Free Little Secrets by Megan Hart Page B

since they were pulling up the street to the house. Sean parked, then peered upward through the windshield.
    â€œWish we had a garage.” He pointed, frowning. “Wonder why he never rebuilt it after the fire.”
    Ginny also looked through the glass toward the empty space where Sean’s coveted garage had once stood. It was strange to see a house bare of a garage in a suburban neighborhood like this. Every other house on the block had one. Even their townhouse, tiny as it was, had had one. Here there was plenty of room in the driveway for at least four cars, but the trip from the car to the house wasn’t even sheltered by a breezeway. It was on the ten-year plan, along with landscaping and finishing the basement.
    â€œWho knows. Money, probably. Isn’t everything always about money?”
    â€œNot everything,” her husband said.
    Ginny got out of the car. She went to the house and straight to the fridge to get a snack. She’d been looking forward to something ooey-gooey—cheese sticks or chili fries, something like that. Instead, she had a choice of organic yogurt and granola or a handful of almonds. Totally not satisfactory. She found some ice cream in the freezer, contemplated a bowl, decided to eat it straight from the carton. Because she was only going to have a bite or two…right?
    Sean must’ve had the same idea, because the carton was almost empty. Ginny frowned but scraped the cardboard sides with her spoon. So, she’d have to finish all of it; that was no big deal. She had the spoon in her mouth when Sean came into the kitchen behind her.
    â€œWhat’s for dinner?”
    Ginny, metal still tucked against her tongue, looked at him for a long half a minute before she slowly removed the spoon. “I don’t know. What is for dinner?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Sean opened the fridge. Looked inside. Looked at her. Closed the fridge. “Are you going to make something or…?”
    â€œThere’s plenty of lunchmeat and deli rolls in there. Macaroni salad.” Ginny scraped the last bit of ice cream and licked the spoon clean, then went to the trash to dump the carton. Through the back door, she caught a glimpse of two red coats. Blond hair. Those kids from next door were in her yard again.
    â€œI thought you’d cook something.”
    â€œDid you?” she said absently, trying to see exactly what the kids were doing.
    Sean was quiet for another minute. “No.”
    â€œHave a sandwich,” Ginny told him and went out the back door.
    â€œWhere are you going?”
    â€œI’m going to chase those kids out of our yard,” she told him and let the door close behind her.
    In the side yard she found a soft-foam football on the grass and a battered wooden wagon half-hidden in the leaves. No kids, though. They must’ve ducked through the hedge. The yard itself was a mess even without the abandoned toys. Their yard had only the two big trees, but both had completely shed their leaves and none of them had blown away. The grass was also ankle high, brown and dead instead of lush and green, but overgrown just the same. Ginny scuffed through the piles made by the wind shoving the leaves against the hedge and the house, kicking her feet the way she had as a kid.
    This was the side of the house with windows into the basement, and lined up along the window well, Ginny found a set of carved wooden figures. Like the lady in the fur stole, the figures wore clothes of past fashions, and their sizes ranged from the length of her pinky to match the rest of her fingers too. The weather had worn some of these harder than the ones she’d already found. How long had they been here? Ginny bent as best she could to peek into the window, but could see only dirty glass until she reached to rub a circle clean. Then, still nothing. She stood without moving the figures, wondering what sort of game the kids next door had been playing.
    In