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  “Oh, come on, the neighborhood’s not that bad.”

  “No, I just don’t have any reason to—it’s a dead end.”

  “Cul-de-sac, the Realtor called it.”

  “Yeah—I guess ‘dead end’ lacks a certain charm.”

  “So does ‘rundown wreck’—that’s probably why she listed our house as a ‘fixer-upper.’”

  “Hey, we have one of those, too.”

  “Well, I hope your husband is handier than I am.”

  Nick. The mere thought of him sucks the fun right out of the conversation.

  “He’s not handy. I mean, I don’t know how handy you are, but he isn’t handy at all.”

  And he isn’t my husband anymore, either.

  And he seems to have fallen off the face of the earth over the weekend, and I have no idea what to do about it, or where I even fit into the picture, other than as the mother of three very upset children.

  Suddenly uncomfortable, she rakes a hand through her hair, still damp and stiff as broom bristles, thanks to the chlorinated water.

  “Luceeeee…look at meeee!” Sadie trills from the swing, and Lauren follows her gaze to see her older daughter racing up the hill from the pool. She’s on her phone.

  No—her phone is pink.

  Patting her pocket, Lauren realizes her own phone is missing. In her distraction, she must have left it up at the pool—and now Lucy has it.

  Nick must have called at last.

  Madison Avenue in the East Sixties is a sea of yellow taxicabs and black Town Cars. The sidewalks are crowded, and Marin and Annie have successfully lost themselves in the throng, their faces mostly concealed by oversize sunglasses. There will be no photos in tomorrow’s Post or Daily News captioned Wife and daughter of gubernatorial hopeful Garvey Quinn spotted overspending and overeating.

  “Too bad Caroline has to miss out,” Annie comments, licking the double-scoop ice cream cone she’s holding in one hand and swinging a Barneys shopping bag in the other.

  She means it, Marin realizes, hearing the wistful note in her younger daughter’s voice. Annie adores her big sister—and Caroline treats her like crap.

  Always has.

  Maybe, somewhere deep down inside, Caroline harbors resentment toward her sister based on a truth she’s never even been told. In essence, she does know what happened to her—but not the whole story. Is it possible that she senses it?

  She was a toddler when Annie was born. She could very likely have picked up on the emotional roller coaster surrounding Marin’s pregnancy and her sister’s birth—the shroud of secrecy, the bitter disappointment.

  She might even have some memory of her own ordeal in the months that followed—and subconsciously hold Annie to blame.

  Just as Garvey does.

  He’ll deny it to his dying day, but Marin doesn’t buy it for one moment.

  She saw the look on his face when the lab results came back. She knew, even before he said it, that he didn’t want her to carry the pregnancy to term.

  And she knew that this time, she was going to stand up to him. It was their baby, but her body. She made the final decision, without her husband’s support.

  Caroline’s own resentment of her sister might very well have nothing to do with her own latent memories or instincts. Maybe she’s simply picked up on her father’s feelings and mirrors them.

  She is, after all, Daddy’s girl.

  Annie is not.

  But I love her enough to make up for her father—and her sister, too, for that matter, Marin thinks fiercely.

  “Oh, Mom, look!” Annie stops walking and points at the plate-glass window of a pet shop. “Isn’t he beautiful?”

  The purebred puppy stares back at them with soulful eyes.

  “He is,” Marin agrees.

  “Can we get him?”

  “Annie, you know you’re allergic.”

  That’s been a sore spot in the Quinn household for years—mostly with Caroline and Garvey. Both of them often talk about how they would love to have a dog. Garvey, Marin suspects, because the dog would complete the wholesome family image. Caroline, meanwhile, has always claimed to be an avid animal lover—probably because she knows her sister’s allergies mean no pets allowed.

  “I could get shots,” Annie tells Marin. “Dr. Federman said so. Then the fur wouldn’t bother me as much.”

  “But he didn’t say that if you got shots, you wouldn’t suffer at all. It’s not worth it, Annie.”

