Don't Be Afraid (12 page)

“Meredith, it’s Henry. What pictures? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Meredith snorted. “Like hell you don’t.”

“Talk to my lawyer if you’ve got some proof. And don’t call me at the office!”

There was also a call from her own attorney saying that he’d gotten a call from Henry’s attorney about Meredith violating the no-communication rule they’d agreed to.

Meredith laughed at that and erased both messages with a single push of her finger. She picked up the small cosmetics bag in one hand and carried it, along with her drink, up to the master bedroom. Tossing the bag on her mammoth bed, she stripped down to her panties and examined herself critically in the full-length walnut mirror that stood in a corner of the room. This was what she did every night, turning to the right, then the left, looking for dimpling flesh, for distended veins, for anything marring the commodity that she was and would be, plastic surgeons and God willing, for a long time to come.

She was examining her breasts, wondering if those babies needed a little lift, when she froze, remembering the photos. She pivoted slowly, looking around the room for the camera. How had he managed it? She looked toward the tall windows flanking the far side of the room, but Gloria had drawn the curtains, just as she did every afternoon to prevent sun damage.

Maybe Gloria had hidden a camera, conspiring with Henry to take those shots. Was he going to sell them? Post them on the Internet? She hastily pulled a silk robe from the walk-in closet and covered herself.

She caught a glimpse of her worried expression in the mirror as she retrieved her drink and hastily wiped all expression off her face. Worry caused wrinkles and she couldn’t afford wrinkles, not competing in this marriage market. Botox, definitely, before she relocated to Aspen. Or Palm Beach. She knew it was going to be one of those two places, but which one was still a mystery. She needed to figure out just how many men were available. With statistics in hand, she’d be able to make a clear, rational decision about where to go to meet her future husband.

It was important to stay stress free and toward that end she’d take a long soak in the whirlpool tub.

If Gloria had been there, Meredith would have asked her to run the bath and add the papaya salt, but Gloria was out relaxing somewhere so she had to do the work herself. She had one foot in the water when she realized that she’d left the facial mask she’d just purchased on her bed. Knotting the robe tightly about her again, she walked out to fetch it.

She thought she heard the stairs creak as if someone were climbing them and she listened for a moment, holding the robe around her. What if Henry had decided to pay a little visit? He damn well better not. “Henry? Is that you?” No one answered. She crept to the door of the bedroom and looked out, but the hallway was empty. She was hearing things now, she thought, closing the door with a decisive click. That bastard’s photos had made her paranoid.

Going back in the bathroom, she smeared the avocado spread in a thin layer on her face and climbed into the tub. She sank back and reached for the remote for the TV mounted on the wall. It should have been in its little gold stand and wasn’t.

“I really don’t need this shit today,” she said out loud, splashing water over the side as she stood up and attempted to find the remote and her drink.

Again she heard a noise, a slight thud, but she’d found the remote on top of the vanity and she wasn’t about to pull on her robe again and check for ghosts that weren’t there. God, she needed to get out of this town.

The water felt good. She switched on the jets and they bubbled against her back and legs, the avocado mask tingling pleasantly on her face. There was some celebrity news show on and she watched it for a while, wondering what it would be like to have sex with a man who looked like George Clooney.

It would be nice if she could meet someone like that, but the men she tended to date were older and had spent more time devoted to business than to grooming. It usually took a long time to rise that high in business—Henry had been positively lizardlike—but there were exceptions. Maybe she could enjoy a little R&R with a younger man before settling down again.

She closed her eyes, listening to the news about a celebrity wedding and letting her body relax. It felt so good to lie here and the only thing that would make it better was a sale.

He could smell her. Guy paused in the doorway to the massive kitchen and sniffed the air. An aroma of Beautiful and underneath it, a faint musky and unmistakable scent of fresh cunt.

It took very little time to get into the Chomsky house. Security systems only worked if they were switched on and luckily for Guy, that stupid bitch rarely remembered to do that. He returned the lock pick to his pack and closed the back door behind him.

Unzipping the top compartment of his backpack, he pulled out disposable paper pants and a shirt in anemic blue from a medical supply company. He stuffed his black hooded jacket into the backpack and slipped the paper outfit on over his dark, long-sleeved T-shirt and sweatpants. Paper booties fit easily over his no-name sneakers and a plastic cap tucked tightly around his head. Last, he exchanged his leather gloves for latex. When he was fully dressed he pulled out the nail gun.

She’d just come home. The Diet Coke can on the counter was cold to his touch. He left the kitchen and moved toward the front of the house, careful to stay away from the windows and go softly on the tiled floor in the hall.

His footsteps were silent on the carpeted stairs. He could hear movement somewhere on the floor above him and he climbed toward the sound, pausing when he heard the door open and Meredith’s voice calling out for Henry.

Was she expecting her ex? He’d have to move faster. When he heard water running he took the stairs two at a time. He swung his arm too fast and the nail gun slammed against a step. He dropped to the floor, fully expecting to hear the door open and her footsteps coming to investigate, but nothing happened.

After a moment, he got to his feet and tucked the gun under his arm so it wouldn’t hit anything else. He knew the location of the master bedroom and he crept toward it, aware of his pulse quickening. He had to be careful not to let the excitement get to him, make him lose focus. Mistakes happened when you lost focus. He didn’t make mistakes.

