The Woman Next Door Read Online Free PDF Page B

that could have been an anguished shout—then silence. Fearing that it was Quinn and that something was terribly wrong, Amanda jumped up from the sofa and went to the door. Down the hall, immobile and alert with his mop protruding from a pail-on-wheels, was the janitor.
    “Heeeere’s Johnny,” sang out Maddie from the depths of her office.
    Amanda let out a breath. “Mr. Dubcek.” The man was white-haired and stooped, eighty if he was a day, but he refused to retire. He was remembered not only by parents of current students, but by grandparents as well. That gave him clout in the respect department. He was never spoken of as Johann, always Mr. Dubcek— except for Maddie, but then, Maddie didn’t know about respect. She only knew that the old man fed her and cleaned out her cage and took her every night to his small apartment in the basement of the school.
    “I was listening for voices,” the janitor told Amanda in a rusty voice. “I’d’a gone away if you had someone in there. I didn’t want to interfere.”
    “No one’s here,” she said with a smile, but the smile faded when, standing now, giving gravity its due, she felt an unwelcome rush.
    Heart pounding, she went down the hall to the lavatory. Well before she closed the stall door and lowered those soft plum pants, she knew. In that instant, pummeled by a dozen emotions, not the least of which was a profound sense of loss, her mind closed down. Sinking onto the toilet, she put her elbows on her thighs and her face in her hands and began to cry.
    She must have been there a while, because the next thing she knew, there was a loud knock on the outer door and the janitor’s frightened call: “Mrs. O’Leary? Are you all right?”
    Mrs. O’Leary. Ah, the irony of that. Professionally, she had always been Amanda Carr. She had surely introduced herself to the janitor that way four years before. At the same time, though, she had introduced him to Graham, who was helping her set up her office. She had been Mrs. O’Leary to the proper old gentleman ever since.
    And what was wrong with being Mrs. O’Leary? On a normal day, nothing at all. She was proud to be married to Graham. She had always believed that once they had kids she would use O’Leary more often than Carr.
    Once they had kids. If they had kids. And that was what was wrong with being Mrs. O’Leary today. Without the kids, did she have a right to the name?
    Tears came again.
    “Mrs. O’Leary?” the janitor called again.
    Sniffling, she wiped the tears with the heels of her hands. “I’m fine,” she called in an upbeat, if nasal, voice. “Be right out.”
    After dealing with necessities in the stall, she washed her hands and pressed a damp paper towel to her eyes. A headache was starting to build over the right one, but she didn’t have the wherewithal to pamper it here, much less the strength to deal with whatever was ailing Quinn Davis. Praying that the boy would not show up, she returned to her office, repaired her face in a hand mirror, shutdown her computer, locked up her files, and, waving at the janitor’s distant figure on her way down the hall, left school.
    ***
    Graham considered prolonging the trip home. There were places he could stop, ten minutes here, ten there, giving Amanda more time to call. But the suspense was too much. He kept the truck on the highway and his foot on the gas.
    The phone rang. His heart began to pound.
    “Hi?” he answered as much in question as greeting, but it wasn’t Amanda. It was a woman who owned a real estate firm and had hired him to redo the office grounds. The job was small, the potential large. The woman’s clientele was high-end. If she liked what he did, she would recommend his work, and while he had plenty to keep him busy, he always welcomed more. Lately, given the tension between Amanda and him, his work was his salvation.
    “I was just wondering when I’ll be seeing you,” she said warmly.
    He drove with his left hand while the right