  “I really want a puppy, Mom. Please? Look how cute and cuddly he is.”

  “Sorry, Annie. Come on, let’s go see if we can find those jeans you wanted.”

  “I’d rather have a puppy,” she says good-naturedly, and Marin smiles, shaking her head.

  “Meanie. Dad would say yes.”

  What is there to say to that?

  Dad must love you more, then.

  Or Dad doesn’t care that your allergies would make you miserable.

  Or maybe just “I’m sorry, Annie.”

  For a lot of things. Things I hope you never, ever have to find out about.

  “Mom—” Lucy thrusts Lauren’s cell phone at her. “I was near your chair and I heard it ringing so I answered it.”

  “Is it Daddy?”

  She shakes her head. Her green eyes are frightened.

  “Lucy—here, watch Sadie.” Lauren takes the phone and moves away from the playground with it, not wanting the girls—or the dad—to overhear.

  Bad things happen everywhere…even here.

  Lauren’s heart is pounding as she answers the phone with a strangled-sounding “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Walsh?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Marcia Kramer again. From—”

  “Yes, from Nick’s office. I know. Have you heard from him?”

  “I’m sorry, we haven’t.”

  Lauren’s heart sinks.

  It’s better than bad news…but it definitely isn’t good.

  “Some of his colleagues are concerned,” Marcia Kramer goes on. “They say this isn’t like him. No one has been able to track him down at home or on his cell phone. I was wondering—”

  She breaks off, clears her throat.

  “I hate to ask, but…”

  Again, Marcia seems unable to bring herself to the point.

  Feeling sick inside, Lauren has a good idea what it might be. She sinks onto a bench and turns her back to the playground, clutching the phone hard against her ear.

  “Would it be possible for you to put us in touch with Nick’s—friend?”

  There it is.

  She knew it.

  Some small part of her—an immature, wounded, vindictive part of her—is tempted to feign innocence—or at least cluelessness. Nick has a lot of friends, she might say. I have no idea which one you mean.

  But this is serious. Nick is missing.

  “Beth,” she tells Marcia. “That’s her name.”

  “And she’s Nick’s—”

  “Girlfriend. Yes. Beth.” Lauren rarely says the name out loud. It doesn’t sit well on her tongue, sounds odd to her ears, even now.

  Beth.

  I hate her, she thinks churlishly—ridiculously, under the circumstances. But the small, immature part of her seems to have taken over suddenly, smothering rationality. I don’t want to call Beth looking for Nick and I don’t want Marcia Kramer or Georgia to call Beth looking for Nick and I sure as hell don’t want Lucy to call Beth. Ever. For any reason.

  “I understand she was traveling with him on the trip.”

  For God’s sake, Marcia Kramer, Lauren wants to scream, don’t you understand how excruciating this is for my family?

  “Yes,” she hears herself say, almost sedately. She looks over at the playground. Lucy is pushing Sadie on the swing, but watching Lauren. She can sense her daughter’s trepidation from here.

  The dad and baby are gone, she notices. Just as well.

  Tears fill her eyes as she looks at her daughters. Hers…and Nic
k’s.

  They need to find out where their father is.

  Chances are, Beth will know. She might even be with him at this very moment.

  “Have you heard from—Beth—at all today?” Marcia wants to know.

  “I haven’t heard from Beth ever.”

  “So you don’t have her phone number?”

  “My daughter does,” she says, resigned. “I’ll get it.”

  Elsa wearily eyes the raised flowerbeds that run along the front of the house. They desperately need watering—if it’s not too late. Most of the plants have shriveled or keeled over entirely.

  Why did she have to go and plant all those impatiens back in May, when she and Brett first moved in?

  Because the nice, knowledgeable man at the nursery told you that impatiens love shade, remember?

  “We’ve got plenty of that,” Elsa assured him. The new house is perched beneath a canopy of towering tree limbs, casting the entire yard in shadow most of the day. The beds themselves are sheltered by an overhang—which wouldn’t be a problem if impatiens didn’t happen to love water as much as they do shade. The weekend’s rain didn’t do them a bit of good.

