat on the kitchen counter — near where Molly set the groceries. The message light was blinking.

“Have you heard how Courtney is doing?” Rachel asked while unloading the contents from one of the bags.

“Chris called around lunchtime,” Molly said, leaning on the counter. “He talked to Lynette, and she said the doctors are very optimistic about skin grafts and a prosthetic ear. And they’re pretty sure her eye’s going to be all right.”

“Thank God for that,” Rachel said. She put two big jars of spaghetti sauce in the cupboard. “How’s Lynette holding up?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Molly sighed. “I don’t think Lynette and I are talking. Apparently, everything bad that has happened in her life lately is my fault.”

“Well, I knew you were to blame for global warming, but Lynette’s problems, too? My goodness. .” Rachel began to unload a second grocery bag. “I thought I heard a heated discussion going on outside last night. It didn’t have anything to do with me threatening bodily harm to her sweet little boy, did it?”

“Nope, it’s all me,” Molly said with a sigh. “You have a phone message.”

“Someone trying to sell me something,” Rachel said. “Last week, it was all those prerecorded election-related calls.” Reaching past Molly, she pressed a button on the machine.

A beep sounded, and then a perky recorded voice chimed in: “Hi, this is Claire from Comcast! Did you know you could have all the latest movies and the hottest TV shows right at your fingertips?”

“See? What did I tell you?” Rachel said. “All I get are salespeople and charities.” She went back to unloading her groceries while the recorded sales pitch went on and on. “I don’t need any help putting this stuff away,” Rachel said — over the recording. “This is the easy part. You don’t have to stick around — unless you want to stay for a glass of wine or something.”

Molly shook her head. “Thanks anyway, but Erin’s home, and I don’t want to leave her alone too long.” She turned toward the kitchen door.

On the message machine, the Comcast pitch had finally finished. The beep sounded, and another voice came on.