Cul-de-sac Read online

  “Nobody’s going to break in.”

  “…and here you’d be, all alone, at the mercy of some predator….”

  “Nonsense,” Julia states firmly, seeking to put an end to the discussion. “Besides, I have a gun.”

  “What?! Since when do you have a gun?”

  “It was your father’s.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. That antique? Does it even work anymore?”

  “Why wouldn’t it?” In truth, she has no idea whether the old handgun works or not. “At any rate, I’m not selling this house, so…”

  “The market is hot right now. We could get a good price….”

  “We?”

  “You could move to an apartment, be surrounded by people your own age….”

  “I don’t want to be surrounded by people my own age.”

  “I could invest the money for you. You could live very well….”

  “I already live very well.”

  “Will you at least agree to have a look at Manor Born?”

  “Manor Born? Manor Born? You want to put me in a home?”

  “It’s not a home. It’s a first-class assisted living community.”

  “You can call it whatever the hell you like. I’m not moving there.”

  “You’re being unreasonable,” Norman tells his mother.

  “You’re being an ass,” Julia tells her son.

  “He’s just trying to look out for you,” Poppy chimes in.

  “How sweet.” Julia pushes out of her chair and marches toward the front door with as much speed as she can muster. “Thanks for stopping by, darling. I know how busy you are.” She opens the door just as the young couple who recently moved in next door are pulling their blue Hyundai out of their garage.

  “Nice wheels!” the young man says, stopping in the driveway to admire the silver Tesla. “You just buy it?”

  Julia laughs, flattered he could even think such a thing. “It’s not mine,” she says, as Norman and Poppy join her in the doorway.

  “Nice wheels,” the young man says again, this time to Norman.

  Julia can’t remember the man’s name, but thinks it’s one of those new, modern ones. He waves goodbye as he backs onto the street. His wife—Julia can’t remember her name either, but thinks it’s a surprisingly old-fashioned one—also waves.

  “Will you at least consider what I’ve said?” Norman asks his mother.

  “I will not,” Julia says.

  “He’s just looking out for you,” Poppy says, as she said earlier. She follows her husband to their car, stepping back as the doors lift into the air.

  Like a giant insect about to take flight, Julia thinks. Way too intimidating. She much prefers the unfussy Chevrolet her husband bought the year before he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She looks across the street to the home of Dr. Nick Wilson, grateful as she always is for the wonderful care he gave her husband in the months before his death. Can almost two years have passed since then? She swallows a deep breath of warm, humid air, then goes back inside the house, shutting the door before the Tesla is fully out of the driveway.

  “They gone?” a voice asks from the top of the stairs.

  “They are.” Julia watches her grandson descend the steps, the long, skinny legs appearing first, followed by the long, skinny torso, then the long, thin face, framed by the long brown hair that falls to his bony shoulders in uncombed waves. “You’re going to have to call them, you know.”

  “I know. I will. Thanks for not giving me away. And for defending my good name, even though…”

  “You took the money?”

  “I did,” Mark admits, walking into the kitchen and grabbing a stale store-bought muffin from the counter. “I mean, she left her wallet just sitting there on the counter, like it was some kind of test.”

  “Which you failed.”

  “Or I passed, depending how you look at it.”

  Julia smiles. At least someone in her family has a sense of humor.

  “Do you really have a gun?” he asks.

  “An antique, apparently.”

  Her grandson’s turn to smile. “Where is it?”

  “I have no idea.” Julia assumes it’s in the garage, in one of the boxes full of Walter’s belongings, but she keeps this to herself.

  Mark pops a bite of the muffin into his mouth. “Nana…”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve been thinking…”

  Not too sure that’s a good idea, Julia thinks, waiting for him to continue.

  He surprises her by saying, “Maybe I could move in with you for a while. Then I wouldn’t have to go back home and you wouldn’t be alone. I’m even a pretty good cook.”

  “Really? When did you learn to cook?”

