In Plain Sight by Lorena McCourtney Page B

times a day, she’d surely change some fat into muscle.
    Tammi was home at 9:50, coming in like a tornado of bubbles to first greet Baby as if she hadn’t seen him in a month and then to give me a hug.
    “Oh, we had a marvelous time! I’m afraid I may have overdone it just a wee bit on the shrimp pasta.” She touched her tummy and rolled her eyes. “But I’ll make up for it with a zillion stomach crunches next week. Thank you so much. I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate this!”
    “My pleasure,” I said. And it really was. Even at 260 pounds, Baby was still an adorable butterball. “Maybe I’ll have to fight Sandy for the privilege of sitting with Baby next time.”

    Sandy returned home Sunday evening, bubbling with news of all they’d accomplished at the orphanage, plus their adventures with a blown transmission on the van, a bout of something called Montezuma’s Revenge, and her encounter with a scorpion. In which she was, blessedly, the victor. She now had a smattering of Spanish tucked in to her chatter. She also had a black and blue thumbnail courtesy of an encounter with a stray hammer, a glowing tan, and the email addresses of half a dozen new friends.
    I had my news too, and she stared at me open-mouthed when I told her I was working for Leslie Marcone.
    “She really seems quite nice.” That sounded a little lame, since Sandy’s expression said I may as well have started housekeeping for the creepy woman in that Misery movie “And she pays well. And promptly!”
    “Yeah. Well, uh, that’s nice. I didn’t know you wanted a job.”
    “I didn’t either. But then she offered, and I thought, why not? And then Tammi called and I also Baby-sat.”
    Sandy’s faint scowl brightened. This met with her approval. “Oh, don’t you just love Baby?”
    “Yes, and Tammi’s nice too. It’s too bad she and Skye aren’t closer.”
    “Oh, that reminds me. I want to call Skye.”
    Sandy dashed off to make the call, and I picked up the oblong of paper that blew off the counter as she rushed by. Mac’s postcard. I felt an unexpected twinge of regret. Okay, so he might have a skewed view of my intentions toward him, but it really would have been nice to see him again. We’d had fun at the Meteor Daze over in Clancy last summer.

    At 9:00 on Monday, I was back at work. On this day a gardener came and industriously clipped and mowed on the grounds between house and lake. Leslie apparently liked the manicured look there rather than the tangle of au naturel jungle between house and road. Today I used my fifteen-minute break to stroll out on the dock, where I hadn’t ventured before.
    Up close, the imitation Southern plantation boathouse looked even more pretentious and ridiculous than it did from the house. A brass padlock on a chain guarded the door. I peeked through a crack around the door and saw only a small boat, no bigger than Mike and DeeAnn’s skiff, inside. It was suspended above the water in a kind of webbed cradle. Like the lone Mercedes in the huge garage, it looked undersized and lonesome.
    The water got deeper much faster here than it did on the other side of the lake, I realized as I peered into the greenish depths at the end of the dock. From here, I could pick out DeeAnn’s house on the far side of the lake. Someone was standing on the tiny dock there. Could it be the man with binoculars again?
    I doubted that. He hadn’t liked my catching him spying; he wouldn’t use the dock for such purposes again. But I was still thinking about him when I was Windexing a smudge on the living room window a little later. Then I was surprised to see binoculars on a small table by the window. Had Leslie also been watching something?
    There were plenty of things to watch, of course. Boats. Birds. Deer. Trail walkers. It was one of the benefits of lakeside living. Maybe she’d even been curious about me over there at the house. But Leslie didn’t strike me as having much curiosity about such