Now You See Her Page 0,39

several days. She thought she might actually be able to take off the trench coat that had become something of a uniform since she’d arrived in Ireland. “Going up to almost twenty-one,” Sadie Doyle had remarked to one of the other guests at breakfast this morning. Marcy calculated the conversion to Fahrenheit: seventy degrees. “Positively balmy.”

“Positively balmy is right,” Marcy repeated now, deciding that about summed up her recent behavior. Nuttier than a jar of cashews, Judith had said. And she didn’t know the half of it. She didn’t know about either Vic or Liam, that Marcy had already slept with the former and was seriously considering jumping into bed with the latter. What was the matter with her, for heaven’s sake? Had she completely lost her mind? Could she really be thinking of getting naked in front of a man more than fifteen years her junior?

Why not? she wondered in the next breath. Men did it all the time. They never seemed to worry about not measuring up to their younger counterparts. Seriously sagging butts and flaccid underused muscles never stopped them. Despite receding hairlines and straining belt buckles, they generally seemed comfortable in their own skin and assured of their attractiveness, even when such assurance was unwarranted. Wasn’t Peter a prime example of this?

Not that Peter wasn’t a nice-looking man, Marcy thought. He was tall, slim, and fastidious about his appearance. He was also “generously endowed,” as Judith was fond of saying when referring to husbands numbers one and three. So it wasn’t altogether surprising that a woman like Sarah, who was only marginally older than Liam, would have found him appealing. Although when Marcy was feeling less charitable, she wondered if Sarah would have found Peter quite so attractive if he were less financially endowed.

I shouldn’t have eaten so much, she thought now, her stomach pressing against the top button of her jeans. If she continued to eat—and drink—the way she’d been doing these last few days, she’d put on so much weight Devon might not even recognize her.

Assuming I find her, Marcy added immediately. And then immediately after that, Of course I’m going to find her.

It was only a matter of time.

Maybe even today.

“Excuse me, but do you mind telling me what you’re doing there?”

The voice was equal parts curiosity and indignation. Marcy spun around slowly to see a middle-aged woman in a flowered housedress standing on the front steps of the house next door, curlers in her brown hair, hands on her wide hips. All that’s missing is the rolling pin, Marcy thought, smiling at the woman while silently debating whether or not to make a run for it. She took a few halting steps in the woman’s direction. “I’m sorry,” she told her, then stopped when she could think of nothing else to say.

“What are you doing there?” the woman asked again.

“I think I’m lost,” Marcy answered weakly.

“Lost?”

“I went for a walk—”

“You American?” the woman interrupted.

“Canadian. My husband’s mother was from Limerick,” she added hopefully, as if that might make a difference.

The woman seemed distinctly unimpressed with Peter’s lineage. “So what exactly are you doing skulking around behind the Murray house?”

“I wasn’t … skulking.”

“Looked like you were skulking to me.”

“No. I just went for a walk.…”

“This isn’t exactly a popular spot for tourists.”

Marcy improvised. “Exactly. As a rule, I try to avoid the usual tourist traps.”

The woman’s bushy eyebrows arched skeptically. “You miss out on a lot of good stuff that way,” she said.

“Yes, I probably do.”

The woman tilted her head to one side, as if waiting for further explanation. Or maybe she was just waiting for Marcy to start making sense.

In which case, they could be here a very long time, Marcy thought. “It’s just that I like to really explore the cities I visit, to see the way people actually live. You understand what I’m saying?”

“No, I don’t think I do. It looked like you were skulking around to me.”

“No, honestly. I was just resting. That hill’s a real killer.”

“You know what I think?” the woman asked rhetorically. “I think you were staking the place out. I think I should report you to the police.”

“Please don’t do that,” Marcy said quickly. “There’s really no need to call anyone. I’m leaving right now.” Marcy started to back away. In the next instant, she was running down the hill.

“Don’t ever let me catch you in this neighborhood again,” the woman called after her. “You hear me? I’ll call the police if I so much