Read Shadow Woman for Free Online

generations back.
    Jane felt so good about having
these sidewalks under her feet, so glad to breathe the air in a place
that made sense to her, that she allowed herself to think about what
it would be like never to leave again. For the first time in two
weeks, when her mind was drawn to Carey McKinnon she did not goad it
away from him. He was going to ask her again if she would marry him.
That would be in six months, and that was not much time to get ready.
It occurred to her that if she had been someone else, getting ready
would probably have meant worrying about trivia: dresses and china
patterns. But what Jane Whitefield was going to have to worry about
was how to make the bride invisible.
    Jane let her eyes settle on her
house as soon as she had turned onto her block. There were no lights,
no curtains that had been moved since she had left, no cars parked on
the block that she had not seen before. The reading lamp near the
corner window in Jake Reinert’s house next door was on, and she
took a couple of steps along the sidewalk in front of his house until
she could see a slice of light under the blind of the porch window.
She saw the book on his lap and his thick, pink, callused right hand
tilting it up a little as he read, to keep the lower segment of his
bifocals on it.
    He and her father had been
raised side by side in these two old houses on this quiet street, and
by now he seemed to be able to sense subtle changes in the atmosphere
– a footfall on the porch next door would bring him to the
window. She had even seen him stop what he was doing to stare if he
heard the engine of a car going by that he didn’t recognize.
She had her house wired with a very good burglar alarm, but she had
met people who made a living fooling better ones than that. She went
to her car in the garage and took her house key out of the lining of
the rear seat, then walked back to her front door, unlocked it, and
slipped inside quickly to punch her alarm code into the glowing
keypad before it could go off.
    She stood in the doorway and
studied the signs. The air in the house was stale, so no window had
been broken. Before she had left the house she had vacuumed the
carpet, leaving a pattern and the pile pushed upward. The carpet had
no indentations from heavy feet. She walked to the table beside the
couch and lifted the telephone off the cradle. The dial tone was
clear and distinct, so nobody had disconnected the phone line to
isolate the alarm system. She was home.
    She set the telephone back on
its cradle as the bell rang, vibrating her fingertips. “Hello,”
she said into it.
    “Hi, it’s me.”
His voice had a smile in it, as though his throat were tight.
“Welcome home.”
    “Hi, Carey,” she
said. She blocked the little laugh of pleasure that almost escaped.
Then she wondered why she had to and remembered that she didn’t
have to anymore. She was home, and this was Carey. “How did you
arrange this?”
    “I don’t know what
you’re talking about.”
    “You’re so full of –
”
    “Wait,” said Carey.
“I’m getting a psychic image. Take about five minutes to
unpack that black bag you’ve got over your shoulder, take a
shower – and I wouldn’t mention anything so indelicate if
I weren’t a board-certified physician – but I sense you
have to pee. Then the archetypal little black dress. And matching
underwear: you might get into an accident, and the gang in the
emergency room is very critical. Nothing too flashy, but not the
jeans-and-sneakers ensemble you’ve got on now.”
    “Jake saw me come home and
called you.”
    “Old people are so prompt.
I guess it’s because their dance cards aren’t quite as
full as they once were. You didn’t eat dinner on the plane, did
you?”
    “I wasn’t on a
plane.”
    “The broomstick, then.
Whatever.”
    “I haven’t eaten.
But what brings on this sudden manic outpouring? Did a rich
hypochondriac move into town while I was gone?”
    “No,” said Carey.
“But I’m