Little Secrets Read Free Page B

didn’t want to wake him. Sean had to work in the morning, which felt like it could be a million or only a few hours in the future, she had no idea since she hadn’t looked at the clock. And more than that, if she woke him, he’d want to make sure she was all right. He’d want her to stay in bed while he went downstairs and checked the thermostat, or brought her some water, or rubbed her feet, or rummaged around in the boxes in the bathroom to find her some antacid.
    The last thing in the world Ginny wanted right now was to have Sean hovering over her, no matter how good his intentions.
    More cool air washed over her as she eased herself into the hall. She took a second or two just to relish the fact they had an upstairs with a hallway—their townhouse had been two-story but the second floor had been completely made up of their bedroom, a tiny guest room and shared bathroom. This house was so much bigger, so much a real house, not some rinky-dink starter home. Ginny took the time to savor this, until her teeth chattered harder and she had to wrap her arms around herself to keep warm.
    It seemed they’d been looking at houses forever, unable to make the leap, until the housing market made it impossible not to go for it. They’d looked at this house four times before making their offer. The seller had accepted immediately without haggling, though they’d come in low the way the realtor had suggested. Four times Ginny had toured it, making sure she could imagine herself in just this spot, before she felt she could commit to it for what she knew didn’t have to be the rest of her life, but surely felt like it.
    Standing outside her bedroom door now, Ginny could imagine the placement of every other door. Six of them—four other bedrooms, empty because they didn’t have enough furniture to fill them. A bathroom, inside which she could still hear Noodles’s faint, annoyed meowing. A linen closet. In front of her, the railing surrounded the open space around the stairs, with the entrance an equidistant walk to the left or the right of her, depending on which way she felt like going. The movers hadn’t closed the doors after putting the labeled boxes in them, and some light filtered in through the one directly to her left. That would be the nursery, and like the master, faced the street as well as the yard on the other side of the house. Blinking, her eyes adjusted to the dark. She could make out the faint shapes of open doors, a window at the other end of the hall.
    And something else.
    On the far side of the hall, something in the shadows moved. She was sure of it. Something low to the ground, but not Noodles, because not only was the cat still locked up, this was bigger than a cat. Which meant it was bigger than a mouse. Bigger than a squirrel too. Way bigger. Oh God. What if it was a raccoon or something, come in from the attic? Didn’t raccoons carry rabies? Ginny reached for the railing, smooth and cool beneath her fingers. The wood creaked as she squeezed. Whatever it was, whatever she’d seen, didn’t move again.
    She blinked hard, then again, eyes straining against the darkness. Something took shape in the place where she’d seen movement. A box, a pile of sheets and towels on top of it. She remembered it then. The movers had asked her if she wanted the box in one of the empty bedrooms, but she hadn’t wanted to move it again. They’d left it by the linen closet, right there—that’s all it was. A stack of linens that probably hid her flannel sheets and the extra blanket she was missing.
    Ginny had been holding her breath but let it out now on a long, low hiss that became a self-conscious laugh. Silly. Seeing things. New house, new life, all of it new, and of course she wasn’t used to getting up in the night and seeing things move that should be still. And she was still cold, no heat sifting up from the registers.
    Ginny went to the left,