Free Someone Is Watching by Joy Fielding Page B

cutlery. “So, do the police have any suspects?” she asks, popping the bubble with her teeth, her hands dripping with forks and knives.
    I picture using one of the knives to stab my attacker, my righthand balling into a tight fist as I feel the knife rip through his chest to pierce his heart.
    “Earth to Bailey. Hello? Is anybody home?” Jade’s voice snaps me out of my reverie.
    “Sorry. What did you say?”
    “I asked if the police have any suspects.”
    “No. None that I’m aware of.”
    “So, what—they think it was, like, a random attack?”
    “What else would it be?”
    “Maybe you were targeted,” Jade says with a shrug.
    “Jade, really.” Claire lays a gentle hand on my arm. “We’ll get those locks changed first thing in the morning.”

— SIX —
    “Can I speak to Detective Marx, please?” I press the phone to my ear and lean back against my pillow. The bedroom is in darkness, although it’s already inching toward ten A . M . I’ve thought of opening the blackout blinds, of letting the relentless sun inside, but have decided against it. I’m not ready to acknowledge the start of yet another endless day, although day and night have become almost interchangeable to me. One provides no more comfort than the other.
    “One minute, please,” the male officer informs me. I hear an unpleasant undertone to his voice, as if I have interrupted him at something important, or at least something more important than me.
Does he recognize my voice?
I wonder as he puts me on hold, the cheery sound of Latin music instantly rushing to fill the void. I picture the officer leaning across his desk and shouting toward Detective Marx, “Hey, it’s that Carpenter girl again. Third time in the last hour. You still want me to tell her you’re busy?”
    I understand. I really do. The sad fact is I’m yesterday’s news. I have been replaced by other, newer, fresher, more interesting crimes: a woman strangled by her boyfriend after a heated argumentover who deserves to be America’s Next Top Model; a severed hand discovered in a swamp by the side of I-95; a shooting in a 7-Eleven that left one person dead and another clinging to life. I can’t compete. I have been relegated to the proverbial back burner where I simmer on a barely perceptible flame, my essence slowly distilling into the air, like steam, until soon there will be nothing left.
    “Maybe you were targeted,” I hear my niece say.
    Is it possible?
    What if Jade is right? Although with the elimination of Roland Peterson and Todd Elder as suspects, who would target me? What motive would he have?
    What am I doing?
I wonder, pulling the phone away from my ear, rudely interrupting Gloria Estefan in the middle of her song. What is it I hope to accomplish by hearing the police confirm, yet again, that they have no new leads? I press the phone’s
off
button, return it to its charger. There is nothing Detective Marx can tell me that I don’t already know.
    I push myself out of bed, stumble toward the bathroom on legs no longer used to traveling more than a few feet at a time, remove my pajamas in the dark, and get into the shower. When I am sufficiently scalded, I turn off the hot water and wrap a clean towel around my torso, saying a silent thank-you to Claire for doing at least three loads of wash before she finally left last night at just before midnight. I walk to the bedroom window, press the button on the wall that operates the blackout blinds, and watch them automatically rise toward the ceiling. A world of glass houses greets me, sunlight skating across their icy smooth surfaces.
    I see them immediately, although they don’t see me: the construction workers in the burgeoning building across from me, prancing around in their blue, white, and yellow hardhats. Their presence always startles me, although they are here every morning and have been for more than a year, starting their hammering at exactly eight o’clock each morning, piling one floor on