No Safe House Read Online Free

landlord, an old guy named Barney, and then it was a go.
    I hadn’t expected her to be gone until Labor Day, but as each day passed, and Cynthia showed no inclination to return, I was starting to wonder. At times I lay awake at night, half the bed empty next to me, wondering whether Cynthia would look for another place if this dragged on until early September when her friend returned.
    About a week and a half after she’d left, I dropped by her place around five, figuring by then she’d be home from her job with the Milford Department of Public Health, where she was involved in everything from restaurant inspections to promoting good nutrition in the schools.
    I was right. I saw her car first, parked between a sporty-looking Cadillac and an old blue pickup I recognized as Barney’s. He was cutting the grass down the side of the house, limping with each step, almost as if one leg was shorter than the other. Cynthia was sitting on the front porch, feet propped up on the railing, nursing a beer, when I pulled up out front of the house.
    It was, I had to admit, a pretty nice place, an old colonial house on North Street, just south of the Boston Post Road. It no doubt belonged to some prominent Milford family years ago before Barney bought it and converted it into four apartments. Two on the ground floor and two upstairs.
    Before I could say hello to my wife, Barney spotted me and killed his mower.
    “Hey, how ya doin’?” he called out. Barney viewed Cynthia and me as minor celebrities, although ours was not the kind of fame anyone would want, and he seemed to enjoy brushing up against us.
    “I’m good,” I said. “Don’t let me keep you from your work there.”
    “I got two more houses to do after this one,” he said, wipinghis brow with the back of his hand. Barney owned at least a dozen homes that he’d turned into rental units between New Haven and Bridgeport, although, from what he’d told me in previous conversations, I’d learned this was one of the nicer ones and he spent more time on its upkeep. I wondered whether he was planning to put it on the market before long. “Your missus is right up there on the porch,” he said.
    “I see her,” I said. “You look like you could use a cool drink.”
    “I’m good. Hope things are working out.”
    “Excuse me?” I said.
    “Between you and the wife.” He gave me a wink, then turned and went back to his mower.
    Cynthia rested her beer on the railing and stood out of her chair as I came up the porch steps.
    “Hey,” she said. I was expecting her to offer me a cold one, and when she didn’t I wondered whether I’d come at a bad time. Worry washed over her face. “Everything okay?”
    “Everything’s fine,” I said.
    “Grace is okay?” she asked.
    “I told you, everything’s fine.”
    Reassured, she sat back down and put her feet back up on the railing. I noticed that her phone was facedown on the arm of the wooden chair, holding down a health department flyer headlined, “Does Your Home Have Mold?”
    “May I sit?”
    She tipped her head toward the chair next to her.
    I pointed to the flyer. “Problems with your new place? You show that to Barney and he’ll flip out.”
    Cynthia glanced down at the flyer, shook her head. “It’s a new awareness campaign we’re doing. I’ve been talking about household mold so much lately I’m having nightmares where I’m being chased by fungus.”
    “Like that movie,” I said.
“The Blob.”
    “Was that fungus?”
    “Fungus from outer space.”
    She rested her head on the back of the chair, kept her feet perched on the railing. She sighed. “I never did this at home. Just decompressed at the end of the day.”
    “That’s probably because we don’t have a porch with a railing,” I said. “I’ll build you one if you want.”
    That prompted a chuckle. “You?”
    Construction was not one of the manly arts at which I excelled. “Well, I could have someone build it. What I lack in hammering