Vicious

EPILOGUE

After the death of Corey Shaffer, the people of Cullen started telling stories about him—stories they’d suppressed while he’d been their deputy. It was a small wonder Corey had never been arrested, considering all the trouble he’d gotten into. At least a quarter of the townspeople had heard about his, at age twelve, running over a cat with a lawn mower. And now folks began to wonder what had really happened to the two dogs young Corey had owned that he claimed had “just run away.” Former classmates recalled he’d been an obnoxious bully, a not-so-practical joker, and an anything-for-kicks daredevil.

Far more disturbing were recent stories now emerging about the town’s deputy. Several women came forward to say that while driving alone, they had been pulled over by him for no apparent reason. Often he did this at night. According to twenty-seven-year-old Cullen resident Rachel Porter, he’d acted rather peculiar after stopping her one night along Carroll Creek Drive for a broken taillight. And after she returned home to her husband, she discovered nothing wrong with the light. Rachel was convinced that if a motorcyclist hadn’t passed by and waved at her and the deputy during their brief exchange, she would have ended up like Wendy Matusik.

Investigators combed through Corey’s ranch house, located in a residential area near the center of town. The place was a mess, with plates of moldy, half-eaten food everywhere. The Ikea furnishings were tattered and dirty, and dust covered the two mounted deer heads on his wall. But he had a state-of-the-art computer and sound system.

In his basement was an entertainment room with a big-screen TV. In front of the black leather sofa, an old locked trunk doubled as a coffee table. They found more than 200 pornographic DVDs in the trunk, most of them advertising S & M and bondage on the cases. The detectives also discovered sexual paraphernalia such as handcuffs, leather masks, and mouth gags.

Next door, in Corey’s exercise room, they uncovered what they were looking for in another locked trunk: a scrapbook full of clippings about the Mama’s Boy murders. Beside the grisly headlines, Corey had pasted gold and blue stars.

In the same trunk were Corey’s journals—with photos of Wendy Matusik, of Bellingham, and Monica Fitch, of Vancouver. In some shots, they were still alive—half-dressed, looking scared and disoriented in a darkened little cell. They were curled up on that same moldy, stained mattress on which Moira Dancey would later find herself. The other pictures were taken after he’d finished with them. His journals described in detail abducting both women. Wendy with her flat tire, and Monica, trapped in a narrow pit, had been so happy to be rescued at first. For Wendy, he’d even been in uniform, driving in his squad car. Corey buried both of them within ten feet of each other, very close to the spot where the police had found the eighth known Mama’s Boy victim, Stella Syms.

For the families and friends of Corey’s victims, the waiting, wondering, and dreading were over. The bodies were excavated, autopsied, and transferred to their loved ones. Monica and Wendy, who had planned on merely passing through Cullen months and months before, finally returned home.

Allen Meeker’s various residences were tracked through his tax records. He had indeed been living in Chicago when the first-known Mama’s Boy victim, Patricia Nagel, was abducted in front of her toddler son in their apartment—not far from the El station where Allen had first spotted them. He’d been in Oakland, California, and in Annandale, Virginia, when the Mama’s Boy murders occurred in those areas as well. But it was at his residence on Camden Mills Road in North Seattle where he’d done most of his killing. The remote, two-bedroom, dark red cedar-shingle rambler was slightly run-down. It had a small, hidden room he’d created in the basement—behind a built-in bookcase in the storage closet. The current owner of the house, a sixty-seven-year-old retired art teacher, Eileen Miller-Johnson, had no idea the room existed. In the seemingly empty little cell, investigators found blood and hair samples matching nine of the eleven murdered women from the Seattle area.

The vacated house on Camden Mills Road was still a boarded-up crime scene when Eileen Miller-Johnson contacted a real estate agent about eventually selling the property. The house remained unoccupied for weeks and weeks after that. Several times a day, people drove by to gawk at Allen Meeker’s former home. Many of the license plates were from out of state. Some of those people took photos with their cell phones, or they got out and walked up to the windows of the empty house. A few of them even broke off pieces from the cedar shingles for souvenirs.

