Working Stiff. Annelise Ryan

were perfect: they were probably the only people in town who didn’t know the sordid saga of David and me.

      So thanks to Izzy I have a new job and a new home. I have a chance to start over and leave a painful past behind. And as I sit here looking out the window at the distant flash of headlights from a car pulling into David’s driveway, I tell myself I don’t really give a rat’s ass who might be visiting.

      But I do. It’s perverse and stupid and destined to cause me pain, but I have to know.

      Which means there is at least one other job I qualify for: that of the village idiot.

      Chapter 3

      I’m not sure what haute couture dictates for night spying, but it really doesn’t matter since my choices are severely limited. In my hasty flight from the house two months ago, I shoved what I could into a couple of suitcases. Several times I’ve thought about going back to retrieve more stuff—I still have my key, so it would be simple enough to get in, assuming David hasn’t done something drastic like change the locks. But I’m afraid. Not of David, but of myself and the strength of my convictions. Loneliness is a powerful motivator.

      Fortunately, the meager clothing I do have includes a pair of black slacks and a black turtleneck. Worried that my blond hair will shine like a beacon in the night, I’m delighted I also have a brown scarf among my absconded treasures. I dress, tie the scarf around my head, and then give myself a quick perusal in the mirror. I look like the bastard love child of Mrs. Peele and Zorro but it will have to do.

      It’s early October and the night air has a bracing bite to it. Halfway through the woods my nose starts to run and I swipe at it with my sleeve, leaving a shimmering slug trail that glistens in the light of the full moon. Soon I am standing behind a tree at the edge of Izzy’s property, gazing across a wide expanse of yard at a lit window in what used to be my home. The blinds are drawn, but unless David or his new hussy has seen fit to replace them, I know there is a small gap on one side. David may be good at fixing people, but when it comes to household projects he is sadly inept. When he installed the brackets for the blinds—a project he insisted on doing himself so he wouldn’t have to pay someone else—he got one of the brackets half an inch higher than the other. As a result, the blinds hang at an angle, leaving a narrow gap on one side of the windowsill.

      I glance over at the driveway and see a gray BMW parked next to David’s Porsche; Karen Owenby drives a gray BMW.

      I make my way across the yard knowing the house is set far enough back from the road that no one driving by can see me. When I reach the window, the bottom of it looms tauntingly a foot above my head, and after trying a couple of jumps I realize I’ll never get high enough long enough to see anything. Frustrated but determined, I skirt around the house and find a wheelbarrow in the backyard with a small pile of pine bark mulch in it. I steer it around front, park it beneath the window, climb atop the mulch, and peer through the glass.

      David is sprawled on the couch in front of the gas fire-place, his legs extended in front of him, the amber light from the sterile flame dancing across his face and making his blond hair shimmer. I can tell he is restless; one foot keeps time to some imaginary beat and his face bears an expression of tired impatience. A shadow falls over him as a dark-haired figure steps up to the couch: Karen Owenby.

      She doesn’t look very happy—in fact, it looks as if she and David are having one hell of a row—and I try to find some solace in that even as I feel the last tenuous threads of my heart give way. Karen is pacing back and forth in front of the couch, pausing occasionally to wag a finger in David’s direction. The house is too well built for me to hear what she is saying, but the shrill tone of her words is unmistakable.

      She pauses a moment, hands on her hips, torso bent forward, her jaw flapping a mile a minute. And I see David’s expression change; his brow draws down in anger, his eyes narrow to an icy glint. He pushes off the couch suddenly, making Karen backpedal so fast she nearly falls. David grabs her by the shoulders, and at first I think he is trying to keep her from toppling over. Then I realize he isn’t steadying her, he’s shaking her.

      Karen’s hand whips up and slaps his cheek so hard I can hear the thwack of skin against skin from outside. As David’s face darkens, Karen spins away from him, grabs her coat from the chair, and hurries toward the front door. I spend a few seconds relishing the quickly reddening handprint on David’s face before it dawns on me that Karen is leaving and that I’ll be in plain sight from the front porch should she happen to glance in my direction.

      What’s more, David is right behind her.

      Panicking, I step back to climb out of the wheelbarrow, misjudge the distance, and hit the edge of it instead, tipping it over. My legs straddle the bed like a saddle and I come down hard on the edge, sending a lightning bolt of pain from my crotch all the way up to my teeth. For several agonizing seconds I am frozen, my teeth clenched tighter than a patient with lockjaw. I am unable to move, unable to breathe, and my ankle, which is half mangled in the metal framework beneath the bed of the wheelbarrow, throbs with a growing tempo. I bite back a scream that’s trying to box its way out of my lungs and hold perfectly still, praying I won’t be seen.

      Above the ringing in my ears, I hear Karen yell, “You’ll be sorry, David. Don’t do it or you’ll be sorry.” David’s only response is to slam the door. I watch Karen march down the driveway and climb into her car, and as soon as the engine turns over, I disentangle my foot and slide off the wheelbarrow into a heap on the ground.

      The pain is incredible and I make a quick deal with God, promising to cut off my right arm if she’ll just toss down a syringe full of morphine. Then I quickly amend that to my left arm, realizing I will need the right one to administer the shot. But either God has better things to do or the fact that I haven’t been to church in twenty years has her feeling less than generous.

      After a few minutes of quiet agony, I struggle to my feet and lurch home. I briefly consider running a bath and soaking for an hour or so to ease the aches, but it sounds like too much work. Besides, my injuries go beyond the mere physical; my emotions feel as raw and abused as my crotch.

      Sleep beckons and I figure a night of rest will not only get me through the worst of the physical pain, it will allow me to bury my emotions inside a cloud of oblivion. I limp into the bedroom, strip my slacks and underwear off in one fell swoop, gingerly kick them away, and then ease myself into bed still wearing my shirt and bra. As my head hits the pillow, I feel something hard poke me. I reach up, pull a chunk of mulch from my hair, and toss it onto the floor. I’m about to turn out the light when it hits me.

      I sit up and pat my head, even though I already know what I’ll find…or rather what I won’t find. Frantic, I look around the bedroom, but there is no sign of the scarf anywhere. Grunting with pain, I crawl out of bed and retrace my steps to the front door, peering through the window at the porch. Nothing.

      Shit.

      I pray the scarf dropped in the woods somewhere and isn’t lying beneath the window next to the wheelbarrow. Oh, God. The wheelbarrow!

      I groan and briefly consider going back to eliminate the evidence of my visit but the pain between my legs wins out. Morning will be soon enough, I decide. Instead, I gimp my way to the bathroom, swallow a handful of aspirin, and head back to bed.

      I’m asleep in ten minutes flat; humiliation is very exhausting.

      Chapter 4

      The shrill chirp of a beeper brings me instantly awake. I sit bolt upright in the bed and reach over to turn on the light. Years of pulling on-call duty in the OR have trained me well, but for a second or two I’m confused. Part of my mind is telling me to get dressed and drive to the hospital, but another part reminds me that I don’t work there anymore. Still another part wonders why it feels like I’m about to give birth to a bowling ball. Wincing against the pain, I hang my legs over the edge of the bed and grab the beeper.

      It’s Izzy. I know that without looking at the readout since he’s the one who gave me the damned thing in the first place, in case he got a call. I mumble a curse, first