“Diane,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Saw you move in a couple weeks back,” Walt said. “Then saw that truck this morning. Didn’t sit right with me. You’d only been here a week and a half and you were already gone again.” He nodded toward the cruisers. “I called it in too. About ten minutes after it started. Figured somebody ought to.”
I stared at him.
A stranger. A neighbor I’d never spoken to. And he’d looked at my driveway and known something was wrong.
“Thank you,” I said again, and I meant it more than I’d meant anything in months.
“Welcome to the neighborhood,” Walt said, and went back across the street.
Vanessa came out of the house near the end, carrying the brass lamp.
She stopped at the edge of the yard where Rachel and I were sitting.
For a moment, she just stood there.
