Fragile by Lisa Unger Page A

far wall. She walked to the window and saw the pizza delivery car in her drive. She glanced at her watch, then went to the kitchen for her wallet. When she returned, the delivery boy was peering in one of the windows. She opened the door, was surprised by how cool the air had turned once the sun had set.
    “Hey, Dr. Cooper.” The delivery boy went on to say something else, something about a cold front moving in, but she barely heard him. Her eyes fell on a figure standing across the street. He leaned against a tall, old oak, washed in the glow of lamplight. It was too dim and he was too far, so she couldn’t quite read his expression, though she recognized his bearing, those permanently slouched shoulders.
    She stepped through the doorway and came to stand beside the delivery boy. She could smell warm pizza, cheap aftershave, wood burning on the air. She crossed her arms against the chill.
    “Marshall?” she called.
    She waited for a hand raised in greeting, or for him to start walkingacross the street. Maybe he felt bad about their session, wanted to talk about it. That would be a good sign. But he stood rooted.
    “Marshall, is everything all right?”
    She felt the quickening of her pulse when he still stayed silent. She was about to move toward him, to cross the street and bring him inside. She’d confront him head-on. She needed to show him that he didn’t intimidate her, if that was what he was after. But then he took off at a run. She looked after him until he was just a pair of white sneakers, then was swallowed by the night. A moment later she heard a car door slam, an engine rumbling to life.
    “Twenty-four fifty,” the pizza boy said. “Dr. Cooper?”
    “Yes. Sorry.” She handed him thirty, told him to keep the rest, and he, too, took off at a brisk jog, toward his parked car. Just a kid, he looked barely old enough to be driving. He didn’t seem to think much of the strange encounter, was only concerned with his next delivery. She held the hot pizza boxes and salad, still looking after Marshall. She had no reason to be afraid. But she found that she was.
    An hour later, Maggie was still waiting on Jones. The pizza boxes sat one on top of the other on the cold burners of the stovetop. The salad was in the fridge. Ricky wouldn’t come down. Jones hadn’t answered at the station; his assistant, Claire, was obviously gone for the evening. There was still no answer on his cell phone. She tried not to worry. As a cop’s wife, she’d learned not to. Jones had taught her early in their marriage that if there were something to worry about, she’d know right away. That was when he worked patrol. Now that he headed the detective division in a relatively small department, there was less reason to worry than ever.
    The Hollows was a small, relatively affluent town, about a hundred miles outside of New York City. There were some challenged areas in the district, daily problems with drug dealers, domestic violence; there had been an armed robbery at a liquor store a few months earlier. Recently, a man had killed his wife and then himself, suffering a breakdown after learning she’d had an affair. There were the usual break-insand petty crimes. It wasn’t the kind of small town where everyone knew one another and nothing ever happened. But it was a relatively safe and quiet community. People who had grown up in The Hollows often returned after college to raise families. Doctors, lawyers, businesspeople who worked in the city commuted home by train on weekday nights. It had that quaintness to it, the kind that rich urbanites started to crave in their forties, when the glitz of the city ceased to glamour them. It was a nice place to live, with good schools, a lively center with trendy boutiques, an independent bookstore, a couple of nice restaurants, and The Hollows Brew, an upscale coffee shop that hosted a weekly poetry reading, showed the work of local artists on its walls, and had become a kind of general