  As Elsa unwinds the garden hose, she hears movement in the yard next door.

  “Hi there,” a female voice calls, and she reluctantly looks up.

  “Hi.”

  Her neighbor, a breezy, middle-aged divorcee named Meg, waves across the low boxwood hedge.

  “Nice day for gardening,” Meg observes.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Not a nice day for working inside, but that’s where I’m off to.”

  Elsa knows that Meg is a part-time cashier at Macy’s over at the mall, and that being on her feet for hours aggravates her bunions. She mainly works there because of the employee discount, which helps her to keep her three teenagers in clothes and shoes. But her paycheck barely covers her bills, and her louse of an ex-husband is frequently late with his support payments.

  Elsa knows all of this—and much, much more—because Meg loves to chat across the hedge whenever she happens to catch Elsa in the yard.

  She’s a likable woman, and would probably be a good friend—if Elsa wanted, or needed, a friend.

  She used to have many. As a child, as a young fashion model in New York, as half of a married couple…

  Now all those people have faded away.

  No they haven’t. They’ve been pushed away.

  You pushed them away.

  But it had to happen.

  Friends share their lives—past and present—with each other.

  Elsa has no intention of revealing her personal tragedy across the hedge, or across a lunch table, or anywhere else friends meet.

  It makes for a lonely existence, but this—like everything else that’s happened to her—is Elsa’s lot.

  With a wave, Meg gets into her car and drives off.

  Elsa looks again at the limp impatiens bed. They’re just flowers. Summer is waning. Who cares?

  I do. I don’t know why, but I care.

  Feeling oddly bereft, she turns on the sprinkler.

  On the driveway back at home, Lauren gets out of the car lugging the straw beach bag, heavy with wet pool towels.

  “Lucy, can you hang these out on the line?” she asks her daughter, who’s helping her little sister out of the backseat. “And Sadie, you need to go straight upstairs and change out of your wet bathing suit.”

  For once, nobody protests.

  Good. That should give Lauren a few minutes alone to check the voice mail and make sure there aren’t any disturbing messages from—or about—Nick.

  She hands the beach bag to Lucy and heads toward the house with Sadie trailing along behind her. There’s not a cloud in the sky and the sun is still shining, but it’s not as warm as it seemed earlier, on the playground. Again, Lauren notes that a fall chill seems to be in the air today.

  Or maybe the chill has nothing to do with the weather.

  Where are you, Nick? What’s happened to you?

  Lauren unlocks the back door and opens it cautiously, expecting Chauncey to make a dash for it as usual.

  He doesn’t.

  “Chauncey?” Lauren opens the door all the way and listens for his jangling collar and welcoming bark.

  Silence.

  “Chauncey!” As she crosses the kitchen, she remembers John, the new dog walker, and wonders, fleetingly, whether he ever brought Chauncey back.

  Wait a minute—yes, he did. She remembers being relieved about that when she got back from the church this morning—before she spoke to Georgia, and Marcia, and found out that—

  “There he is, Mommy!”

  For a split second, she thinks Sadie is talking about Nick. Then she spins around and sees her daughter pointing to Chauncey, sprawled out in a sunny patch of rug in the next room, sound asleep.

  “Is he okay?” Sadie asks anxiously.

  Lauren takes a few steps closer. The dog is snoring. “He’s fine. He’s just taking a nice little catnap.”

  “Don’t you mean dognap?”

  “Well, dognap is something different.” It’s what she’d thought, for a moment, John had done to Chauncey.

  Talk about paranoid…

  Why would anyone want to steal a big old mutt?

  Sadie goes closer to Chauncey and leans over him, her elbows resting on her knees. “Are you okay, boy? Why are you so tired?”

  “Maybe the new dog walker exercised him more than he’s used to, honey.”

  “But he always gets up to see us when we come home.”

  That’s true, and the thought gives Lauren pause.

