Chapter One
“I’m going kill that damn trash panda.”
The dumb animal chittered away at her from the high branch of the southern pine tree it had run up, still holding her keys.
Zoe Acevedo tromped around the side of the house, kicking at pine cones in her path. “I’m going to skin it and make a nice, fuzzy hat. Maybe Elba has room on her fancy cafe menu for raccoon stew.”
She pulled her thick, curly hair—made even curlier by North Carolina’s late summer humidity—back and twisted it up off her nape. The teeth had broken off the last of her clips and she hadn’t had a chance to get more so she didn’t have anything to keep it up. Letting it fall back down, she leaned into the open driver side window of her Honda CR-V and grabbed her cell phone from the console. Pulling up the contacts, she closed her eyes, inhaled deeply through her nose, exhaled slowly through her mouth, prayed for inner peace, and called her mother.
She answered on the first ring. “Onde tu está?”
“Olá, mamãe. The drive was fine. Thank you for asking.”
“I talked to you an hour ago, why wouldn’t the drive have been fine? Are you at the house?”
Zoe sighed. “Sim, I’m at the house. Where do you keep the hide-a-key?”
She stooped in front of the door and lifted the mat—nothing there. No flower pots or weird rocks around the porch either.
“Why do you need the hide-a-key? What’s wrong with the keys I gave you?”
Zoe hung her head and pressed the palm of her hand against her eye socket. “A raccoon took my keys.”
It sounded even more ridiculous saying it out loud.
“Que?”
“A raccoon. Fuzzy, gray animal. Looks like it’s wearing a mask.”
“I know what a raccoon is. How did it steal your keys?”
This was humiliating. “I unloaded my suitcases by the door and set the keys on top. I went to get a couple of boxes from the back of my car and when I turned around, the damn thing had my keys in his paws. When I shouted, he ran around the back of the house and up a tree.”
Walking around the house while explaining the situation to her mother, she glared up into the tree the raccoon had climbed.
He was gone.
She kicked around the base of the tree, hoping the flea-ridden thief had dropped them. No such luck. Thankfully, it was only the house keys and not her car keys.
Her mother tsk-ed in her ear. “The neighbor has it, querida.”
Zoe blew out a breath. “Which neighbor? Please don’t tell me it’s old lady Wilson.”
“Zoe Mariana Olivera Acevedo, don’t be disrespectful to your elders.”
“Sim, mamãe.” Zoe rolled her eyes. Old lady Wilson had been old and mean when she’d been in high school. There was no telling how much worse she was now.
“Tim has the key,” her mother said.
“Who is Tim?”
“The police officer that moved next door a few years ago. I told you about him. He helped us when we had those horrible renters and your father had to evict them.”
A vague memory surfaced of her mother telling her about that, but her mother was always telling her stories about people she didn’t know, so she didn’t always pay attention.
One of the many complaints her mother voiced. Along with not providing her with any grandchildren while Zoe’d had the chance and then divorcing her cheating ex, thereby ensuring her mother would never get any grandchildren from her. Because the five her brother and sister had supplied weren’t enough.
“I’m so happy you’re going to be living in the house and we won’t have to worry about that anymore. Plus there’s all the money we’ll save by not having to pay a property manager.”
“I’m just glad the timing worked out and you didn’t have a renter.” Because the prospect of living in a one-bedroom apartment, which was all she would have been able to afford, had not been appealing at all. “Which house does Tim live in?” she asked, walking around to the front.
“The Roberts house.”
“All right. I’ll call you back.”
“We’re headed on a shore excursion, so I won’t have reception for a while.”
“All right. I’ll figure it out.”
“Tchau, caro.”
“Tchau, mamãe.” She disconnected and slid the phone into her back pocket.
Back in front, she cut across the overgrown lawn to the two-story home that was a mirror image of her parent’s house. She’d babysat for the Roberts family in high school. Hard to believe that was almost fifteen years ago.
Thirty-two wasn’t by any means ancient, but the thought made her feel old.
A yawn forced its way out of her mouth, reminding her she’d been driving for ten hours and wanted nothing more than a hot shower and a bed. Neither of which she was going to be able to have without a key to the front door.
The empty driveway and dark house did not bode well for her chances. She pressed the doorbell anyway, hoping neighbor Tim’s car was in the garage and he was a hard-of-hearing geriatric who went to bed at six o’clock every night.
