Free The Woman Next Door by Barbara Delinsky

pregnant.” October would mean that the culprit could as easily be Graham as Lee. Graham had redone the landscaping for Gretchen last fall, and had spent a fair share of time inside with her reviewing the plans. October would also mean that Russ had to be a suspect. By October, his wife would have been at work, the kids back at school, and no one other than Karen around to see what he did. But for Karen, October had been a hellish month, crammed with new-school-season events that kept her away from home much of the day.
    “Is not looking it good or bad?” Gretchen asked.
    “Good. Definitely good. It means less worry afterward. Not that you’d have any worry at all. Pregnant. Wow.” She paused, giving Gretchen time to remark about the father. When she said nothing, Karen gestured at the paint-spattered shirt. “You’re decorating a nursery.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Navy and yellow?”
    Gretchen nodded.
    “That’s nice. You can do it the first time around, with no other little ones tugging at you. I loved being pregnant with my first. It was harder after that, especially the last time. Lee wasn’t good about taking the three boys off to do things, so I had to juggle theirschedules around a huge belly. You get bigger with each child. The muscles lose their tone. But I do love having my girl. I don’t care what they say there’s a difference. Genetically. Uh, do you know what it is? Boy or girl?”
    Gretchen shook her head.
    “I guess you wouldn’t,” Karen reasoned. “They don’t start talking about amniocentesis until a woman is thirty-five. You’re still young. They wouldn’t do an amnio unless there’s cause for worry like the possibility of passing on a congenital disease that runs in your family or in the family of the baby’s father.” Again, she paused. Gretchen remained quiet. “Was this . . .”—she searched for the word with studied nonchalance—“uh ... planned?”
    “No. Definitely not.”
    Well, that was something, Karen reflected, though it didn’t tell her what she needed to know. “But you want the baby.”
    “Oh, yes.”
    Karen smiled. “So, what do you think Ben would say?”
    “He’d be pleased. He knew I wanted a child.”
    “And the baby’s father?” There it was. Finally out. Totally natural. Totally appropriate.
    Gretchen let the question hang, arching her brows as if to ask,
    What about the baby’s father?
    “Is he pleased?” Karen prompted. “He doesn’t know.” Oh Lord. “Will you tell him?” “I’m not sure.”
    “Don’t you think he ought to know?” “No. He has other obligations.”
    Karen didn’t like the sound of that. It fell too close to home. “And here we all thought you were sleeping alone,” she teased.
    Gretchen didn’t crack a smile. “I am,” she said with quiet finality.
    Not knowing what to say to that, Karen simply added, “Well, enjoy the cookies.” With a backhanded wave, she left.
    But she didn’t head home. She strode straight through her own yard to Russ’s, thinking as she did that Gretchen was the most unfriendly neighbor she’d ever had, that neighbors didn’t answer kind gestures with monosyllabic answers, that the woman had to be guilty of something.
    Concerned that the something had to do with her own husband, Karen walked right into the Langes’ kitchen and started in on Russ, who fortunately was alone there.
    “She’s seven months pregnant. She just told me so.”
    “Seven?” he asked, turning from the sink where he was washing dishes. “Whew. We’ve been kept in the dark.”
    “We still are. She wouldn’t say who the father is. Wouldn’t give a hint. You had to have seen something, Russ. You’re here more than any of the rest of us. You have to know something.”
    Russ raised soapy hands in denial, distancing himself from the fray. “Not me.”
    “Not you being the father?”
    “Not me knowing anything.” He pushed up his glasses with the back of his wrist, returned his hands to the water, and