Little Secrets Read online

  “Thank you,” Ginny said aloud. “Thank you, Caroline. And…please…keep Noodles safe with you. Love her a lot…for me.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “The house looks amazing. How did you do it?” Kendra bounced Carter on her hip as the baby looked goggle-eyed at the lights strung along the molding.

  “A little at a time. That’s all.” That was the truth too. A little bit every day for the past three weeks. A few strings of lights, a couple batches of cookies. Nothing too strenuous, nothing Sean could chastise her about.

  Nothing, in fact, that he’d noticed. He’d come home from work and class every night, sometimes too late to even eat dinner. Sometimes he smelled of the bar. Sometimes he didn’t. When he did get home early, he watched TV and went to bed. He hadn’t so much as put a hand on her in weeks. Barely kissed her in the mornings. It was just like it had been…before, only this time she didn’t have the Inkpot to distract her.

  “Well, it looks great. Thanks so much for inviting us.”

  Ginny found a smile. “Glad you could make it. Help yourself to food, drink, whatever.” She looked at Carson and Kelly. “I have games set up in the den, if you want to play them. There are some other kids in there.”

  Watching them scamper off as Kendra took the baby toward the buffet table, Ginny scanned the room for sight of her husband. He’d gone into the carport to put some beer in the giant tub of ice. She needed him to get some more napkins down from the high pantry shelf.

  “Talk about a white Christmas.” This was Peg, a plate of food in her hands and a set of festive reindeer antlers on her head.

  “Are you kidding? It’s been snowing since the end of November. I’ll be surprised if we ever have spring.”

  “Pessimist.” Peg bit into a sugar cookie. “Ooh. Gran’s recipe?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  Her sister laughed. “You’ve become ridiculously domestic.”

  “Wow, and you look ridiculously festive.” Ginny looked at her own maroon, dropped-waist dress. It had a white-lace collar. She felt ridiculous. Like a pregnant toddler.

  “You look gorgeous,” Peg said. “That dress is the perfect color for you.”

  Ginny rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Peg laughed. “Oh stop. Great party, by the way. Who are all these people?”

  “Beats me. Word must’ve spread around the neighborhood.” Ginny waved a hand toward the dining room, where she’d set the table with the vast display of food. “Neighbors. Some people Sean works with. You guys. Friends. You know, the usual Christmas open house crowd.”

  “Who knew you were so popular?”

  Ginny laughed and shifted, wishing she’d gone with her sneakers instead of these too-tight black flats. Her dogs were barking. “Not me.”

  The door opened, bringing in a swirl of frigid air and whirlwind of pine needles from the decaying wreath on the front door. More people. She knew them. Louisa from the Inkpot, along with Tiffany, Michele and Becky. Ginny would’ve stepped back in surprise, but the wall was at her back and she had no place to go.

  “I’ll let you go play hostess. I’m going to find Dale,” Peg said and abandoned her.

  Not that Ginny should’ve felt abandoned. These people had been her friends once, or at the very least acquaintances. Louisa, in fact, had made quite the effort to stay in touch. Guilt stabbed her. She’d never returned Louisa’s calls or messages, and though she’d promised her that day in the grocery store, Ginny had never gone back to the Inkpot.

  “Ginny! Oh my God, you look so great!” Tiffany had a loud voice and a bright smile, and she was a hugger. She came for Ginny with both arms open wide, engulfing her before patting and making baby goo-goo noises at her belly. “Congratulations!”

  “Thanks. Umm…”

  “Your husband invited us,” Tiffany said. “Came by the Inkpot with a cute, little printed-out invitation and said to make sure that the whole gang came. All of us.”

  Of course Sean hadn’t mentioned it. He probably thought he was doing her a favor. Ginny smiled and nodded, accepted their hugs and congratulations, directed them toward the food and drink and where to hang their coats. She moved to close the door behind the last person, but someone pushed it open from the other side.

  And there he was.

  “Hi, Ginny,” Jason said. “Merry Christmas.”

  The world whirled out from beneath her, but Ginny didn’t fall, and she didn’t spin. She would never do that again for him. Never.

  “I came with Becky,” he said quietly. Standing a little too close. Voice a little too low so she had to strain to hear him. His gaze held hers a little too long. “I didn’t mean to surprise you.”

  Ginny blinked rapidly. She took a breath. “Oh, Jason. Yes you did.”

  Then she turned on the flat heel of her pinching shoe and went upstairs, leaving him behind. It was quiet up there, the sounds of the party far enough away to make it clear to her she had responsibilities as a hostess to get down there and make sure everyone had enough to eat, enough to drink. Enough to make merry.

  “Fa la la la fucking la,” she whispered with the bedroom door shut tight behind her back. She put her hands on her belly as the baby inside squirmed and kicked. Her heart hurt, and it hurt to breathe, but, no, she was not going to cry. She was not going to lose her shit here and now. Not tonight, not because of him.

  He’d come with Becky. Of course he did. Becky had always had her sights set on him. Becky, with her low-cut shirts and tits hanging out, her tiny, tight ass and skinny jeans tucked into knee-high boots, her blonde hair hanging down from underneath her trendy little caps.

  Ginny’s jealousy was huge and ugly and unrepentant. It came with sharp teeth and jagged claws and venom, and it tore her up from the inside out. She panted with the effort of keeping her tears locked up tight, but her mouth opened in a silent, yawning scream she stopped by biting the meaty part of her palm. She closed her eyes and breathed.

  She breathed.

  In the darkness by her closet, something moved.

  With the lights off, the push of air as whatever it was moved gave it away, rather than anything she could actually see. The only light came from beneath the door, and it crept only an inch or so along the floor around her feet. Then, the flash of something.

  Eyes.

  Now was not the time to fuck with her. Ginny stepped forward. “Who’s there? What are you doing in here?”

  And then, more softly, “Caroline?”

  It moved again, dark on dark. A hint of swirling hair, an outstretched hand. Ginny reached suddenly frigid fingers into the darkness. The room had gone so cold she was sure that in the light she’d have been able to see her breath.

  “Ginny?” The door bumped into her, closing at once. She stepped away as Sean pushed it again. Light spilled into the room, bright enough to make her squint. “Are you— Hey. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. It’s too hot downstairs. I came up to change.” She tore at the hideous dress, moving toward the open closet door. She turned on the light, looked up and down, but whatever it had been was gone. If anything, it was colder in here than in the bedroom, and in a moment she saw why.

  The cubbyhole door was open. Not a lot. Just a crack, but it was enough to let the tendrils of icy outside air seep into the closet. Ginny closed it, hard. She traced the outline of the door with her fingertips and turned to look at her husband who’d come in behind her.

  “I’ll be down in a few minutes. I just want to put on something more comfortable.”

  “I thought maybe you weren’t feeling good. Peg said you just disappeared.”

  Ginny straightened, looking him in the eye, searching his face, that lovely face, for any sign. Anything at all, any glimmer or hint that he’d known what he was doing when he invited her “friends” from the Inkpot.

  But no matter h