Chapter 2

The sharp ringing of the telephone made Ashley jolt up from her slumber. She rubbed her eyes for the first few seconds, unable to understand what had happened to her.

Then, it all came back. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa for God knows how long. The telephone had stopped ringing, and she was now alone with her thoughts.

Instinctively, she glanced at the wall clock and jumped to her feet at once. 3 p.m.? It was already 3 p.m.? The kids would be back from school soon, and so would her husband. He had the morning shift this week.

Ashley Baker wondered what had happened to her, what had caused her to fall asleep for so long and lose track of time. And the dream! It came out of nowhere. It was so vivid like she was reliving it all over again.

Thankfully, it was all a dream. Shaking the feeling off, she rose to her feet and headed toward the dining room, where she began to microwave the sandwich she’d placed on the table, which had gone cold already.

The telephone began to ring again. Ashley sighed tiredly as she made her way to the adjoining room to answer the call.

“Hello,” she said slowly.

“Hey, darling,” a warm voice responded.

Ashley began to smile. The voice was unmistakable.

“Mr. Baker, can you tell me why you couldn’t call my cell phone instead of being dramatic this afternoon?”

She listened as her husband chuckled lightly on the phone.

“Well, I’ve always loved to be unpredictable.”

“No doubt about that,” Ashley said. “So you’re coming home now?”

“Yes,” he responded. “I just needed to fill you in on a tiny detail before I arrive.”

Her nerves suddenly became alert. “What’s up?”

He did not respond immediately. She heard the rustle of papers on the line and a faint indistinct conversation going on in the background. A few seconds later, her husband’s voice came on the phone again.

“Sorry about that, love. I’ll be quick. There’s a patient waiting for me right now.” He paused to catch his breath. “Somebody is coming with a package for me. I may not be home in time to receive it. Can you please receive it when it arrives and sign where necessary?”

Ashley blinked in acquiescence. “Of course. I can handle that.”

“Good,” her husband said after a moment’s pause. “And please, resist the urge to have a look at it. It’s work stuff. You know how much discretion I normally attach to it.”

“I understand,” Ashley said simply.

The line went dead.

She stood for a moment by herself and thought about the conversation that had just ensued with her husband.

This was not the first time she was receiving a ‘work package’ for him when he was not around, and yet, every time she had to do it, it came with the condition that she was not permitted to look inside it.

It was not that she’d ever had a problem with that. Ashley Baker, formerly Ashley Todd, had married Elliot Baker when she was 21. She was way above 40 now, and if there was anything her years in marriage had taught her, it was to respect her husband like a god.

She’d married him at a time when she was a beauty queen, and now, she had aged like fine wine, beautiful and exquisite. Her daughter, Charlotte, had inherited her silky blonde hair, and Alexander, her first son and the first fruit of the marriage, had turned out to be a very fine man.

There was nothing more precious in the whole world to Ashley than her family. And all these years, everything she’d done, both good and bad, was to keep them closely knitted together.

She was not about to jeopardize everything she’d spent all these years building with a single act of insubordination with her husband. If he insisted that his mysterious packages were not to be ever looked into, then that was what she was going to do.

Ashley snapped out of her thoughts as she heard a sharp knock on the door. She hurried through the steps and took off her apron by the sitting room.

Then, she went for the door. She stopped just before it and put the strands of hair that had fallen over her face in place. Then, she plastered a genial smile on her face.

She opened the door to an attractive-looking man in his 20s. His uniform suggested that he was from the delivery company.

The young man looked at her for a moment, then he consulted the book he was holding, and his gaze returned to her.

“Tyler Stone speaking. I have a delivery for Mr. Elliot Baker.”

Ashley thought this was the right time to put her charming smiles to good use.

“I’m Ashley Baker, his wife. I can take the package.”

The young man hesitated for a moment, his eyes reading through her face. Ashley was unflinching. Her jaws were beginning to hurt from the prolonged smile on her face.

“Sure,” the young man finally said. “You just have to sign here.”

He leaned closer and showed her the blank space in the book where she was going to sign on. Ashley drew her signature on the empty spot and handed the book back to him.

“Thank you,” she said curtly.

The man nodded and went on his way.

She studied the package for a moment. It was small and flat. Like a letter. Or perhaps a report. She was not so sure. But she trusted her husband. And he was a doctor. Getting reports that looked like this was not strange.

The honk of a moving van parked directly opposite her house caused her attention to drift from the package she was holding in the opposite direction.

Ashley stared at the Lake House unseeingly for a full minute. That was a moving van, alright. Were they having new neighbors? She watched as two young men jumped out of the van and removed small boxes from it. Another man was carrying the boxes into the house.

