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Authors: Kevin O'Brien

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“Thanks,” Chris said. “Thanks a lot.”
Felix nodded. With a grunt, he pushed the baggage cart toward the door.
She started to slow down for the turn to Willow Tree Court up ahead. She could see the black Honda Accord pull out from the cul-de-sac. It was Rachel Cross’s car, and it passed her going in the other direction.
In the rearview mirror, she took one last glance at Rachel’s Honda Accord, growing tinier with the distance. Then she turned onto the dead end. She’d borrowed a beat-up old station wagon from a friend. She had a lot of packing to do today, and the Mini Cooper couldn’t have handled the load.
Her days of free room and board at the Nguyens’ were a thing of the past. It had been a sweet setup for nine weeks. She’d had a good run, but it wasn’t quite over yet.
She studied the Dennehys’ house as she drove by. The widow’s car wasn’t in the driveway. It didn’t look like anyone was home at Lynette’s or Jill’s either. So her timing was pretty close to perfect.
She pulled into the Nguyens’ driveway, then quickly jumped out of the car and let herself inside the house. She hurried through to the garage entrance, where she pushed the button for the automatic garage door. Once it was open, she pressed the LOCK button. Running back to the station wagon, she climbed inside, started it up, and pulled into the garage. In less than a minute, she pressed the OPERATE button, and the garage door closed again.
It took a half hour to load up the station wagon with all of her stuff—along with a few things that the Nguyens wouldn’t miss. Hell, the things they’d really miss—the valuable items—she’d already sold at the hock shop weeks ago. All that remained were some DVDs and some fancy scarves and clothes belonging to the wife.
She glanced out the front window at the other houses on the cul-de-sac. There still weren’t cars in any of the driveways. She was wearing a fatigue jacket, a black tee, and jeans, perfect camouflage clothes.
The November wind whipped at her long, dark blond hair as she stepped outside. She cut around back and made her way along the edge of the woods—into the Dennehys’ backyard. She crept up to the sliding glass doors and peered into the family room. A fancy floral arrangement was on the table by the sofa—no doubt, condolence flowers from some family friend.
She realized her nose was fogging up the glass. She gave the door handle a tug, but it didn’t give. She glanced around for a flowerpot under which a key might be hidden. But there wasn’t one. She felt along the top of the frame to the sliding glass door, but again, no luck.
Undaunted, she moved onto the next yard and the next house. It took her only five minutes to find a key underneath one of the flowerpots by Rachel Cross’s screen porch. She tried it on the back door and felt the lock turn. She held her breath for a few seconds as she opened the door and waited for an alarm to sound. But it stayed quiet.
The house smelled like cinnamon toast. The kitchen was pretty spotless—except for a near-empty glass of milk by the sink. She didn’t linger. She moved toward the front of the house and started up the stairs.
She wanted to see the bedroom.
The windmill in front of Windmill Antiques & Miniatures stood about ten feet high. The store itself looked like a slightly decayed antebellum mansion—with white pillars, a porch, and a porch swing. Posted along the front lawn was a collection of novelty wind toys: a man rowing in a boat, a woman swimming, a sailor with flags, and a British bobby directing traffic, among others.
Molly hoped she would have better luck in the antique store than she’d had at the La Conner Channel Lodge. In the chalet-style lobby, she’d questioned two bellhops. Neither one of them recognized Jeff’s photograph—or the sketch of Natalie. She’d tried the fiftysomething woman at the registration desk, giving her the dates Jeff checked in and checked out. She showed her Jeff’s photo and asked if she remembered whether or not he’d checked in alone. Molly got a very haughty, “I’m sorry, ma’am, we’re not allowed to give out that kind of information. The privacy of our guests is very important to us.”
Molly wanted to tell her:
Well, what—and who—my husband was doing in your hotel is very important to me.
But she didn’t think of that comeback until after she’d nodded politely to the woman and ducked out the front door.