Apparently, Corey Shaffer wasn’t the only fan of Mama’s Boy.

There was a three-year gap, from the 2004 murder of Samantha Gilbert in Alexandria, Virginia, to the disappearance of Rebecca Lyden from a rest stop near Wilsonville, Oregon, in 2007. Meeker’s tax records showed he lived in Jacksonville, Florida, in the interim.

Two months after Meeker’s death, FBI and local police were still trying to connect him with the disappearances of three Florida women, all young mothers, between 2004 and 2007.

The morbid tourists who made pilgrimages to the house on Camden Mills Road weren’t very interested in Allen Meeker’s residence for the last two years—a one-bedroom unit in a modern condominium in Seattle’s First Hill neighborhood. From what investigators could discern, Meeker hadn’t committed any murders while living there—and while he knew Susan.

That didn’t keep Susan from feeling hurt—and violated and incredibly stupid for letting herself be taken in by him.

She and Mattie became reluctant celebrities. The tabloids, TV, newspapers, and Internet always identified her as the fiancée of Mama’s Boy. Despite the fact that she’d saved the life of a teenage girl and helped bring Allen Meeker down, Susan seemed suspect to a lot of people who didn’t know her. After all, she’d been engaged to a serial killer. If she hadn’t shared his secrets, she’d certainly shared his bed—and that made her guilty by association.

Though Allen was dead, Susan still couldn’t completely expunge him from her and Mattie’s lives. She went through her photo collection and tossed all the pictures that had Allen in them; even if just his hand or half his face was in the shot, out it went. She donated to the Salvation Army every gift he’d given her and Mattie. Though she’d been living in the same duplex on Prospect Avenue since her first son, Michael, was born, Allen had spent so much time there, Susan felt compelled to move.

In December, the two-year lawsuit over the deck collapse was finally settled out of court, and Susan put some of that money down on a small two-bedroom house in West Seattle. News about the lawsuit settlement made Internet headlines on AOL: SERIAL KILLER’S FIANCEE AWARDED $1.5 MILLION. Even though the article pointed out that Susan had won the money in a lawsuit in a negligence case involving the deaths of her husband and older son, the “user comments” below the story showed that 90 percent of the readers hated her:

KayeM2 says at 2:52 PM 12/4/09: I can’t believe this woman would take money after sleeping and having sex with a serial killer. They should take her kid away from her. She’s trash.

MarcusvXXX says at 2:58 PM 12/4/09: I agree with the last person! Ive seen her on TV, & she’s a HAG & stupid sounding. My wife & I call her Susan Bullshit. She acts like she was never engage to Mamas Boy & had no idea he was a killeer but I don’t believe her for one minute. She’s a BIG phoney. I feel sorry for her son. Now their giving her money! She should give it to all the people Mamas Boy killed.

MelissaS says at 3:04 PM 12/4/09: I think people are forgetting that Susan Blanchette was given that money after she was injured in an accident that also resulted in the deaths of her husband and child. It has nothing to do with the Mama’s Boy murders. From what I’ve read, Allen Meeker had intended on killing her, but changed his mind in hopes of eventually getting her lawsuit money. I don’t understand how people can’t have more compassion for this woman who was duped by a charming psychopath. In the end, she’s one of the people who stopped him. I’d say she’s a hero.

MarcusvXXX says at 3:09 12/4/09: That last comment was SO STUPID!!!! If you consider that EVIL bitch a hero, you don’t know WHAT THE F—K your talking about!!!! She should give that money to the family of people her boyfriend killed. Its too bad he didn’t strangel her like he did the others…

“I can’t believe you actually read that crap, Susan,” Tom Collins told her on the telephone. He’d called her on a Saturday night in early December, two days after that story with all the comments had been featured online. He’d caught her cleaning out kitchen drawers in preparation for the move.