  He shrugs. “None of Dad’s wives, including my mother, were too great in the kitchen. I didn’t really have much choice if I wanted to survive. Anyway, think about it. My moving in with you would solve everyone’s problems.”

  Julia isn’t sure that his moving in wouldn’t create a whole bunch of new ones, but the fact is she adores her grandson, has from the minute he was born. It isn’t his fault that his father is a humorless jackass and his various mothers have been a series of self-absorbed bimbos. She’s reminded of the punch line to the old joke about why grandparents and their grandchildren get along so well: They have a common enemy.

  Mark picks up the morning paper lying on the counter. “It’s ‘squander,’ ” he says, tapping the puzzle with his elegant fingers.

  “What is?”

  “The word you’re missing. For ‘spend wastefully.’ It’s ‘squander.’ ”

  “You’re right.” Julia fills in the word. “Thank you.”

  He laughs and grabs another muffin. “These are terrible,” he says, eating it anyway. “Pretty sure I can do better.”

  “You’re certainly welcome to try.”

  “We’ll go grocery shopping this afternoon. You’ll see,” he says with a smile. “You’re gonna like having me around.”

  Chapter Five

  “That was quite the car,” Aiden Young is saying as he turns the blue Hyundai onto Hood Road.

  “A little plain,” his wife says. “Except for the doors.”

  “Those doors are something else.”

  “I still like a Corvette,” Heidi says. Before they got married, almost a year ago, Aiden had promised her a Corvette. But Aiden’s mother, Lisa, was adamant that a sports car was both too expensive and too impractical, and since it was her money that was paying for the car’s lease—to be fair, it was her money that was paying for almost everything, including the down payment and mortgage on their house—Aiden had gone along with her choice. Which wasn’t unusual. To Heidi’s great and continuing dismay, Aiden went along with almost all his mother’s decisions.

  She was the one exception.

  Heidi smiles, lowering her visor and checking her reflection in the small mirror, pleased with what she sees: big brown eyes, model-high cheekbones, shoulder-length amber-colored curls that miraculously don’t frizz up in the humidity, full, bow-shaped lips.

  Everyone’s always saying that she and Aiden make such a cute couple, a regular Ken and Barbie come to life. And the comparison is true—as far as it goes. Her husband is indeed tall and lean and muscular. But there’s more to him than his blandly handsome exterior would suggest, something deep, even mysterious, going on behind those dark blue eyes.

  A thirty-year-old former soldier who served two tours in Afghanistan, her husband has the swagger Heidi has always found appealing in a man. But he’s surprisingly sweet, too, which is what she finds most attractive about him. That sweetness is the main reason she said yes to his proposal, despite the red flags she saw waving on the horizon.

  At twenty-seven, Heidi had been dreaming of a home an
d family of her own ever since she was eight years old and her mother succumbed to the cancer that had left her bedridden for much of Heidi’s childhood. Her father had quickly remarried, to a woman with three children of her own and no desire to look after a fourth.

  Heidi knew that Aiden’s mother considered her “poor white trash,” but she’d hoped—perhaps naïvely—that she could change her mind, that when Lisa had the chance to really get to know her, she would love her.

  She was wrong.

  Even after it became glaringly obvious that Lisa would never accept her, Heidi had been hopeful—again, perhaps naïvely—that when it came to a showdown between the woman who gave Aiden life and the woman who gave him blow jobs, she would emerge victorious.

  Something else she’d been wrong about.

  “What’re you thinking about?” Aiden asks now.

  Heidi shrugs and says nothing, glancing at the tiny sliver of a diamond in the center of her engagement ring. The stone is so small, she can’t even be sure it’s real. Could just be glass, for all she knows. The fact is that nothing is what she assumed it would be. “You had another one of those nightmares last night, didn’t you?” she says as Aiden turns onto PGA Boulevard, heading east toward the Gardens Mall.

  “Did I?”

