The Woman I Befriended

The Woman I Befriended By Sara Kate Copyright © 2023 by Sara Kate. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Printed in the United States of America. For more information, or to book an author signing and event, contact: [email protected] www.sarakateauthor.com Cover Design by Methodical Video Productions. ISBN – (Paperback) 978-1-7358325-7-9 ISBN – (Ebook) 978-1-7358325-6-2 First Edition: June 2023 As always, this book is dedicated to my husband and my father. Contents The Woman I Befriended JULY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 AUGUST 13 14 15 16 SEPTEMBER 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 OCTOBER 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 January 33 1 Year Later 34 The Woman I Befriended JULY 1 July 5th Sunday I think a serial killer lives in the house across the street from me. Out of all my neighbors, she is the only person I don’t know. Okay, I don’t know any of my neighbors personally, but I know enough about them. That is, except for the woman across the street. I’ve noticed she has a weird sense of style. Whether it is daytime or night, I usually see her dressed in black pants and an oversized T-shirt, or sweatpants and a hoodie. We live in North Florida. Sweatpants and hoodies are normally only acceptable in the winter. Not during the summer, as we just entered the first week of July. I saw her wearing a blue sweatshirt with matching sweatpants just two nights ago when she was leaving her house. It was nearly ninety degrees outside. Besides my neighbor’s peculiar choice of clothing in the Florida weather, her routine is strange too. She leaves her house just before midnight three nights a week: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. She doesn’t come home until after five o’clock in the morning the next day. On Fridays and Sundays, she’s out of her house by eight-thirty in the morning and comes home at six o’clock in the evening. And the most mysterious thing that I have noticed about my neighbor of all: men have gone into her house on different occasions, but I have never seen anyone come out. Sure, a woman who brings home a guy for a one-night stand is not unheard of. But none of her one-night stands leave her house the next day; like last night and this morning. Through the blinds on my double-hung windows in my living room, I watched my neighbor pull her Jeep into her driveway late last night. She stepped out of the driver’s side while a guy, who I’ve never seen before, got out of the passenger side. He followed her right into her house. After I woke up this morning, I checked my security camera that is mounted on my front porch to see if he left yet, but there was no recording of him leaving. My camera isn’t angled to view my neighbor’s front door, but it does see her driveway and the street that is between our houses. It’s also set up to record motion, so it normally catches any movement outside; including when cars drive by and when people walk on the road. I know my camera would have recorded if that man called a ride and got picked up between last night and this morning, and it hasn’t yet. He’s still in there. Last night was not the first time I noticed this behavior of my neighbor. About three weeks ago, I saw her bring home a different guy. When I played back the footage from my camera the next morning, I saw her leave in her Jeep without him. Since I knew she wasn’t home at the time, I walked over and knocked on her front door, hoping the guy would open the door. But when nobody answered, I walked around to her backyard which is conveniently not fenced in. Also convenient, her sliding back door was left unlocked too. Even though I wanted to, I did not walk inside her house. I only slid the door open and called out to see if the guy was still there, but I never got a response. I didn’t see him in the living room from where I was standing outside and there was no sign of anyone in the house at the time either. There also weren’t any dead bodies or incriminating evidence just lying around out in the woman’s home either. But that obviously does not make me rule the woman out as a killer yet. Especially now, since there is a new guy in her house that hasn’t come out yet. And I still haven't figured out where the last guy went. I also now regret not walking in her house. Maybe the guy was lying dead in her bedroom when I poked my head through the doorway. Something is strange about her. I feel it. Ding. The coffee startles me when it finishes brewing in the kitchen. I divert my attention away from the front window. “Coffee’s ready,” I call out to my husband, Noah who is getting ready for work in our bedroom down the hallway from our kitchen. During the weekdays, Noah leaves to go to the office at around eight in the morning and I’m in my desk chair in our living room by ten o’clock. Sometimes, eleven o’clock if I open a bottle of wine after my coffee which I might do today. Since it’s Sunday, neither Noah and I are scheduled to work but he chose to go into the office today because he needs to prepare