She’d snuck out of the house, had wanted to play like a normal, healthy kid. Being bitten had hurt, but it was the stress to her weak heart that had nearly killed her.
She shoved the memory aside as she looked across the street. The Rottweiler mix that watched her from the other side was even bigger and blacker than the dog in her dreams. None of her current neighbors had a dog—something she’d checked before buying the house. She didn’t remember seeing him before on her walks.
He wasn’t mangy, nor did he seem undernourished. He had to belong to someone in the neighborhood, maybe on another block.
Annoyance tightened her mouth as she stood on her front stoop, the late afternoon turning into evening. She held her steaming mug of coffee in her hands, idly running her thumb over the crimson staircase with the golden door on top, tracing the logo’s raised edges as she considered the stray.
“Go home.” She muttered the words to herself. She didn’t dare call out to him, lest he thought it an invitation to come closer.
Whomever the dog belonged to should have watched him better. Kept him on a leash. Then the dog wouldn’t have followed her home, dang darn it.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
He’d been lying under her bench at the park as she passed by on her daily walk—doctor’s orders. She hadn’t stopped to sit and enjoy the kids at play or watch her favorite house on the other side of the road like she did most days, her reward for the exercise. But the dog had seen her, had picked up his head as she passed, then started following her. Nearly scared her into running, actually.
Why on earth was he still here?
As if she didn’t have enough problems to figure out today. She scanned the overwhelming pile of carefully packed trees, bushes, and flowers that had been delivered this morning on her front lawn, then glanced back at the dog.
“What do you want?”
Her new life motto was think positive and live life to the fullest. Okay, one of her mottos. She had at least a dozen. She needed all the help she could get. But all improvement started with the person, so she refused to focus on problems when she could be working on solutions. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and snapped a picture of the stray, because that was the kind of proactive, fix-her-problems-by-herself type of person she was these days. She was more than just a heart-transplant patient. She was done with letting her illness define her.
New heart, new house, new life.
The thought made her feel better, even as the dog lay down, his head resting on his front paws, big brown eyes looking at her, as if trying to tell her something.
“Wrong person. Sorry. I don’t speak dog.”
She snapped another picture before she went inside to print some posters, grabbed up the stack of them when they were done, then ran back down the stairs.
“Proactive”—check. “Solves own problems”—you bet your ass.
She shrugged into her coat before she walked outside. Lester, her across-the-road neighbor was pulling into his driveway, returning from his weekly trip to the grocery store. The eighty-nine-year-old bachelor rolled his window down and glared at the dog, then at her. “Is he yours?”
He lived like a hermit. This was maybe the third time he’d talked to her in the six months since she’d moved to her new home. The previous two occasions had been to tell her that he didn’t like where the U-Haul truck was parked during her move, and then to tell her that she shouldn’t drag her garbage can out to the curb so early in the morning.
“He’s lost. I’m putting up posters.” She lifted her stack of flyers and pulled the roll of duct tape from her pocket with her other hand.
“It’ll come off. Better use a stapler. I don’t suppose you have one.” He managed to jam a world of disapproval into those three short sentences.
If she’d said stapler, Lester would have insisted on duct tape.
Then her phone rang, and she was spared further chastisement. Although, she thought as she scanned the display, she might be jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
“How are you?” her mother asked on the other end. “Did you see the prayer chain I sent you this morning?”
“I’m fine. What’s up on your end?” Sophie began walking, grateful when the dog didn’t follow her. She checked back after a few more steps to make sure.
Her house looked very different with the new trees and bushes. She might have messed up a little, impulsively ordering up a storm from a gardening catalogue—she hadn’t realized the plants would be so large—but she could deal with it.
“I can’t come see you this weekend. Something came up,” her mother said. “Maybe the weekend after next.”
“Okay.” She could pretty up her place by then. She would find yard help she could afford. Hopefully, this time, her plantings would stay in place.