Two months before, it had been Tom’s call to the Skagit County police—followed minutes later by two radio transmissions from Deputy Shaffer’s squad car about a shooting—that prompted the police and medical response to Cedar Crest Way. Tom’s red MINI Cooper had arrived on the scene right after the police and ambulances. He’d parked on Carroll Creek Road, just far enough away from all the chaos and carnage so that one of his passengers couldn’t see what was going on. Rosie had ridden shotgun with Mattie in her lap. One of the cops on the scene had written him a $124 ticket for violating the state’s child-restraint laws. But Tom still claimed that it had been well worth it to see the ecstatic look on Susan’s face when she’d spotted Rosie at the end of the driveway with Mattie in her arms.

She and Tom hadn’t seen each other since. But that hadn’t been Tom’s fault. He’d called several times, asking to get together, but Susan kept putting him off. It just wasn’t the right time to start seeing him—or any man for that matter. Still, she looked forward to his calls.

“Listen, you have to scroll down to read those user comments, right?” he said on the other end of the line. “Do yourself a favor and don’t scroll down. I feel sorry for the intelligent people who get on there and try to talk some sense into the idiots making those comments. I mean, that one guy who really hated your guts, he was borderline illiterate. Do you really give a crap what he thinks of you?”

“I give a crap when people are saying on the Internet that I’m a terrible mother,” she admitted, standing in a kitchen full of boxes.

“You’re a good mother and a good person,” he replied. “Just ask anyone who actually knows you, Susan. Hell, that’s how Rosie and I figured out Shaffer was lying that night. He sent word that everything was okay and you were at the rental house—and he or Allen would pick up Mattie at the store. I saw the house was empty, yeah. But that could have been a mistake. I knew he was lying, because that story didn’t sound like you at all, Susan. You’re way too kind and considerate to have left your son with Rosie that long and not come back to explain or apologize in person. And you’re too good a mother to have sent some cop or your boyfriend to pick up your child. In the short time I spent with you that day, I figured out that much about you. It’s why I want to see you again. I think you’re pretty wonderful.”

“Well, that’s sweet of you, Tom, but—”

“I’m not being sweet, I’m being honest,” he interrupted. “Listen, do you need any help moving next week?”

“No, I’m fine,” she said, leaning against the kitchen counter. “I’ve hired some movers.”

“Well, I’d like to check out your new digs in West Seattle,” he said. “Let me pick you up and take you and Mattie out to dinner, maybe Jak’s Grill or Buddha Ruska for Thai. You said the new place is on Forty-sixth and Alaska, right? They’re both pretty close by.”

“Now just isn’t the right time, Tom,” she said with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I—I hear Mattie crying. He must be up from his nap. I really should go—”

“You like me, don’t you?” he interrupted.

“Yes, of course I like you, but—”

“Well, if you keep shooting me down, I’m going to give up. And that would be a real shame—for all parties involved. What’s going on, Susan? I mean, do you really believe those idiots on the Internet? Do you really think you don’t deserve to be happy? Is that it?”

“Tom, I don’t have time for this right now, I really don’t. Mattie’s crying—”

“All right, fine. Take care, Susan.” Then he hung up.

Frowning, Susan clicked off the line and then wandered down the corridor. Stacked boxes, a big mirror, and some framed pictures were on the floor against the wall. She caught her reflection in the mirror. Dressed in old jeans and a frayed black sweater, and her brown hair in a ponytail, she didn’t look very much like a millionaire. She just looked tired and sad.

She continued down the hallway and poked her head into Mattie’s room. Nestled under a throw, he slept soundly on his bed, holding his Woody doll under his chin.

She’d explained everything the best she could to him the day after Allen was killed. Mattie seemed to understand, but still asked about Allen from time to time. Just yesterday, he’d asked while she’d been emptying out his closet: “If Allen wasn’t a nice person, why did you want to marry him?”

