Cold fear poured through Annie, even as she struggled to remember the connection they’d made today. How could things have turned around like this so quickly? This was bad. Really bad. “Tell me right now how you know who I am.” She had backed up almost to the front door. “I know they didn’t give you our names when we made the offer on the house. How the hell did you find me here on Kauai?”
“Annie, Annie.” Serena stood and started pacing again, causing Marley’s ears to prick up in alert. “I thought you were so smart. We didn’t know your names, but I knew where you lived. Remember? That was supposed to be my address.”
Annie’s eyes widened as something finally dawned on her. “You’ve been watching us. Back in New York. You’ve been stalking us, haven’t you?” Her feelings of eyes following her when they’d first moved to the lake house had been correct. It wasn’t paranoia. It was Serena.
Serena stopped and turned. “No, Annie. I wasn’t stalking you. I’d never do that.” There was a beseeching look in her eyes. “At first I only went back to the house because I was so sad to lose it. Do you have any idea what it’s like to lose all your dreams just like that?”
She snapped her fingers, the loud crack making Annie jump.
“I do, Serena. Remember?” Despite her resolve to leave earlier, Annie now wanted to hear what Serena had to say.
“I was so sad. I couldn’t believe that my dream life was gone. So I went back and parked across the street. I only wanted to see the house again, to say goodbye to it and to the life I thought I would live. But then you walked out of the house with Lili. In her pink harness and leash. She was so sweet and exactly the kind of dog I would have gotten if I lived there.”
“That’s how you know about the pink harness.” It was all making a terrible kind of sense now. Annie’s instincts hadn’t been wrong—someone had been watching them this whole time.
Serena continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I couldn’t stop watching you two. You were living the life I wanted. I got out of the car and pretended to be a neighbor taking a walk. I waited until you were coming back to the house to walk toward you, and I even said hi to you.” Her mouth turned up in a small smile as her eyes got a faraway look, as if picturing the scene in her mind. “It was winter, so I was all wrapped up in a scarf and hat. Lili barked at me once, but she quieted down as soon as you told her to relax.”
Annie couldn’t take her eyes off Serena. “That was four years ago. I don’t understand. What . . .” She sputtered, as a memory came to her. “Did you drive a white car?”
“Yes.” Serena’s eyebrows rose in pleasant surprise.
“You used to park across the street and just sit there for a while. Brody and I wondered who it was. We even made a joke that someone was casing our house.” Annie brought her hands to her face.
“I would never steal from you. What do you think I am, a burglar?” Serena’s lower lip pouted. “I only wanted to see the house at first, but then I got hooked on watching you. I’d go back every week. Sometimes I’d park in the beach parking lot. Sometimes I’d park farther away and walk back. I tried to go when there were people around: after school when the buses let the kids out, weekends. I blended in with the neighbors.”
“I’ve seen you before.” Annie stared hard at Serena and realized why she’d looked so familiar. Not because she’d seen her at Lydgate Park Beach here in Kauai. But because she’d seen her around the neighborhood at their lake house. She’d thought she was one of the neighbors, someone she never really paid attention to.
“Yes.” Serena’s face lit up, as if she were glad Annie remembered her.
“How long?” Annie wanted to ask how long she’d been doing this but couldn’t get the rest of the words out.
“How long what?” Serena tilted her head, as if contemplating the question. “How long have I been watching you?”
Annie nodded, still not able to form coherent thoughts. This couldn’t be happening.
“I guess four years.” Serena shrugged carelessly, as if discussing how long they’d been friends rather than how long she’d been stalking Annie. “I didn’t mean to. But every time I went to the house and saw you, I’d think, That’s my life. When I saw you working in the flower garden in front, I’d think, That was supposed to be my garden. I wouldn’t have put roses in. I would have made it a butterfly garden with native plants for the butterflies and bees. Only echinacea, blazing stars, black-eyed Susans. I’d sit in my car and plan what the garden should look like. You don’t know what restraint it took for me not to tell you to pull out those roses.”
“You’ve been watching me garden?” Annie shook her head in disbelief. This was getting weirder and weirder. She suddenly felt horribly exposed, as if all her clothes had fallen off and she had nothing to cover herself with.
“Garden and walk Lili before she passed away. One day, only months after you moved in, she was gone. It wasn’t until later that I learned she’d passed. My heart hurt for you.” Serena’s mouth turned downward, and she looked genuinely sad. “I also used to watch you and Finn in the backyard. You know the woods next to your house?”
Annie nodded, her senses on overload. One side of their property was a vacant lot, overgrown with trees and bushes. “You’d watch us from there?”
Serena’s eyes were clear, no shame at all in admitting that she’d been spying on them. “Yes. I’d watch you and Brody barbecuing on the back deck and think, That should have been me and Danny and our dog. Danny was so excited to get a grill and put it on the deck outside the kitchen, looking out over the lake as he manned it. But instead, your husband and sometimes you were the ones out there.”
“Oh my god, are you crazy?” Annie blurted this out without thinking and then winced. But how else to explain what Serena was saying? To think all this time, someone had been watching them, observing their lives, and they’d never known? Annie rubbed her hands up and down her arms, trying to warm herself.
“No, I swear. I’m not.” Serena stood and took a step closer to Annie but stopped when Annie held up a hand. “I never approached you, did I? I didn’t do anything crazy like leave dead animals on your doorstep. I could have. But I didn’t because I’m not. Don’t you see?”
“I don’t see. All I know is you’ve been watching us without our knowing. Do you hear how creepy that is?”
“I swear I wasn’t trying to be creepy. I just couldn’t let go of my dreams.” Serena stopped and swiped a hand over her eyes. “When you had your baby, I really felt like you were living my parallel life. That was my canoe that I was supposed to take out on the lake with my husband and son. That was my backyard, where I was supposed to watch my son take his first steps and play. That was my family that was supposed to walk to the beach together, pushing a beach buggy filled with sand toys, towels, beach chairs, and an umbrella. My house. My life. And you were living it, not me!”
Serena’s voice had risen with each word so that she nearly screamed “not me.” Annie backed up against the front door, fear coursing through her veins. Marley was now glued to her side, the hair on his back standing up. She took a deep breath, trying to gather her wits. She couldn’t process everything Serena was saying, but she knew she had to do something. Serena looked on the brink of losing it, and Annie kicked herself again for letting her into the Ohana.