I SEE YOU an unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist by PATRICIA MACDONALD (bookstand for reading txt) 📗

her daycare. Her life is beginning to make sense here. At what point are we doing more harm than good, jerking her from one place to another? Look, I agree that we need to be ready. We can start making some plans. Plan how we would leave, what we would take, where we could go. Maybe even pack a couple of bags and stow them away so we would be prepared to just walk out.’

Adam gazed out the front window at the streetlights, frowning. Somewhere in the next block there was a crash, like a beer bottle breaking. Out in the street motorcycles roared by. A woman’s raucous laugh was followed by a yelp of protest. It was a relatively quiet night in the neighborhood.

‘Adam, listen,’ Hannah went on. ‘We probably have been too complacent. We should have our plans in place anyway, so that we can be ready to leave immediately. If we regard this as a warning, the next time we’ll be ready to go at a moment’s notice.’

Adam looked at her and shook his head. ‘The next time,’ he said. ‘I hope we will have a moment’s notice.’

TWENTY-SEVEN

When two weeks had passed without incident, Hannah began to breathe a little bit easier. The first few days after the clip appeared they’d been almost afraid to leave the house. Both of them had called into work claiming to have the flu. One or the other, bundled up with a hat pulled down over their eyes, would make a blitzkrieg run for supplies when it became absolutely necessary. Otherwise, the three of them spent long hours in their little apartment, huddling together on the bed, watching TV or reading. Hannah cooked in the tiny galley kitchen and tried to make her little family the foods they most enjoyed. Occasionally Hannah or Adam would pull back the curtain and survey the street anxiously, as if they expected to see the police, led by their daughter, marching up to the building. Every time their cellphone rang, they jumped. Sydney thought it was all a lovely game, and, thanks to the weather which had suddenly grown chilly, she was happy to stay indoors, snuggling with her worried grandparents.

As she had promised Adam, Hannah packed up several suitcases and put them back into the attic with the pull-down steps above the third-floor hallway. Packing up the bags left their closets looking forlorn, but it appeased Adam, who was still warning her that they might have to leave at any moment. Hannah knew he was right to be concerned but she could see that he also was beginning to relax, as the days passed, and there was no sign of Lisa, no word from her or from the police. Even Adam was starting to believe that they might have dodged a bullet. They might still be safe.

To Sydney’s dismay, Mamie had not yet returned home. Her stroke left her paralyzed on the right side, and Isaiah had her placed in a rehab center outside the city in Blue Bell where she was guaranteed good care, and an intensive physical therapy routine. One Saturday morning, as Hannah and Sydney were venturing down the stairs to go out for a walk, they heard a key turning in the lock of the front door. Hannah froze on the staircase, and then slumped against the wall in relief as she saw Isaiah come in.

He looked up and greeted the startled-looking Hannah and Sydney, who was holding her hand.

‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ he observed.

‘No,’ said Hannah. ‘You just surprised me . . . coming in like that.’

Isaiah raised a paper shopping bag in his hand. ‘I came here to go through my mother’s mail.’

‘How is she doing? How long till she is ready to come home?’ Hannah asked.

Isaiah began to sort through Mamie’s mail on the hall table. ‘Come home?’ he murmured, frowning at the pile of circulars which had accumulated. ‘Never, if I have anything to say about it.’

‘What do you mean?’ Hannah asked.

‘Well, I’m hoping to get her into assisted living once they spring her from the rehab. There’s a perfectly nice place in Overbrook, ten minutes from where my wife and I live. There, she’d have her own apartment, everything brand new and medical staff right on the premises.’

‘My mother’s in a place like that,’ Hannah admitted, and then wished she hadn’t even brought it up. Luckily the councilman was preoccupied with his own concerns, and didn’t seem to notice.

‘This situation just isn’t working anymore,’ he said, waving a fistful of envelopes at the house around them.

‘She does love this house,’ said Hannah.

Councilman Revere shook his head. ‘I grew up in this house. But I certainly don’t want to spend time here anymore. I can’t get my kids to come here for any reason. It’s falling down around my mother’s ears. She can’t keep up with it. No. I’m looking at this as an opportunity. She’ll have no choice about it.’

‘Does that mean . . . What does that mean about the house? Are you going to sell it?’

‘I’d be happy to unload it tomorrow but I’m trying to at least pay lip service to my mother’s wishes. What? Are you worried about your apartment?’ he asked.

Hannah shook her head. ‘Well, we’re . . . comfortable here. But we can get another apartment if we have to. We’d miss Mamie, though.’

‘Did Miss Mamie get my picture?’ Sydney asked the tall, well-dressed man in the hallway.

‘She certainly did,’ said Isaiah. ‘And she wanted me to thank you. She pinned it up on the bulletin board in her room. Well, I’ve got to run . . .’

‘Councilman, before you go, were you able to help Dominga with her situation? I haven’t seen her around lately,’ Hannah said.

‘Dominga?’ said Isaiah. ‘Who’s Dominga?’

Hannah felt offended that he did not recognize the name of the woman who had