Sometimes, he sounded so much older than his age. And this had been one of those times. Susan had put some toys in a packing box, and then she’d sat down on his bed with him. “Well, sweetie,” she’d said. “There are bad people out there, and sometimes they can fool you into believing in them. That’s what happened with Allen. He fooled me into thinking he was a nice man. But I know better now. I’ve learned to be more careful. Sometimes, it’s hard to admit when you’ve made a mistake. But that’s the only way you can move on and make sure you don’t repeat the same mistake. Do you understand?”

Mattie had nodded pensively, and then he’d squinted up at her. “Do you think my dad could beat up Allen?”

Sometimes, too, he sounded just like a four-and-a-half-year-old.

Now, Susan watched Mattie sleep for a few moments. She heard the dryer bell go off. Weaving around stacks of boxes, she shuffled into the laundry room off the kitchen. She started to unload the dryer and fold clothes. Susan came across a sage-and-black striped pullover she’d bought about a year ago. She remembered how Allen really liked the way it looked on her.

She knew it would take a while before she felt completely rid of him.

Susan stopped folding the pullover, took it into the kitchen, and threw it into the garbage.

“So—Leo, how are you, son? How long were you in that hospital again?”

“Six days, Mr. Elliott,” Leo told the paunchy, squinty-eyed, sixty-something man. Mr. Elliott sat at the four-top with his wife and another couple, who were their guests at the country club. Dressed in his busboy’s mustard-colored jacket, white shirt, black tie, and black pants, Leo refilled their after-dinner coffees. “But I’m feeling okay now,” Leo said. “Thank you for asking, sir.”

Mr. Elliott reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out his billfold. “Well, I know hospitals cost money—even if you’re covered by some G.I. plan from your dad. Are you going to college next year?”

“Yes, sir, Western Washington up in Bellingham,” he replied.

Slipping his fat hands under the table, Mr. Elliott took some bills out of his wallet. “Well, here’s a little something to put toward school—and those hospital bills,” he said in sort of a stage whisper. Then he held out his hand for Leo to shake it. The folded-up bills were in his palm.

Leo set the coffee pot down on a nearby empty table and then shook the man’s hand. “Thank you very much, sir.”

Elliott patted his arm. “Merry Christmas, son.”

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Elliott,” Leo said. He smiled at Mrs. Elliott—and nodded to the guest couple, whom he realized were totally ignoring him. “Um, Happy Holidays.”

An hour later, he changed out of his uniform in the club’s employee locker room. As he zipped up the leather aviator jacket Jordan had given him, Leo felt a little pang of regret. He missed his friend.

Stepping out of the employee entrance, he saw the car waiting for him in the driveway turnaround behind the tennis courts.

Leo hurried up the driveway, jumped into the passenger seat, and kissed Moira. They’d been a couple ever since he’d gotten out of the hospital seven weeks ago. Hobbling in on her crutches, she’d visited him there every day. The two of them had achieved a kind of celebrity status because of what had happened. Some publishers and movie agents were even trying to get Moira to sign over the rights to her story, but she wasn’t interested. “I don’t want one of those Gossip Girl stars to play me. I’m holding out until they get Ellen Page to star in it,” she claimed, only half joking. Leo wasn’t getting any serious offers, which was too bad because he could have used the money.

They were a popular couple, especially at her high school. And now that Moira was off her crutches, they were constantly going out. Leo found himself spending what little free time he had with Moira and her friends from Holy Names—and their boyfriends. They had a regular routine of going out for late-night pizza at Pizza Ragazzi in the University District after he finished his shift at the country club on Saturday evenings. It was kind of heady to have a bunch of people catering to his schedule like that. At the same time, he wasn’t crazy about hanging around with a pack. Tonight it was just the two of them, thank God.