  Chauncey is getting old. Maybe he’s getting sick, too.

  Please, no. The kids won’t be able to take it. Not anytime soon.

  That thought reminds her of her more immediate concern.

  Lauren turns back toward the phone, saying, “Sadie, please go up and get on some dry clothes, okay?”

  Sadie hesitates, still looking at Chauncey. “Are you sure he’s all right?”

  “Positive. Now go. Your lips are turning blue.”

  Lauren waits until her daughter is safely out of earshot. Then she picks up the receiver and hears the beeping dial tone that indicates a message is waiting.

  But it’s from Rosa, one of the managers at Magic Maids.

  “Hello, Mrs. Lauren, we have three ladies for you this week and they will see you tomorrow at around ten.”

  Every week, without fail, she calls to confirm the standing appointment and let Lauren know how many cleaners she’s sending. It varies from two to four, and the staff turns over constantly. Lauren always leaves a few dollars for each cleaner as a tip, for which they thank her so profusely she wishes she could afford to leave more.

  She erases the message and hangs up the phone.

  Okay—so, no message from Nick.

  No message about Nick.

  Should she leave another one for Nick?

  What’s the use? If he’s checking his phone, he knows she and the kids are worried about him.

  If he’s not checking his phone…

  Why would he not check his phone?

  Again, Lauren forces frightening thoughts from her head. Turning away from the phone, she finds herself looking again at Chauncey. It really is unlike him not to stir when someone comes home.

  Frowning, Lauren stares at him…then turns abruptly away.

  Pulling open a drawer, she finds the dog-eared address book where she keeps all the contact info for everyone involved in the Walsh household, from her OB-GYN to the trash collection service.

  The kids tease her about not using an electronic organizer to store it all, but she’s glad she didn’t listen. It takes her about two seconds to flip to the Ds and locate the number for Dog Days…

  But a full minute, at least, to bring herself to dial it.

  Is there really any need to check up on John? He did the job he was supposed to do, and he was perfectly pleasant about it.

&n
bsp; Yes, but Chauncey is acting strange, and Nick is missing, and this morning she thought she saw someone lurking in the shadows…

  Yes, because you’re losing your mind.

  And even if you’re not—what makes you think John has anything to do with any of those things…especially Nick?

  Then again…the guy shows up here out of the blue, a stranger with her house keys, at the same time her ex-husband disappears…

  Not that he disappeared from this house, or even lives here anymore…

  But he’s gone and John’s around and Chauncey’s out of it and there was a shadow in the yard and it’s all either oddly coincidental…

  Or ominous.

  Call. You have nothing to lose.

  Mind made up, Lauren dials the number. She can’t remember ever having called it before. Nick has always dealt with the service.

  “Hello, Dog Days, Jeannie speaking, can I help you?”

  “Hi, Jeannie. My name is Lauren Walsh and I’m over on Elm Street in Glenhaven Park.”

  “Chauncey’s mom!”

  Lauren hesitates. She’s not one of those overly enthusiastic dog people who signs Chauncey’s name to their family Christmas card, but now is not the time to quibble about the validity of canine offspring.

  “Er…right. Chauncey’s mom,” she agrees. “Our regular dog walkers seem to be away and we had someone new—”

  “John. I hope everything is going all right with him?”

  Relieved that at least he’s officially employed there, she says, “Everything is going fine, but I just wanted to…you know…confirm that he works for you. I was a little taken aback to have a total stranger show up with my house keys, so…”

  “I’m sorry…didn’t you get the notification?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We always send an e-mail to let you know when there will be a change of staff, to make sure it’s okay with the homeowner. We sent it out last week to the address we have on file…”

  Which would be Nick’s. And he either didn’t get it, or neglected to tell Lauren.

  “If you didn’t receive it, Mrs. Walsh, I’m so sorry…”

  “You know what? My husband must have gotten the e-mail, and forgot to mention it.” No need to tell Jeannie of Dog Days about the divorce, or that she won’t be signing Nick’s name, either, on the family Christmas card.