The antique store was three blocks away. As she stepped inside, a little bell on the door rang. It had a slightly musty smell, like an old attic. There was a grand staircase right in front of her—with dozens of clocks and ornately framed paintings and old photographs on the wall. To her right was a parlor, with wall shelves full of vases, lamps, and desk clocks. An elaborate toy train set—complete with a bridge, two crossing gates, and a town full of stores, houses, and foliage—was on a big table in the middle of the room. To Molly’s left was a room with a dozen different dollhouses. Miniature furniture, lamps, knickknacks, and tiny dolls—including dolls of pets—lined the shelves of the big room.
She didn’t see any other customers on this floor, but she could hear some footsteps above her.
Farther back from the stairs, at the sales counter was a ruggedly handsome, balding man of about fifty. He wore a tight-fitting yellow polo shirt that showed off his buffed physique. He smiled at her. “Let me know if I can help you find anything.”
“Actually,” she said, approaching the counter, “I’m hoping you might answer a few questions about something my husband bought here last month.” She took out the MasterCard bill and Jeff’s photo. “It was a charge for $247.90 on October seventh. This is his picture. I don’t know if you’d remember—”
“Oh, yeah, I remember him,” the man said, with a chuckle. “My coworker, Sheila, she was instantly smitten. She was all over him as soon as he walked in the store. Me, I helped the woman. . . .” He hesitated. “Um, I mean, the—the next customer who came in after him, it was a woman.”
Molly showed him the sketch of Natalie. “Did the woman look anything like this?”
Nervously drumming his fingers on the countertop, he looked at the picture and gave an uneasy shrug. “I—um, you know, I’m not sure.”
“It’s okay,” Molly said. “I know he was here in La Conner with another woman.”
“Listen, your husband seemed like a nice enough guy. I don’t want to get anybody in trouble.”
“You can’t possibly get him into any more trouble than he’s already in,” Molly said. “He died last week.”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” the man murmured.
“Thanks,” Molly said. She showed him the charcoal drawing again. “I’d really like to know about this woman he was with—to give me some closure. This is just a rough sketch. But does it look anything like the woman you waited on? She’s got blond hair. . . .”
He frowned. “It could be her. But she had her hair up and she was wearing sunglasses. If I remember right, her hair was closer to brown. I’m sorry, I can’t say for sure.”
“Her hair is almost brown. It’s a darker shade of blond. Was she very thin?”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t tell, really. She had a coat on the whole time.”
“Do you remember if he called her by name—or anything they said to each other? Anything at all?”
“Not really.” He scratched his bald head. “He came in first, by himself. Sheila started helping him, and about a minute later, the woman came in. She asked for my help while Sheila and your husband went into another room. She told him, ‘I’m getting you a surprise for later down the line,’ and she made sure he didn’t see what she picked up. I thought that was kind of weird.”
“Why was it weird?” Molly asked.
“Well, she said it was for him,” he replied. “But all she bought was dollhouse furniture.”
The woman in Molly’s sketch went through Rachel’s bedroom dresser and pocketed several pieces of jewelry—including a diamond ring and pearl necklace that together were probably worth at least two thousand bucks.
If someone had told her last year that she’d be breaking into people’s homes and ripping them off, she never would have believed it. But then a lot had changed in the last year, and she had no idea how desperate she’d become.
She checked the closet for shoes, and wasn’t impressed. There was nothing in the bathroom medicine cabinet worth taking, no prescriptions.
She headed downstairs, where she found sixty dollars in cash, a Macy’s card, and a checkbook in a kitchen drawer. She took the card, the cash, and three checks from the middle of the book. She noticed a door off the kitchen and opened it. The basement—it was worth a peek, at least. The wood staircase had a nonslip, gridded rubber runner and led down to a big room with a beige carpet. There was a treadmill plugged into the wall with a boom box and several CDs scattered beside it. About a dozen boxes were stacked against one wall. She opened one up: just books. Another box was full of old LPs.
