Which left… what?
I stared out the window as we rolled through another light.
Was Nora home?
Or had she gone out with friends? Had any of her other gymnastics teammates stayed in town over the summer? I’d never really asked.
She never seemed to be in a rush to leave after work.
That didn’t mean anything.
Still.
On a whim, I opened our text thread.
Whatcha doin?
I stared at the words for a full two seconds. Then deleted them.
Absolutely not. That was about as bad as “You up?”
Texting my daughter’s nanny at eleven o’clock on a Friday night because I was lonely and a little drunk was not a good look.
I set my phone down.
But I was still curious…
And, before I could overthink it, I leaned forward.
“Hey,” I said to my driver, “would you mind making one more stop? 44 Ashford Street.”
The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror, probably wondering if I was about to ask him to drive me to random stops all night.
“I just want to see if my sister’s car is out front,” I added quickly. “I’m thinking of stopping by her place instead of heading home.”
That didn’t sound creepy.
Right?
Was I being creepy?
Ugh, I probably was. I was asking a stranger to take me past my nanny’s house because I felt lonely and wondered if she was, too.
The driver adjusted the route again without comment. He’d already switched navigation twice tonight. At this point, I couldn’t exactly saynever mindwithout looking unhinged.
We turned onto Ashford Street.
My pulse ticked up slightly as we rolled past the first few houses.
From a distance, I thought I spotted Nora’s black Jeep parked along the curb.
I leaned forward a little, squinting through the windshield.
Yeah. That looked like it.
Then my gaze lifted.
And that was when I saw it.