  “You were moaning and groaning and pulling at the covers.”

  “Really? Don’t remember.” His grip on the steering wheel tightens.

  Heidi watches his knuckles turn white and knows he’s lying. She reaches over to give his fingers a reassuring pat, wondering if his nightmares will ever disappear. He’s been out of the army for five years, and seeing a psychiatrist for the last three, weekly sessions paid for by his mother.

  Heidi can deal with her husband’s PTSD. It’s his mother she can’t handle.

  Aiden puts on his signal when they reach the second of the multiple exits leading into the huge, upscale mall and waits until the arrow indicates his turn to go. He proceeds slowly. Very slowly. As if he’s driving through a minefield, Heidi thinks, pushing down on the invisible accelerator at her feet. The snail’s pace continues into the parking lot that surrounds the two-story indoor plaza. Aiden parks where he always does, by the entrance to Saks, which is where he works.

  At least for the time being.

  Aiden has had several jobs since they got married. He has trouble concentrating and, combined with a general problem with authority, it’s made holding down a job difficult. Currently, he’s working in the jewelry department at Saks, and it seems to be going reasonably well. Heidi also works in the mall, at the nearby Lola’s Lingerie, which is where they met.

  He’d come in to buy a birthday gift.

  “For your wife? Your girlfriend?” she asked, fishing.

  “My mother,” he replied, sheepishly.

  I should have run right then and there, she thinks now. Instead, she’d found his honesty charming, his awkwardness even more so. “What did you have in mind?” she asked.

  “I was thinking maybe a nightgown or a robe.”

  Heidi picked out ones she thought most suitable, and Aiden left with both a nightgown and a matching robe, then came back two days later. With his mother. To return them.

  “Not exactly my taste,” Lisa said, giving Heidi the once-over, her implication clear.

  Heidi slipped Aiden her phone number as she was processing the return, and he called her that same night. Three months later, she and Aiden were engaged. At their wedding the following month, he vowed to love and cherish her, to put her above all others.

  Well, that first part might be true, Heidi thinks as they enter the air-conditioned department store, but it didn’t take her long to figure out who really came first.

  “What time’s your break?” he asks now.

  “Not sure. I’ll text you.”

  “Don’t forget.”

  Heidi smiles. He’s like a big kid, she thinks. Impulsive and sweet and needy. Hard to believe he served two tours in Afghanistan. Which means he probably killed people, although she can’t be sure. It’s something he never talks about.

  She watches Aiden take up his position behind a glass counter filled with men’s watches and checks her own fake Chanel. It’s almost ten o’clock, when the mall opens to the public. She heads toward Lola’s Lingerie, already looking forward to the day’s end. What she’d really like to do is quit work to start a family, but she’s afraid to raise the issue. Not because she thinks that Aiden might be against the idea, but because she knows Lisa would.

  And what Lisa says goes.

  “Damn it,” Heidi mutters as she enters the large store.

  “What’s your mother-in-law done this time?” her co-worker Shawna asks, coming up beside her.

  Heidi laughs. She’s still chuckling when the store opens its doors and several customers appear, as if by magic.

  One woman looks vaguely familiar, and Heidi follows her with her eyes as she wanders between the aisles, running desultory hands across the provocative push-up bras and bikini panties on display. She seems skittish, repeatedly glancing over her shoulder, as if afraid someone might be following her. Or maybe she’s just waiting for a chance to slip some merchandise into the large canvas bag she’s carrying.

  “Can I help you?” Heidi says, approaching cautiously.

  “Just looking,” the woman says.

  “We’re having a special on bras. Buy two; get one free.”

  “Thank you.”

  Heidi is about to turn away, then stops. “I’m sorry, but you look so familiar. Do I know you?”

  The woman barely glances in her direction. “I don’t think so.”

  “I know!” Heidi proclaims. The woman jumps, the canvas bag she’s holding dropping from her hands to the floor. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you like that.” Heidi kneels to pick up the bag. “You live over on Carlyle Terrace, right?”