She gave up and tried a door to the next room. It led to a small corridor with an empty clothes closet on one side and a bathroom on the other. The bathroom had gaudy black and silver striped wallpaper and a shower stall with a fogged glass door. Straight ahead was the laundry room, which had an alcove with a workbench. Some tools—a hammer, crowbar, pliers, screwdriver, boxes of nails and screws—had been unpacked, but a box sat on the table with
WORK STUFF—TOOLS
& HARDWARE scribbled on it. There was a room off the work area with a latch and a padlock on the door.
All she could think was that Rachel must have something pretty valuable locked up in there.
She reached toward the workbench for the crowbar.
Her trip to the mini-mart seven blocks away took longer than she’d expected. She’d gotten there to find a
BE BACK IN
5 MINUTES sign on the door. She’d waited close to fifteen minutes before finally giving up. She’d climbed out of the car, walked up to the store’s door, and spat on the handle.
Irked and feeling a bit stupid for spitting on the door handle, she’d driven to Safeway for the emergency toilet paper—as well as a six-pack of ginger ale to combat her morning sickness.
Actually, she was feeling a lot better since she’d talked with Molly this morning. At the wheel of her Honda Accord, she watched the road ahead and chuckled at the notion of breaking and entering into the Nguyens’ house with Molly tonight.
She’d promised Molly she’d keep a lookout for Natalie and wouldn’t linger at the mini-mart. But now it had been nearly an hour since she’d left for the store. She put on her turn signal and slowed down as she approached Willow Tree Court. She turned into the cul-de-sac and tapped the brake so she could get a long look at the Nguyens’ house down the block. No car was in the driveway—and from what she could tell there were no lights on in the house.
She’d promised Molly that she would make certain that if Natalie came back, she wouldn’t let her leave again. And it looked like Natalie hadn’t come back—not yet, at least.
“Good,” she whispered to herself. Then she pulled into her driveway.
“The woman bought practically two hundred and fifty dollars worth of dollhouse furniture?” Molly asked. “And then she had my husband pay for it?”
The man behind the counter at the antique store shrugged. “Well, your husband paid for her purchases, but he bought something, too. I didn’t see what it was. Sheila boxed it up for shipping. I was helping the woman with her dollhouse stuff. But I took it into UPS the next day.”
“He had it sent someplace?” Molly said.
“Yeah, I can look it up by the date. We save all our receipts here for up to a year. You said it was October . . .”
“October seventh,” Molly said. She watched him duck into an office under the top of the stairs. He poked around in there for about two minutes, and then emerged with two handwritten receipts and a copy of a UPS waybill.
“Here we are,” he said, setting the paperwork down on the counter in front of Molly.
She was hoping to see the name and address of his mistress. But the shipment went to his office in the Bank of America Tower. Molly glanced at one of the receipts, and all it said was Jade Antique + 25.57 shipping & tax = $148.60. She felt a brief surge of anger that Jeff had spent that much on the bitch who probably ended up killing him. One of the first things she’d look for when she searched the Nguyens’ house tonight would be a jade vase or brooch.
“You mentioned you don’t know what he bought exactly,” Molly said. “Do you think Sheila might remember? Is she around?”
“She’s traveling through Europe right now,” the man said, shaking his head. “And I really don’t know how to get in touch with her. She’s one of the few people in the world who doesn’t own a cell phone. I can tell you what the woman purchased—if you’re interested.”
Molly glanced down at the other receipt. It said: Dollhouse figures
,
and had a list of codes for four items that totaled with tax to $99.30. She started to shake her head, but then hesitated. “Sure, why not?” she said. “If it’s not too much trouble—that would be great. By the way, you’ve been very nice, thank you.”
“No problem.” He picked up the receipt and came around the counter. “I—I’m really sorry about your husband, Mrs. Dennehy. The dollhouse accessories are over here. . . .”
She followed him into the parlor, where the different dollhouses were on display. He checked the receipt. “The first thing on here is a doll,” he said, reaching for an item on a wall hook. He took down a see-through plastic container with cardboard backing and a brown-haired man-doll inside.

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