A few minutes later, she had no such luck. Closing her eyes, she leaned her forehead against the door with a tired whimper. She’d leave a note on his door and nap in her car until he got home. Not ideal, but she was too tired to care.
Her phone rang and she answered it without raising her head or opening her eyes. “Hello?”
“Zoe, don’t—”
She hung up. Pushing away from the door, she stared at the ornamental knocker.
“Baby Jesus hates me.”
Her phone rang again and this time she looked at the display. She groaned. Her ex might actually have been preferable to her older sister.
“Hello.”
“A raccoon?” Gabriella’s laughter blasted from the phone.
Zoe waited for it to subside. “Did you call just to laugh at me?”
“Absolutely.”
“I thought she was going on a shore excursion.”
“She texted me and told me to check on you. Matthew, quit hitting your brother!”
“If you need to take care of that, I’ll let you go,” Zoe said.
“Ha. Ha. Normal occurrence around here. Did you get the key from the neighbor?”
“He’s not home.” She pushed away from the door and headed back across the lawn. “I don’t suppose you have his number?”
“No. I think João has it.”
“I’m not talking to João.”
“Again?”
“He defended Mark.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“I didn’t want to rehash it.”
Having her brother try to defend her ex for cheating on her had been almost as big of a betrayal as Mark cheating on her in the first place. Gabby had a tendency to try to play peacekeeper. She didn’t need her trying to see João’s side.
“Hmm. What are you going to do?” Gabby asked.
“Leave a note on the door and sleep in my car.”
“That sucks. Too bad you can’t sneak in the way we used to in high school.”
“I couldn’t climb that tree now even if it was still standing. And you did the sneaking.” She opened the car door and rummaged in the console for a pen. “Too bad the latch on the kitchen window isn’t still broken.”
“I think it is.”
She stood up. “Really? I thought dad fixed it years ago.”
“It was one of those things he was going to get around to but never did and he didn’t want to pay a handyman fifty dollars to fix it.”
Yes! She might have a way in.
“I don’t think you’re going to fit through that window,” Gabby said.
“What are you trying to say?”
“Uh, we’re built like mom and your hips aren’t going to fit through that window.”
“I’ve lost fifteen pounds, I’ll have you know. Divorce will do that to you.”
She dragged the heavy-duty plastic trash can under the window.
“So really you lost two hundred pounds.”
“Oh, yeah. Good one.” She climbed on top of the bin. Sure enough, the latch was still broken.
“Have you heard from him since you left?”
“He’s called a couple of times. I try not to answer. Hang on, I’m going to put you on speaker.”
She slid the window open and assessed it. The trash can only put her almost waist-high to the bottom of the sill. There was no way to climb in sideways, which would be the easiest way in.
Okay, so it might be a tight squeeze. Normally she’d wait but she wanted to go to sleep. She’d hauled ass across the country, only stopping when she absolutely had to and waking up at the crack of dawn to get on the road. If she could get in the window, she’d be able to get a decent amount of sleep as opposed to the little she’d get in her car.
Gripping her phone, Zoe hefted herself into the window. Using her hips as a pivot, she leaned forward and wiggled in a little more, the metal track of the frame digging into the fleshy part of her hips.
“Well?” Gabby asked.
“Almost.” She grunted. Her bruises were going to be epic in two or three days.
She tried wriggling in the rest of the way. With her feet in the air and all her weight forward, she didn’t have any leverage. Shifting her weight to one side, she tried to roll onto her hip.
Nope. Nope. Nope. That hurt way too much to work and without being able to brace her feet and the heaviest part of her body on something, she’d never be able to crawl in.
Rolling back to her front, her head fell forward in defeat. “I’m not going to fit.”
“I told you.”
“Can we skip the if-everyone-would-just-listen-to-me-in-the-first-place-everyone-would-be-so-much-happier lecture right now?”
“As long as you know it’s true.”
“It’s only true some of the time.”
“Most of the time.”
“Whatever.”
If she hadn’t been busy trying to rock her hips back out the window, she’d have told her sister where she could stuff her lecture.
The same predicament that kept her from going forward kept her from getting out. In her current position, she couldn’t lower her legs enough to reach the trash can and kicking them didn’t help. Neither did pushing against the backsplash under the window.
Puta merda. “Gabby.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m stuck.”
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