Leo told her about Mr. Elliott’s making a fuss over him and slipping him the money to put toward school—and the hospital bills. Then at a stoplight, Leo showed Moira the money: a five and two singles.

“Oh, my God!” she laughed. “What a cheapskate loser!”

Shrugging, Leo stuffed the money back in his jeans pocket. “Oh, he’s kind of a doofus, but he means well.” In fact, since his return to the country club, Leo had been getting lots of gratuities from club members who hadn’t paid any attention to him before. Now they knew his name, asked how he was doing and what his plans were for school. He wasn’t sure if it was a club member or not, but someone had even paid his first full year’s tuition and board at Western Washington University. That was over fifteen thousand bucks. It was arranged by some anonymous party through a Seattle law firm, which also sent him a cashier’s check for four thousand dollars. On the bottom left-hand corner of the check, it said, For Schoolbooks & Supplies.

Moira would be attending Marquette University in Milwaukee. They hadn’t yet discussed the relationship challenges of attending schools half a continent away from each other. Though he didn’t say anything, Leo had a feeling she would end up breaking his heart before they even graduated. She’d say, “Let’s be friends,” and, damn it, they probably would be.

But until then, he’d enjoy being her boyfriend. Moira made him feel important. With her he was somebody. And under his class photo in the yearbook, it wouldn’t say Pathetic Virgin.

“I missed you today,” Moira said, watching the road ahead.

Leo smiled and studied her pretty profile in the dashboard’s light. She had one hand on the wheel, and the other on the console between them.

Leo put his hand over hers, and she didn’t pull away.

Not anymore.

Garfield’s varsity football team had lost by two points. So the overall mood of the crowd that cold December afternoon was pretty somber. The light, cold drizzle didn’t help either. Once the final whistle blew, the fans quickly cleared the bleachers.

During the game, he’d felt like he was onstage, sitting in the first row, half a bench length away from the cheerleaders. But with his crutches, he couldn’t make it up the bleacher steps. Last time he’d tried at one of these games, everyone had gawked at him and whispered to each other. So he sat there at ground level, very conspicuous with his leg in a fiberglass cast and his titanium crutches at his side.

Jordan stared out at the vacant, muddy football field. He could see his breath and felt the rain on his face. He could also see people staring at him as they passed by, so he put the hood of his navy blue slicker over his head.

He figured this sitting-on-the-sidelines business was a dress rehearsal for spring—and lacrosse season. The leg injury had benched him, permanently.

He’d spent three weeks in the hospital—unfortunately, not the same hospital as Leo. Jordan’s dad wouldn’t hear of him staying in a public hospital. It was only the best for his son. So Jordan had a private room, around-the-clock nurses, a TV, and a telephone so he could phone his friend.

After everything they’d been through, they should have been together. Apparently, Leo had thought he might be ticked off about the sleeping pills thing. But Jordan wasn’t angry, not really. In fact, one of the interns had told him the sedatives in his system might have saved his life. The pills Leo had given him had possibly slowed the bleeding and reduced some of the pain. Whether it was true or not, he passed the story on to Leo. It made his friend feel better.

They’d sprung Leo from Harborview Medical Center after six days. Jordan figured he could have gone home around the same time, but they transferred him to another wing at Swedish Hospital and kept him there for observation—in other words, to make sure he wasn’t crazy. During that time, he wasn’t allowed to use the phone or have visitors. He found out later that a ton of reporters had wanted to talk to him—along with some guys from the lacrosse team; Leo, of course; Moira; and even Susan Blanchette. She’d sent flowers with a card that simply said: Thanks for saving my life. Get well soon. Susan Blanchette.

One of the stipulations to his release from the hospital was that he had to see a therapist twice a week. At least that was the consensus from the higher-ups, “the people who decide these things,” as his mom used to say. By the time he got out, Jordan learned that Leo and Moira were dating. Things were suddenly different. He didn’t see so much of his friend anymore.