She had, in the fall when she’d first moved in, lined three yellow mums up neatly by the sidewalk. Kids or dogs had dug them up the next day and scattered them around her lawn in pieces.
“I’m not promising,” her mother warned. “You know how busy I am with church. I want you to know I’m praying for you.”
“Thanks. I’m feeling well, and the new house is really nice.” She loved her new life. Except for the Peeping Tom.
She’d seen a shadow at her window several times now. Her chest tightened at the thought. She could only hope that whoever was snooping would get tired of it. She didn’t want to call the police. Calling the police would mean she had a problem she couldn’t solve on her own. And if her mother found out, she’d restart her campaign to have Sophie move home again. Which was so not going to happen.
“I have a checkup tomorrow morning.”
A long moment passed before her mother responded. “You know how I feel about that. It’s not God’s way.”
Her mother didn’t approve of the heart transplant. When God decided to call you home, you were supposed to make a joyful dash for the pearly gates. People using science and technology to circumvent the will of God were committing a sin.
Sophie filled her lungs with cool, fresh air as she glanced back one last time. Lester was out of his car and yelling something at the dog, shooting dark looks after her.
Her neighbor hated her, and her mother wanted her dead.
She blinked hard. Caught herself. Set the negative aside, focus on the positive. “Is everything okay with you, Mom? Healthwise and with the house? Do you need anything?” She felt guilty for not visiting as often as she could have. Maryland wasn’t that far. “Does Mrs. Sinibaldi still come over to crochet with you?”
“You know it’s been hard since your father passed,” her mother snapped, then switched to a more serene tone. “But with the Lord, I’m never alone. I don’t have time to think about being lonely. Did I tell you I joined the Holy Hunger Committee?” She talked about that for another minute before hanging up because she didn’t want to be late for a prayer meeting.
When William Curtis had died, Claire Curtis filled his place with religion. The church had opened its great arms to the grieving widow with the sick daughter. And all that support had felt so good. After being a housewife all her life, she had found her purpose. More than that, really—she’d found a new identity. She was the woman who lost her husband, took care of a sick daughter, and still found a way to volunteer to help others, doing it all God’s way.
Her mother received both support and approval at church, and Sophie was truly glad for that. But she wasn’t willing to die if help was readily available, no matter what her mother’s pastor said about the subject.
Sophie reached the first telephone pole at the end of the street and put up the first poster, then moved on. She wasn’t even out of breath. She spent a silent moment celebrating.
Last year this time, she could barely walk across the room. The extra walk felt good and helped her keep her mind off the biopsy in the morning. The day before her checkups, she always had this bank-is-about-to-call-the-loan-in feeling that left her unsettled.
She put up another poster and another, stopping in front of the green and tan Georgian-revival-style home across the street from the park, her favorite house in the neighborhood. She walked by it every day, and every time the house drew her. Every once in a while she would catch a glimpse of it as she came around the corner and have the strangest sense of déjà vu. She could swear that she’d known that house in the past, had gone up that stone path.
Her gaze lingered over the prominent paneled door capped by an elaborate crown, the flat columns that decorated it on each side. The windows, with their many small panes, seemed original to the house, five-ranked on the front façade, with double-hung sashes, perfect with the side-gabled roof.
The door opened as she watched, a shadow filling it, tall and wide shouldered. An orange cat darted out and disappeared into the bushes.
“Can I help you?” The man’s deep voice snapped her out of her trance.
She’d first seen the stray dog directly across the road. It’d take just a second to show that man the poster. The dog might even be his, or he might have seen it around before. He might know who the owner was.
“Hi.” She hurried up the brick walkway, gripping her armload of flyers.
The first wave of dizziness grabbed her at the bottom of the steps. The strangest thought hit her that she’d gone up those steps before, had stood in front of that door. Cold sweat beaded on her skin without warning. The world spun around her for a second.
“Are you all right?” That deep voice reached out to her.