  The woman’s eyes shoot toward hers. “How do you know that?”

  “We’re neighbors,” Heidi tells her. “We moved into the house nearest Hood, number 1834, a few months ago. Next to the old lady. You live right in the middle, at the curve. Right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I knew you looked familiar. I’m Heidi Young. Nice to finally meet you.”

  “Maggie McKay,” the woman responds, taking another glance over her shoulder, as if someone might be listening.

  “Pretty name. Sounds like that old Rod Stewart song,” Heidi says. “Except that was Maggie May. Kind of a silly song.” She stops when she realizes she’s rambling. Her mother-in-law once accused her of having verbal diarrhea. “You have two kids, right?”

  Maggie nods.

  “Yeah. We’re thinking of starting a family.” Why had she told her that? If she were to say anything to Aiden, or God forbid, his mother…“Your daughter’s really pretty,” she says to mask her anxiety.

  “Thank you.” Maggie reaches for the straps of the canvas bag still in Heidi’s hand. “I should get going.”

  “You’re sure I can’t help you with anything?”

  “Another time. Thanks.” She takes the bag from Heidi’s hand, causing it to gape open.

  Heidi feels her breath catch in her lungs and she takes an involuntary step back. “Oh my God. Is that a gun?”

  Maggie pales. “Just a toy,” she says, although her eyes say otherwise. “My son’s. I took it out of his backpack this morning. The teachers get kind of bent out of shape when he takes it to school.”

  Heidi nods, even though she recognizes it’s no toy. She knows what a real gun looks like. Aiden owns several.

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you around the neighborhood,” Maggie says.

  “Have a nice day,” Heidi tells her, pulling her phone from her pocket as she watches her leave. She texts her husband: You won’t believe what just happened.
r />   Chapter Six

  Maggie spends the next hour driving aimlessly around Palm Beach Gardens, alternating between berating herself and trying to calm herself down. What on earth possessed her to go to the mall? She almost never goes to the mall, for God’s sake. And Lola’s Lingerie, of all places? What was she thinking?

  Okay, calm down. Calm down. It’s not the end of the world. No one followed you. You didn’t see anyone suspicious.

  Except, of course, that girl. That…what did she say her name was? Heather? Hilda? Something with an H…Heidi? Yes, Heidi. What difference does it make what her name is? What matters is that she knows where you live.

  Of course she knows where you live. She’s your neighbor.

  Or so she says. How can you be sure?

  Maggie has a sudden image of a large moving van parked in the driveway of one of the two houses closest to Hood Road. She remembers watching from her window and carefully checking out the two men carrying boxes and furniture inside. She has a vague recollection of a woman, a woman several decades older than this Heidi person, directing the movers from the doorway. So how can she be sure the young woman she ran into in Lola’s Lingerie is really who she says she is?

  I should have paid more attention. It’s one thing not to get too chummy with the neighbors. It’s another thing to ignore them so completely that you don’t recognize them.

  “You’re being paranoid,” she hears Craig say, accompanied by the familiar sad shake of his head. “I thought it would improve with the move, with time, but you’re actually getting worse. I’m sorry, Maggie. I don’t think I can live like this much longer.”

  “Fuck you,” Maggie says out loud, hearing her phone vibrate in her bag. She reaches inside it, the back of her hand brushing against the handle of the Glock 19. She recalls the stunned look on Heidi’s face when she saw it and wonders if the young woman really believed it was a toy.

  She glances at the phone and sees the call is from Craig. “Sorry, but you’re the last person I want to talk to right now,” she says, switching off the phone and steering the car toward the ocean. Her husband has been pestering her about his coming over to pick up a few things he inadvertently left behind when he moved out—an old camera and some cuff links he rarely wears. Maggie promptly threw the items into a box and hid them at the back of the closet in her son’s room, claiming not to have seen them.