He used to pick up Leo for school in the morning, but he couldn’t drive with his leg in a cast. So Jordan’s dad hired some limo service to chauffeur him to and from Garfield. As if he already didn’t feel like a freak, now he had a limo dropping him off at school.

Meanwhile, Moira drove Leo to school now. She took up nearly all of his time. Jordan actually had to plan ahead if he wanted to hang out with his best friend—and Moira almost always wanted to join them. It just wasn’t the same. He missed his friend.

Things felt different with his lacrosse teammates, too—or maybe he just felt isolated from them because he couldn’t play anymore. He’d never really gotten into being a big jock hero, but now that he’d been sidelined, Jordan kind of missed it. He felt so isolated. And of course, everyone knew his mother had been murdered by Mama’s Boy, and they all knew about him abducting Meeker, sinking his car in a swamp, and tying him up in his basement. One of his lacrosse buddies even asked him in a hushed voice: “Is it true you had that guy bare-assed down in your basement and you were torturing him?” They all knew about his early breakdowns, and the two extra weeks he’d just spent in the hospital under psychiatric observation. So a lot of the kids at school were treating him like a dangerous character.

It wasn’t just people at school either. Total strangers would stop and stare at him on the sidewalk or in the mall. Some of them would even walk up and ask, “Aren’t you Jordan Prewitt?” And then they’d ask about Mama’s Boy.

He talked about all this with his therapist, who said he was “in a better place” than he’d been last month. Jordan figured that meant he wasn’t so damn crazy—maybe just a little lonely. He and Leo had made a date to get together this coming Friday night. Moira had a girls’ sleepover and would be out of the picture, thank Christ.

It would be nice to see his pal again.

The rain seemed to come down a bit harder, and except for a few stragglers, the bleachers had emptied out. Jordan reached for his crutches, and saw a kid coming down the steps. The red-haired boy was about twelve years old. He was kind of a goofy-looking kid, wearing a yellow rain-slicker poncho. He walked toward him, but hesitated for the last few steps. The boy looked a bit apprehensive. Of course, he did. After all, he was approaching a guy everyone knew was a dangerous character. He used to be kind of a hero. But now, he was just kind of crazy. Jordan wondered if he suddenly said “Boo!” how quickly this curious kid would turn around and run.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw a forty-something guy who had to be the kid’s father. Standing under his umbrella a few tiers up, he had glasses and receding reddish-grey hair.

“Excuse me,” the kid said. “Are you Jordan Prewitt?”

Frowning, Jordan turned toward him and nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.”

The boy in the yellow slicker nervously held out his hand. “I wanted to say hello—and—and—and thank you,” he said. “My name’s Andy Milford….” He glanced back at his father, and then at Jordan. “Eleven years ago, that guy killed my mother. My—my dad, he wanted me to thank you and shake your hand.”

Jordan knew the name. Pamela Milford had been abducted while pushing her ten-month-old baby in his stroller in Volunteer Park. He looked over his shoulder at the boy’s father. The man nodded respectfully and mouthed the words, Thank you.

Jordan worked up a smile and nodded back. Then he looked the sweet, funny-faced boy in the eye and shook his hand. “It’s really great to meet you, Andy,” he said.

The father came down the bleacher steps. “Okay, Andy, let’s get a move on,” he called gently.

The boy turned and ran back to his dad. He hovered under the umbrella with him.

Jordan reached for his crutches again and caught the boy’s father looking at him. “Are you okay, Jordan?” the man asked, a little tremor in his voice. “Do you need any help?”

“No, thank you, Mr. Milford,” he said. “You and Andy have helped me enough already today. I’ll be okay.”

The father nodded at him once more, then turned and walked away with his arm around his son.

Jordan sat and watched them for a moment. “Yeah,” he whispered to himself, still smiling. “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

She heard the movers’ truck churning as it pulled away from the curb in front of her new house. Susan stood in the living room. She wearily stared at the maze of stacked boxes amid her furniture—which, somehow, didn’t seem to belong in here. She was tired and hungry, and she missed the old duplex. She didn’t think this new place was ever going to be home.