She had to blink a couple of times before she could fully focus on the man. He was solidly built and hard edged, in jeans and a navy T-shirt with some writing she couldn’t make out, the house dark behind him, his face in the shadows.
She held up a poster like a shield as she gathered her equilibrium and went up the stairs so he could see the photo. “I found a dog, and I was wondering….” Her lungs constricted suddenly, making it difficult to breathe, cutting off the rest.
The dusk that was settling on the street behind her seemed to press down on her with a physical presence. She dragged in air that was cold and dense with moisture and felt thick in her lungs.
A phone rang somewhere in the house behind the man. He half turned, oblivious to her struggle. “I don’t have a dog.”
As he drew back, she caught a glimpse of the foyer, with the antique hall table and chair she’d somehow known would be there.
Her heart rate sped up, and the stairs spun with her. She felt like she was falling, but she didn’t seem to land. Colors and shapes blended into each other; then the world turned black except for the prickles of bright light that shot by her.
She was so going to pass out, she thought, a split second before she did.
* * *
“Are you okay?”
She blinked as her surroundings came back into focus. He was holding her up, his long fingers folded around her elbows. He really was a big man, his size more obvious now that he was up close and personal. When had he stepped out of the house?
She pulled away from him, heat flooding her face. “Sorry. Just a dizzy spell.” Again.
She didn’t want to think about what that might mean. She couldn’t handle the thought of complications, of going back to the hospital. The spells would pass. She could talk to Dr. Pratt about them tomorrow. They didn’t have to mean anything. She didn’t have any other warning signs of organ rejection.
“What can I do to help?” The man stood completely out of the shadows now, his face semi-illuminated by the lights that edged the street. The tight set of his jaw made him look guarded. He was late thirties, forty at the most, with dark, short hair, a straight nose, and keen eyes that looked mocha in the dusk.
She backed down another step and nearly stumbled. He caught her again, lightly by the arm. She wasn’t comfortable with him touching her but wasn’t steady enough on her feet to pull away.
“You better sit down.” He gestured toward the house with his free hand.
The dark foyer yawned behind him. No way. She wasn’t scared, but there was a distinct sense of eeriness that touched her and, frankly, weirded her out.
“I’ll be fine. I live just a few blocks from here.”
He regarded her with a long, concentrated look as if trying to decide what to do with her. “I’d be happy to drive you home.”
She wasn’t crazy about the idea of getting into a car with a stranger.
“Ethan Bing.” He seemed to read her thoughts. “Captain Bing, Broslin PD.”
A cop. Of course. Now that they stood closer to each other, she could make out the Broslin PD logo on his T-shirt. She swallowed her embarrassment at having blacked out on his doorstep. “Sophie Curtis. I’d really rather walk. Some more fresh air can only help. But thanks.”
“I’ll walk with you. Let me grab my jacket.”
“It’s not necessary.” She wasn’t an invalid and didn’t like people treating her as such.
But he stepped back inside anyway.
She walked down the stairs on her own, hoping that would show him she didn’t need his help. She was halfway down the walkway by the time he caught up with her.
He flashed her his badge—an attempt to make her feel safe, probably—then dropped it into his pocket. He held out the bag of cookies he had in his other hand. “Maybe you had a dip in blood sugar. Peanut butter chews. A cookie can never hurt.”
Apparently, he hadn’t gotten a good look at her spreading hips in the dusk. “No, thanks.”
But he kept holding the bag out until she took one at last. Maybe it was low blood sugar and nothing worse. And peanut butter was her new favorite since the surgery. Another piece of weirdness.
He shoved the bag into his pocket too. “Let me know if you’d like another.”
She hated being weak, hated that anyone had seen her like that. She would have liked him to leave her alone and go back into his house. She didn’t need a guardian.
But he kept step with her. “Maybe you should see a doctor.”
Her health was none of his business. She wouldn’t let her concerns show on her face, even if the fainting spell on his steps went beyond the occasional uneasiness she’d experienced over the last few months. She’d never blacked out before.