Goodnight Nobody Read Free

were floating outside myself, unable to stop my hands as they grabbed her slender shoulders and tried to pull her up into my arms. The music swelled to its crescendo, strings and woodwinds sounding in the still, copper-smelling air as her torso came loose with a sickening ripping sound. I let her go. Her body thumped back onto the floor. I clapped my hands over my mouth to keep from gagging, and stifled another scream.
    "Mommy?"
    I could hear Sophie's voice, which sounded like it was coming from another planet. My own voice was shaking as I called back, "Just a minute, guys!"
    I got to my feet, wiping my hands convulsively against my pants, and whirled around once, then again. It wasn't until I'd slammed my hip against the breakfast bar that I finally forced myself to hold still and think. Should I call the cops? Get my kids? What if whoever had done this to Kitty was still in the house?
    Cops first, I decided. It took me what felt like forever to work my hand into my pocket, extract my cell phone, and dial 911. "Yes, hello, this is Kate Klein, and I'm visiting my friend Kitty Cavanaugh's house at Five Folly Farm Way and she's...um..." My voice broke. "She's dead. Somebody killed her."
    "That address, please?" asked the voice on the other end of the line. "Your name?" I gave it. Then I spelled it. When she asked me for my Social Security number and date of birth, I hissed, "Just send someone! Send the police...send an ambulance...send the Marines if they're around..."
    "Ma'am?"
    My voice trailed off as I saw a square of creamy, heavy-stock stationery beside Kitty's telephone. I saw ten digits that froze the blood in my veins.
    A Manhattan area code, the same number he'd had when I'd known him, the same number I'd dialed all those times when we'd lived down the hall from each other, the number that I'd struggled almost daily ever since to keep from dialing again.
    I think we have a friend in common...
    Without even thinking I hung up the phone, reached out with one shaking hand, and grabbed the note. I crumpled it and crammed it deep into my pocket. Then I shoved my bloody hands under Kitty's kitchen faucet, dried them on her cheery fall-leaf-printed dish towel, and ran down the hall on wobbly legs.
    "Mommy?" Sophie's narrow face was pale, and her big brown eyes were wide and solemn. Sam and Jack were both holding her hands, and Sam had his thumb stuck in his mouth. Sophie looked at the blood on my pants. "Did you get hurt?"
    "No," I told them. "No, honey, Mommy's fine." I fumbled a Wet One out of my bag and took a few hasty swipes at the stains. "Come on, Sophie," I said, and I gathered the boys into my arms, feeling the fierce engines of their hearts beating hard against my skin as I carried them down to the edge of the driveway and we sat there, waiting for help.

Two
    "Excuse me," I said, raising my voice above the crackle of the scanner, the radio tuned to the all-conservative talk station, and the cluster of cops muttering by the Mr. Coffee. "Stan?"
    Stanley Bergeron, Upchurch's chief of police, gave a distracted nod. He'd parked me on a wheeled metal chair in front of an empty desk with a cracked rotary phone, beneath a yellowing sign-up sheet for Weight Watchers at Work, none of which was making my heart brim with confidence. Neither was the receptionist-slash-dispatcher, scratching her scalp with the tip of her pencil and pretending to type while hanging on every word that was uttered.
    Be cool, Kate, I told myself. Don't act guilty, or they'll think you are. But it wasn't going to be easy. Some people crack their knuckles when they're nervous. I crack jokes. I took a deep breath and tried for a tone of detachment. "Hey, can you at least tell me if I'm under arrest? Because, not to be flippant, but if I'm in jail it's really going to mess up the carpool schedule."
    "You're not under arrest, Kate," Stannie rumbled. Stan was short, barrel-chested, and jowly, with a basset hound's watery brown eyes and a droopy