“I didn’t threaten him,” said Lucy, taking a step backwards, feeling the ground growing slick beneath her feet and struggling to keep her voice calm and reasonable. She was beginning to regret letting the lilacs grow. If she’d cut them like Mimi had wanted, she wouldn’t be in this predicament, hidden from view and at the mercy of a mad-woman. She was convinced Bonnie was out of her mind. Only an insane woman would run around attacking neighbors with a kitchen knife.

“Oh, yes you did.” Bonnie stepped closer to Lucy, raising the knife. Her face was a mask of certainty. She was right and Lucy was wrong. “I heard you.”

“Bonnie, we were talking about the football team,” said Lucy, who was rapidly putting two and two together.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “You’ve been out to get my husband from the day we moved in. Snooping around, just like that Mimi.”

Lucy had a sudden image of Mimi, with a knife very like the one Bonnie was holding sticking out of her back. She felt herself swaying, almost blacking out and forced herself to focus. Her life depended on it.

“Bonnie, I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now put the knife down and go home and we can forget all about this,” she said. She was the voice of reason, even though she was shaking with terror; her heart was pounding so hard she thought it must be visible through her T-shirt and her mouth was so dry she could barely get the words out. “Think of your girls, Belle and Belinda. They need their mother.”

“That’s who I am thinking of,” snapped Bonnie. “They need a mother and a father.”

“Don’t you think you should get back to them? It’s almost lunchtime,” said Lucy.

“First I have to take care of you.” Bonnie raised the knife and Lucy ducked just as it came slashing past her shoulder, tearing the sleeve and missing her skin by millimeters.