Of course, when she’d taken one last look at the empty duplex this morning, she’d been flooded with memories of Walt and Michael and Mattie when he was a baby. Funny, she hadn’t thought at all about Allen Meeker, and the nights he’d spent there. Yet that had been her main reason for moving. Now it all seemed so pointless.

Allen had been the reason she’d pushed Tom away, too. Tom hadn’t called back since last week. He’d warned her that if she kept shooting him down, he would give up. And, apparently, he had. In her campaign to expunge Allen Meeker from her life and never make the same mistake again, there had been some heavy, unnecessary casualties.

Tom had been right. She didn’t feel she deserved to be happy. For a while, she’d even considered what some of those people on the Internet had said about giving the lawsuit money to the families of Allen’s victims. Instead, she’d paid off her hospital debt, put some away for Mattie’s college, and anonymously gave $20,000 to pay for Leo Forester’s first year of college. She figured it was the least she could do for not giving him a ride that night.

Another big chunk of the money went as a down payment for this stupid house.

Susan stared at the mess of a living room, and tears welled in her eyes.

“Mommy, are you crying?” Mattie asked. He’d been having a blast, running around the new house. She’d unpacked the linen, and with two sheets and the stacks of boxes, Mattie had already built a fort-tent in his bedroom. Now he stood at her side, gazing up at her. He seemed mystified, probably wondering how she could think all this wasn’t fun.

Susan managed to smile at him and then wiped her eyes. “No, sweetie, I just have something in my eye, that’s all.”

Taking a deep breath, she looked at all the boxes again and spotted a dolly one of the movers must have accidentally left behind. She also noticed two big boxes with Christmas Stuff and X-Mas Tree scribbled on the sides.

“You know, honey,” she said. “We only have a little more than two weeks until Christmas. I think we should put up the tree, don’t you? As the song says, ‘We need a little Christmas, right this very minute….’”

So while Mattie marveled at the ornaments and decorations, Susan unpacked the fake, pre-lit tree and started assembling it. She found an old mixed tape Walt had made of Christmas favorites—everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to the Kingston Trio to Bruce Springsteen. She put it in the CD/tape player. Walt used to go out to one of those farms and cut down a tree every Christmas. But after he died, she’d gotten this fake one and settled for that. Right now, she was very glad to have it.

The first two of the three tree sections were up and lit, and Mattie had only broken one ornament, when the doorbell rang. Susan figured it was probably one of the movers, coming back for his dolly cart. She hurried to the door and opened it.

Tom stood on the front stoop. He looked handsome in his brown leather jacket and with his black hair tousled by the wind. He held up a big Arby’s bag.

Susan numbly stared at him. “Um, hi,” she said.

He peeked into the living room. “Looks like Christmas in here,” he said. “I—um, well, I saw the moving van leave about forty-five minutes ago and took a chance this was the right house.” He shrugged. “I guess that means I was stalking you.”

A hand still on the doorknob, she half smiled and nodded. “I guess.”

“So—on a scale of one to ten, with ten being incredibly creepy …” He trailed off as Mattie came to Susan’s side. “Hi, Matthew Blanchette, do you remember me? I’m Tom.”

Hugging her leg, Mattie squinted at him for a moment. “Did you bring fries?”

Tom laughed and then nodded. “I brought fries, and Arby’s regular, Arby-Q, potato cakes, and salad. And the Cokes are in my car.” He looked at Susan. “Is this okay? I know you told me you weren’t ready to see anyone, and now I’m pulling this surprise visit on you. But I like you, Susan. And I think you like me. If I’m wrong, well, then I can just drop this off. …”

Susan sighed. “You know, while you’re standing there talking, our potato cakes are getting cold.”

Tom grinned at her.

She smiled back, opened the door a little wider, and let him inside.