No Place Like Home by Mary Higgins Clark Page A

said.
    â€œDid whoever put the picture near Lizzie come while we were asleep?” Jack asked.
    â€œI don’t know.” My mouth went dry. Suppose whoever had taped it on the post had been in the barn when Jack walked in here alone? What kind of sick mind had planned the defacing of the house and lawn, and how did this picture fall into his hands? What might he have done to my son if Jack had walked in while he was here?
    Jack was standing on tiptoes, stroking the pony’s muzzle. “Lizzie’s pretty, isn’t she, Mom?” he asked,his attention completely diverted from the picture that was now in the pocket of my robe.
    The pony was rust-colored with a small white marking on the bridge of its nose that, at a stretch, could be interpreted as a star. “Yes, she is, Jack,” I said, trying not to show the fear that was making me want to snatch Jack in my arms and run away. “But I think she’s too pretty to be called Lizzie. Let’s think up another name for her, shall we?”
    Jack looked at me. “I like to call her Lizzie,” he said, a stubborn note creeping into his voice. “Yesterday you said I could call her any name I wanted.”
    He was right, but maybe there was a way I could change his mind. I pointed to the white marking. “I think any pony with a star on its face should be called ‘Star,’ ” I said. “That will be my name for Lizzie. Now we’d better get you ready for school.”
    Jack was starting pre-K at ten o’clock at St. Joseph’s, the school I had attended until the fourth grade. I wondered if any of my old teachers were still there, and if so, would meeting me stir something in their memories.

10

    B y pleading, cajoling, and offering a handsome bonus, Georgette Grove managed to find a landscaper who would cut out the damaged grass and lay sod on the front lawn of the Nolans’ house. She also secured a painter that same afternoon to cover the red paint splattered on the shingles. She had not yet been able to hire a mason to repair the stone, nor a woodwork expert to remove the skull and crossbones carved in the front door.
    The events of the day had resulted in an almost sleepless night. At six o’clock when Georgette heard the sound of the newspaper delivery service in her driveway, she leapt out of bed. Every night before retiring, she prepared the coffee pot so that in the morning she could simply flip the switch. Without even thinking, she did exactly that as she hurried to the side door of the kitchen, opened it, and retrieved the newspapers from the driveway.
    The dreadful worry that was sitting like a slab of concrete on her head was that Celia Nolanwould demand that the sale of the house be voided. This is the fourth time in twenty-four years that I’ve sold that house, Georgette reminded herself. Jane Salzman got it cheap because of all the publicity about it, but she was never happy there. She claimed that there was a popping sound when the heat went on that no plumber could fix, a sound that reminded her of shots being fired. After ten years she’d had enough.
    It took two years before it was sold to the Greens. They stayed nearly six years, then listed it with her. “It’s a beautiful house, but no matter how much I try, I can’t get over the feeling that something terrible will happen here again, and I don’t want to be around for it,” Eleanor Green had said when she called Georgette to give her the listing.
    The last owners, the Harrimans, had a home in Palm Beach and spent most of their time there. When the kids pulled their Halloween trick last year, they abruptly decided to move to Florida fulltime instead of waiting another year or so. “There’s such a different feeling in our house there,” Louise Harriman had told Georgette when she handed her the key. “Around here, I feel as though everyone is thinking of me as the lady who lives in