It was still too early in the evening to go snooping about Heather's neighborhood, but Reese needed to escape her place and the unwelcomed guests.

"When the hell did I start seeing ghosts?" She roared and slapped the steering wheel as she pulled away from the curb. Of course it was a silly thing to say considering all her years of communicating with Luke. But that was different. She wanted Luke around, not a bunch of ethereal visitors. What did they want from her? And if the "wrong guy" wasn't the Asshole Andrew, who the devil were they talking about?

It was possible the imposing form of a man had been a figment of her imagination, spurred by Claire's words. But what if he wasn't? Why wouldn't he show himself? Maybe he couldn't. But it had seemed as if he refused to materialize.

Reese was on autopilot when she pulled through the McDonald's drive-thru. She ordered a healthy complimentary supper to her cereal of large fries and a diet Coke. Why not? She needed the bogus oomph to keep going. Besides comfort food always soothed her nerves. She never claimed to have good eating habits. At least she had quit smoking almost before she had gotten the hang of it.

She pulled into a parking spot and typed Heather's address into her GPS. Thirty-three minutes. Not long at all. She ate dutifully then took advantage of the restaurant's bathroom. Time was creeping in slow motion. She needed something to do. She debated calling her mother again but decided to take the ride over.

Ten minutes later she pulled into the driveway, quickly noting the unusual darkness at every window. She reached into the glove compartment for the key to her childhood home. Then she walked to the closed garage door where she peered in through the small window. Her mother's car was gone. Even more unusual than the darkness. She seldom left the house other than the occasional daytime excursion to the market.

She pressed the doorbell buzzer as a cursory announcement and then let herself in. No TV noise rolling down the stairs from the bedroom. No lights illuminating a path through the encroaching nightfall.

"Mom!" She called out. She had an eerie feeling. She couldn't be upstairs, dead on her bed. Her car wasn't there. But something was wrong. Very wrong.

She switched on a lamp by her mother's favorite chair, an old ratty coarse plaid fabric one that swiveled. A stack of paperbacks with bare-chested hunks adorning the covers stood guard by the chair.

"Mom," she said again. She breezed through the kitchen and glanced out the back door window to the overgrown backyard, but then did a double-take. The grass was neatly cut and the old flower beds which were wrapped around the back fence and the oak tree were manicured with a new crop of mulch blanketing a dozen or so rust and yellow mums.

She shook her head in confusion. Her mom was not prone to keeping the yard or the house tidy, not for years anyway. She turned from the window and realized that was what was different and eerie about the house. There were no dishes, especially glasses, in the sink. The countertops were wiped down and there was a bowl of fresh fruit on the small round butcher block table.

She strolled through the downstairs rooms and saw the same around every corner. The bathroom had recently been bleached, and it sparkled despite it's out of date décor. She felt a sense of shock. In all the weekly phone calls her mother had said nothing about the cleaning spree she was on. She darted back to the kitchen and pulled the microwave away from the wall where her mom always kept at least a couple of vodka bottles. None. Nothing behind the microwave, not even dust or gunk build-up.

Reese ran up the stairs to her mother's bedroom. The double bed was made and there were no empty glasses on the nightstand, but there was a pad of paper by the phone. She picked it up and tried to make out the imprint on the top blank piece. Only one word jumped out at her. "Addie."

"What the hell?" She ripped the piece of paper from the pad and carefully folded it so it didn't crease across the name. She scribbled a note to her mother. "Call me when you get this" and placed it on the kitchen table next to the fruit bowl as she went out the front door.

She drove to Cumberland, Rhode Island, in twenty minutes flat, breaking the speed limit by at least twenty miles an hour for the whole ride. All she could think about was Addie's name on that paper. She never took a sip of her emergency water to redirect an anxiety attack and had no recollection of the drive. It was a blur, marred by cloudy thoughts. Where had her mother gotten Addie's name? Did Gregory contact her?

The sun was long gone, but it was still early. Too early for eavesdropping in case a nosey neighbor noticed. She decided she would just have to be as inconspicuous as possible; she couldn't wait any longer. She found Heather's neighborhood and drove by the street slowly, checking for the activity level. There were a couple of cars parked along the sidewalk, but no one was milling about, not even a dog-owner taking the family pet for an evening stroll.

It was a cut-thru street so she drove past it and turned left onto the street directly behind Heather's. She took another left and then shut her headlights off as she took another left onto Juniper Way. The first house on the left was number 33. Heather's was number 18. The houses were much closer to each other than they had appeared on the aerial map, so she crept along slowly. One of the parked cars was running with a stream of exhaust fluming from the double barrel pipe. She inched across the street and rolled to a stop in front of number 31. It was quiet and looked as if no one was home. Of course that could change. The family could be coming home any minute from a high school football game or a ballet recital. She leaned back into the driver's seat, momentarily forgetting about Addie's name on her mother's pad of paper. She counted the houses and stopped at the brick and white one up ahead on the right. She got her confirmation that it was the right house by the black Lexus sedan parked out front. Gregory.

"Damn," she muttered. Hopefully he wouldn't notice her vehicle in the darkened street if he came out. She lowered her windows a couple of inches to let in air and to hear, if necessary. She checked her fuel gauge to make sure she was fine to let her car run. Shutting it off would be more noticeable than not.

Suddenly the front porch light at 18 Juniper Way flooded the stoop and Gregory popped out the front door, head lowered like he was in deep concentration. He skipped down the few steps and walked the short winding path to the sidewalk. He was at his car door when he looked down the street toward the other vehicle. Reese scooted down further into her seat, hoping to disappear in the background.

Reese crept over to the driver side window and peered out. Gregory walked toward the nose of the large black Mercedes and went to the driver side window. Reese watched as the tinted window rolled down. She tried to make out the driver but couldn't at her angle. She groped for her backpack to dig out the binoculars but Gregory's voice caught her attention.

"What are you doing here? You shouldn't be here." His voice was like a growl, angry and deep. She peered out again, slouching down further. Gregory was leaning at the window. If the driver responded, Reese couldn't hear any words.

Gregory appeared to fume at whatever words were said and slammed the car door with a flat palm as he stormed away. The Mercedes door flew open and a bulky but muscular man decked out in a three piece suit lumbered out and stood by the open door.

"Where is she Gregory?" The man boomed.

Gregory kept walking away toward his car, back turned to the stranger.

Reese strained to look out more from her hiding spot without being noticed. The oversized man was vaguely familiar to her but she couldn't immediately place him.

"Gregory, where's Addie?" He called out again. His voice rumbled like thunder.

Reese's mind started to race. Why would Gregory know where Addie was? He said he didn't even know she existed until a couple of days ago. Reese felt a twinge of annoyance with herself. If he was Facebook friends with Heather and Lucy, wouldn't he know about Addie? How did that little detail slip her detection?

Gregory slowly turned back to the man and stared, daring him to say more.

"You still like little girls, don't you, you prick? What did you do with her?"

Gregory straightened his shoulders and re-approached the man until he was directly in front of him, looking up at his face. Standing together, Reese was shocked to see the familial resemblance. Although the bulking man easily had a hundred pounds and nearly a foot on Gregory's petite statue, their facial structure was nearly identical.

"Fuck you, Wayne," Gregory seethed.

Wayne? Reese was immediately thrown back into her childhood when the most handsome boy in middle school had held out an arm for her to take for their trek to Two Scoops.