A woman stood by the door supervising the men. She was tall with long flowing black hair. Ashley strained to pick up more details from their seemingly new neighbor, but her eyes could not see much from where she stood.

The Lake House had been unoccupied for so long and was long overdue for renovation. She wondered if her new neighbors had taken that into consideration or if they were even aware of the condition of the house.

Were they going to make a lot of noise in the once-quiet neighborhood? Her mind became filled with questions as she studied the woman on the opposite side of the road.

Suddenly, her eyes shot like bayonets as she spotted the woman staring back at her. She could not make out the look on her face, but she knew that it was extremely rude of her to stare back at her and refuse to go say hello to her.

What were the odds? Ashley thought. She had to make a good first impression seeing now that they had a new neighbor. Who knows? She could have kids, too, who would become her kids’ friends in time.

Ashley heaved a deep breath and placed the package she’d just received gently on the table. Then, she shut the door and began to cross over to the Lake House. It was a good thing she had decided to wear a brightly colored dress today. She hoped her new neighbor appreciated her good fashion sense, at least outwardly.

It always made her extremely happy whenever anybody commented on her choice of clothing. It gave her a sense of fulfillment that she was spending her husband’s money wisely.

Her heart quickened as she neared the woman. The knot in her stomach got tighter by the second. What am I doing? Ashley thought to herself.

She stopped a few inches from where the woman stood as if she was waiting for some sort of confirmation from the woman before she moved any closer.

Then, with a warm smile spread across her lips, she greeted.

“Hello, neighbor. Welcome to the neighborhood. I don’t mean to pry, but I could see you’re just moving in. I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t come with a housewarming gift. I… saw you from my house, and I had to come to say hello.”

Ashley stopped at once, realizing she was talking too fast.

The woman was barely listening, at least, so it seemed to Ashley. Ashley felt like she had just been doused with ice water. When the woman finally opened her mouth to speak, her voice seemed hollow and distant, like she was in another world.

“Hi! I’m Corinne Miller. My husband and I just bought the house,” she managed to smile and continued. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“The Lake House?” Ashley said, snapping out of her skin. “Of course. It’s not been occupied in a while, but it’s still got it… the spark.”

An awkward pause followed, and Ashley took a moment to take in all her features. Corinne had a perfectly set face covered with layers of makeup. Her thin lips and small round eyes somehow seemed to complement each other. And her long legs carried her body elegantly, giving her the advantage of height over her.

The long pause was becoming rather too awkward, and Ashley was afraid she was about to make a bad first impression. She was not sure what else to say. What is wrong with me?! She wondered.

Outwardly, Ashley said, “Forgive my manners. I’m Ashley Baker. My husband and I live with our kids just across the street.”

Corinne smiled slowly, revealing her perfectly arranged dentition. “I have a kid too, Zoey. Too bad she insisted on going with her father to buy a few new household items. I’d be pleased to introduce her to you, Mrs. Baker.”

“Ashley, please,” Ashley corrected. “I’d really love that, Corinne. I have no doubt Zoey and my daughter, Charlotte, will be such great friends.”

Corinne clicked her tongue before she responded. “You know how teenagers can be. I can’t make any promises. But you know, we’ll see.”

The smile on Ashley’s lips died off for a moment and returned in another moment. “Right,” she said simply.

Maybe it was something about the way her energy had just dropped or her guilt at what she’d just said to Ashley. But the words that came out of Corinne’s mouth were not something Ashley had expected.

“Hey, uhm…Can we have dinner together? Your family and my family at my house. I mean, it’s the perfect opportunity to introduce our families to each other. But it’s totally up to you to decide.”

Ashley looked into her paunch and tired brown eyes, wondering if this was some kind of perverse joke. She did not blink. She was indeed serious.

“I...” Her tongue tripped on the word. “I think that’s great. Tomorrow night then. I see you have a lot of unpacking to do today.”

Corinne nodded, looking back at the piled boxes lying on the floor, which the men had just unloaded from the van.

“You’re right. I certainly do have a lot of unpacking to do. I’ll fix the dinner tomorrow night, then.”

“Excellent!” Ashley blurted out. “I better head back to my house. The kids will be home soon. It was nice to meet you, Corinne,” she said, smiling.

Corinne returned her smile. “See you tomorrow, Ashley.”

With her back turned away from Corinne, Ashley hurried back to her house, a thousand questions about her new neighbor running through her mind.

In her hurry to get into her house, she had not observed the car parked across beside the Lake House, nor had she noticed the man that was watching her from the car paying close attention to her conversation with Mrs. Corrine Miller.