Page 100 of Our Little Secret

Don’t even go there!

Even he wouldn’t hurt the goofy, loving dog.

But the image of the dead rat with its slimy, wet fur superimposed itself over her mental picture of Shep.

It was all she could do not to scream.

CHAPTER 23

“Idon’t know how it happened,” Leah was saying as Brooke, shaken to her core, walked into the kitchen from the garage stairs. Pulling herself together after the shock of finding the dead rat, she’d hurried down the deck staircase, quickly crossed the yard, and entered through the garage so she could wash the blood from her fingers in the laundry room basin. She’d dried her hands and counted to ten, then twenty, then fifty.

She was calmer now. Determined. But Leah was still upset and dabbing at her eyes with a napkin at the table.

Neal was at the coffee maker, measuring grounds for a fresh pot. “He’ll come home,” he said but shot Brooke a worried glance.

“I left the back gate open, if he does.”

Neal said, “I thought I saw you on the deck.”

“Yes—yes, I was,” she said, “but I got my hands dirty and went back through the laundry room to clean up.”

Neal eyed her speculatively, but before he could ask anything else, Leah said, “What about the blood?”

She knew?

“The blood?” Brooke repeated.

“Yeah.” Leah swung her gaze from Brooke to Neal, who was adding water to the reservoir of the coffee maker. “You saw it, right?”

“What’re you talking about?” Neal asked.

“There’s blood smeared all over one of the pillows on the front porch. Marilee told me about it. She said you,” Leah glanced at Brooke, “saw it when you drove in, so I checked.” Leah shuddered visibly, then pressed her lips together. “I pray to God it’s not Shep’s.”

“Why would it be his?” Neal asked, but there was trepidation in his voice.

But Brooke knew it belonged to the rat.

She remembered now seeing a smear of red on the yellow cushion as she turned into the drive.

Brooke headed for the front door and porch, where she saw the yellow cushions on the rockers, one smeared red, the stain looking like blood—rat’s blood—but she couldn’t let on about the dead rodent. Not yet.

Leah followed Brooke to the front porch and stood in the doorway.

“Am I cursed or what?” Brooke said, then bit her tongue. Her dog was missing, yes, but her daughter was safe, even if Marilee was in big, big trouble.

“Why in God’s name would there be blood here?” Leah paced along the front porch. “Maybe Shep got out, stepped on something—glass or whatever—and came up to the porch and . . .”

“And then ran off?” Brooke asked.

“I guess.” Leah looked across the street to the park and Brooke followed her gaze. A jogger in sweats raced by before disappearing through the open gate. A squirrel scampered out of his path and scurried up the bole of a fir tree. A few vehicles passed, and she heard the sound of a leaf blower from the house next door. It was Mr. Galanis, who wouldn’t give up his Saturday morning routine of cleaning his driveway and smoking a cigar even if the leaves were sodden from the previous night’s storm. She smelled the acrid smoke that seemed at odds with the clear air, fresh after the rain, then caught a glimpse of a police car rolling slowly through the intersection.

A typical Saturday morning for most Seattleites.

But not for Brooke, nor anyone else who lived here.

Not here.

Brooke picked up the smeared pillow and carried it inside, where she sniffed it and eyed the stain more closely.

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