Silent Neighbor. Блейк Пирс

okay?”

      “Sure,” Chloe said as they settled down on the couch with their beers. She spotted her mother’s journal on the coffee table and her thoughts briefly went back to the sordid idea of killing her father. And it was then, with Danielle sitting across from her, that she knew she could never do it. She could fantasize and plan all she wanted, but she would never do it. She simply wasn’t that sort of person.

      “So, a while back, I remember watching this show…sort of like one of those Unsolved Mysteries deals,” Danielle said.

      “I hope this is going somewhere,” Chloe interrupted.

      “It is. Anyway…it was about this woman who saved her brother’s life. See…they were identical twins. Born like five minutes apart or something like that. She’s cooking dinner for her family one night and gets this sharp twinge in her mind…sort of like someone speaking to her. She had the overwhelming idea that her brother was in trouble. It was so strong that she stopped what she was doing and called him. When he didn’t answer the phone, she called her brother’s girlfriend. The girlfriend went over to the brother’s house and found that someone had broken into his home and shot him. He was bleeding out when the girlfriend found him but she called nine-one-one and ended up saving his life. All based on this weird feeling his twin sister got.”

      “Okay…”

      Danielle rolled her eyes. Chloe could tell that she was thinking very hard about the next words to come out of her mouth. “I got something like that about forty minutes ago,” she said. “Not nearly as strong as that TV show made it sound, but it was there. It was strong enough. And it was…well, it was weird.”

      “No one broke in,” Chloe said. “I haven’t been shot.”

      “I can see that. But…I don’t know. I had the weird twin-feeling. I felt like I had to be over here. Sorry if it sounds dumb. But…well, is there anything I might have prevented by showing up?”

      Chloe shook her head no. But she thought: Just stopping me from plotting out the murder of our father. She gave a soft little laugh and sipped from her beer.

      “You’re not well,” Danielle said. She nodded to the beer bottle. “How many of those will I find in the trash, empty?”

      “Two. And I’m sorry…but who are you to be concerned about someone’s drinking habits? I have a kettle to go with that pot.”

      “Oh, I don’t care about the drinking. You self-medicate however you see fit. But I do know that self-medicating isn’t you. It never has been. You’re the logical one…the smart one. It’s because you’ve delved into my old strategies for coping that I’m here. That’s what has me worried.”

      “I’m fine, Danielle.”

      Danielle folded her arms and reclined back on the couch. If there had been any good-natured ribbing to the conversation, Chloe sensed it disappear in that simple gesture. Danielle’s gaze had an icy feel to it.

      “So you mean to tell me that the last year or so, with you proclaiming Dad’s greatness to me…I just let that ride? You and I coming to a head several times for him, and you always going to bat for him. The way I see it, I deserve some honesty, Chloe. I’m not stupid. This bombshell with Dad has messed you up.”

      “Of course it has.”

      “So tell me what you’re thinking. Tell me what we do now. If I’m being totally honest, I don’t see why you haven’t turned him in yet. Isn’t the journal enough to convict him?”

      “You don’t think I’ve thought of that?” Chloe asked, starting to get slightly angry. “And no…the journal isn’t enough. It could be enough to maybe reopen the case, but that’s about it. There’s no hard evidence…and the fact that there was already a trial and our father was put in prison and then let go makes it even harder. Throw Ruthanne Carwile’s recent conviction in there, and it becomes one huge mess.”

      “So you’re saying he’s likely going to end up getting away with it?”

      Chloe didn’t give an answer. She downed the rest of her beer and walked into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator door to retrieve another but then stopped. Slowly, she closed it again and leaned against the small kitchen counter.

      “I’m aware that this is mostly my fault,” Chloe said. It was hard to admit. The words tasted like acid in her mouth as they came out.

      “I’m not here to blame you, Chloe.”

      “I know. But it’s what you’re thinking. And I don’t blame you. Now that I’ve seen what’s in that journal and sort of…I don’t know…sort of have a feel for him…I’m thinking it, too. If I had listened to you before all of this started it would be different. Before Ruthanne, before landing my job at the bureau…”

      “Don’t do that. Just…let’s look forward. Let’s figure out what we can do.”

      “There’s nothing!”

      Chloe surprised herself when she screamed the two words at her sister. But once they were out, she found it hard to reel them back in.

      “Chloe, I—”

      “I messed up. I failed you and Mom and myself. This is me now. I have to live with this and just…”

      “But we can figure it out together, right? Look…I dig this role reversal and all, but I can’t stand to see you beating yourself up like this.”

      “Not now. I can’t deal with it right now. I have to figure some things out.”

      “Let me help, then.”

      Chloe felt suffocated. She also felt another outburst coming on, but she clenched her fists and was able to stamp it down. “Danielle,” she said as slowly and as patiently as she could, “I appreciate the sentiment and I love you for being so concerned. But I need to handle this on my own for right now. The longer you pester and press in, the harder it’s going to be. So please…for right now…can you just leave?”

      Chloe watched as something in Danielle’s expression shifted. It looked like disappointment. Or maybe it was something closer to sadness. Chloe couldn’t tell and, quite frankly, she didn’t care in that moment.

      Danielle set her beer down on the coffee table—not yet even a quarter of the way empty—and got to her feet. “I want you to call me when you’re done being distant.”

      “I’m not being distant.”

      “I don’t know what you’re being,” Danielle said as she opened the door to leave. “But distant sounded better than a bitch.”

      Before Chloe could say anything in response, Danielle made her exit, closing the door behind her.

      Chloe wished Danielle would have slammed the door. At least then there would have been some sort of feeling left, some sign that Danielle was just as mad as Chloe was. But there was only the soft click of the door closing and nothing more.

      Chloe sat in the silence that followed for the rest of the afternoon and all she had to show for it the next day were more empty beer bottles in the trash can.

      CHAPTER TWO

      On Sunday, Chloe found herself sitting in a visitor parking space outside of the DC Central Detention Facility. She looked at the building for a moment before getting out of the car, trying to figure out exactly why she was there.

      She knew the answer, but it was a hard one to swallow. She was there because she missed Moulton. It was a truth she would never speak out loud, a sore spot that she was having trouble processing. But the plain and simple truth was that she needed someone to comfort her and ever since she’d moved to DC, she’d seen Moulton as that figure. Oddly enough, it was something she had not come to realize until after he had been sent to prison for his role in a financial fraud scheme.

      At first, she’d thought she only missed him because of the physical intimacy—the need to be held by a man when she was feeling discouraged and lost.