Page 48 of Fight Or Flight

“Oh, she was here a lot. Always for dinner on Sundays. Amy told us that was when Robert would visit Elizabeth. We loved having her. It was very sad when she left.”

Loved having her?

God.

Ethan rolled his eyes and dropped the matches back into the drawer, then slammed it shut.

“Did you know she was the reason Amy came out to us?” She asked as she slid the pie back in and closed the oven door. “She was more scared than Amy that day. Thought we would disown her. I guess she’d seen a lot of homeless teens on the streets growing up. She even offered to take Amy in.”

Ethan looked away from his mom, hoping she’d stop talking about how great Natalie was. “Uh, well . . . I guess that was nice of her.”

“It’s hard to find friends like that,” his mother said. “Ones who are there for you when you need them most. I know you two are at odds with the property, but she’s a good person with a tender soul, Ethan. She grew up hard and had to deal with a lot at a very young age. When she left back then, it was no surprise. There was nothing here for her besides an awkward relationship with her grandmother and gossip around every corner. You could just see it scraping away at her heart.”

Ethan took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Right.”

“She’ll leave again, and you’ll just have to figure out what to do with the property after it’s bought by the new owners. It’s notfair of you to pressure her to stay, though I would love to see her more.”

He took another deep breath and was just about to confess to his mother that it wasn’t only the property that made him feel sick about her leaving when the doorbell rang through the house.

“Oh, she’s here! Will you get the door? I have to toss the salad, and I don’t know where your father is.”

Ethan shook out his tense shoulders and walked to the door, giving himself a silent pep talk on the way. He could get through this if he could just think of her as a snake-beating cat killer, instead of a beautiful, misunderstood girl with a big heart whom his parents loved. Bracing himself, he opened the door and looked up.

And found Anne Monroe standing on the porch. She was wearing white and navy blue, as always, and had a fake smile pulling at her surgically enhanced face.

“Dr. Pierce. It’s a pleasure to see you.”

She stuck her hand out at him, and he took it, confused. “Hi.”

“I’m going door to door to speak with voters ahead of tomorrow’s election.”

He looked up and down the street but didn’t see anyone else. Just a big white Cadillac parked in front of the house with its four-ways on. “You do that alone?”

“Not usually.”

“Okay . . .” He looked back over his shoulder, hoping to catch one of his parents for her so he could escape. No luck.

“I think everyone is busy right now. I’ll let them know you dropped by.”

“I came to speak with you, actually.”

“I don’t live here.”

“Well, you weren’t home, and I heard your family is big on Sunday dinners. I thought I’d find you here.”

She smiled as wide as her face would allow, as if following him was a totally normal thing for a mayoral candidate to do. It was a creepy thing to do, but she made it worse by lying about it, then changing direction immediately.

He took a step back. “Okay. What is it?”

“I wanted to ask you about the Monroe property.” She glanced around before stepping closer to him and lowering her voice. “There’s a great deal of talk around town about . . . the heirs.”

“Uh huh . . .”

“And I’ve been slipping, ever so slightly, in the polls. I believe it’s because of the gossip circulating.”

“Okay. What does that have to do with me?”

“Well, I can’t get any solid information about their plans for the property. I know you’ve inherited the pond, and you’ve been spending some time with one of them. The older one. Do you know if she plans to stay?”

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