He turned the knob slowly on the bedroom door and then pushed it open in one fast flurry, but the room was empty. The noise coming from the master bath explained why. That door was ajar. He skulked over to it and peered through the crack. Steam partially fogged the long mirror above the vanity, but he could just see the reflection of slim pale legs floating in the water.

 

 

A sudden creak made Meredith’s eyes fly open. She swung her head toward the noise and saw the door slowly opening.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, scrambling up from the water and hitting the mute button on the TV. A strange looking man stepped inside the room. He looked like he’d stepped out of surgery.

“What the hell are you doing?” she shrieked, grabbing for a towel. “Get out!”

Instead of responding, he moved closer. His face was a pale oval and his eyes had an intensity in them that unnerved her. He held something in his right hand, it wasn’t a gun, was it? He aimed it at her.

She screamed and jumped over the side of the tub, scrambling to get away from him, but slipping on the tile floor. He calmly moved toward her, the weapon held aloft. She backed against the double vanity. “What the fuck is that?” she cried. “Who are you?”

In answer he grabbed her by the arm and pushed her back to the tub. She fell in with a splash, clunking her head on the wall behind. Water cascaded onto the floor and the towel she’d been clutching fell with it, instantly soggy and forgotten.

Meredith’s head hurt and she’d jarred her tailbone against one of the jets, but adrenaline pushed the pain to the background. She struggled up from the water a second time, but he grabbed her again, this time by the throat.

“Aaagh!” Her screams were choked off. She couldn’t breathe. His hand crushed her windpipe with incredible force. She felt her wet back rubbing against the plaster wall. He’d stepped into the tub to hold her and she watched the water soaking through the paper pants, revealing darkness underneath.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, loosening his hold ever so slightly. She looked up into impassive, sharklike eyes. “Ssh,” he warned, “I don’t want to hurt you, but you have to be quiet.”

She tried to nod, to show her compliance, but shifted her legs, trying to get into position to knee him in the groin.

He let go of her neck, but only to move his arm to her chest. He was so close that she could smell his acrid, sweaty odor.

“Let me go,” she said, her voice hoarse and high, not her voice at all. “I’ll give you what you want, but just let me go.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. She had the feeling that anything she said was like the noise of a mosquito buzzing and he’d take no notice. When he shifted, trying to grab her arm, she kneed him hard in the groin.

It knocked him off balance and he fell backwards, cracking his head as he thudded onto the wet tile floor.

For a few precious seconds she was free. Meredith scrambled out of the tub, but as she stepped over him, he grabbed her ankle.

“Stupid bitch!” The rage made his voice completely different. Demonic. He climbed her like a ladder, pulling her down as he rose to his feet. Then he hauled her back in the tub and slammed her head hard against the back wall.

Silver sparks killed her vision and she tasted blood. His hand grabbed hers and she fought him, struggling to pull free, hitting him with her other hand until a blinding pain shot through her right arm.

“You bastard!” she screamed, blood spilling from her mouth. He’d let go of her arm and she tried to bring her hurt hand to her face, but it wouldn’t move. It was stuck to the wall.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” she cried as he reached for her other hand. This time she saw him press the gunlike weapon against her palm before the pain shot through her.

When he pressed the gun against the back of her neck she realized she wasn’t going to live. The unfairness of it struck her. She shouldn’t die. Young, beautiful people don’t die. She tried to say this, but couldn’t form more than one little word, uttered in a plaintive voice completely unlike her own: “Why?”

Emma was adamant: Mommy had promised,
promised
, that they would play a game tonight. The fact that Amy couldn’t recall making that promise, and that she’d told her that afternoon that a babysitter would be coming over, were apparently not part of a five-year-old’s logic.

“No! Don’t go, Mommy!” Emma wailed, screaming and thrashing at the door while Chloe Newman, the college student that babysat for Emma regularly, held her around the waist and tried to soothe her.

“She’ll be okay, Mrs. Moran,” Chloe said. “Don’t worry.”

“Just call me if she doesn’t settle down. And it’s Amy, okay?”

“Sure,” Chloe said, but they’d been over this before and Amy knew that nineteen-year-old Chloe wouldn’t call a thirty-one-year-old by her first name. Somehow, without realizing it, Amy had become one of the grown-ups. Freaky.

“Okay, the numbers are on the fridge, just like always, and all the meds are on the counter. I shouldn’t be more than two hours, but if something comes up I’ll call you. Emma’s had dinner, but she still needs to use the nebulizer. Do you remember how to do that?”

“Sure, Mrs.—” Chloe caught herself. “Sure, no problem. And I’m sure Emma will help me.”

Amy could still hear Emma screaming as she got in the car. She turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened. She tried again. Still nothing.

Emma’s wails died away as Amy raced back up the walk. “You’re staying, Mommy?”

“No, Em, Mommy’s not staying,” she said, adding to Chloe, “the car’s dead.”

She called AAA to tow the car to the garage and then she called a taxi. Fifteen minutes later, she was waving good-bye again to her wailing daughter.

“Your kid must really love you,” the cabbie said with a grin.

It was hard leaving at night. Emma seemed to have more attacks at night than at any other time and Amy couldn’t shake the feeling that if she were there in person an attack wouldn’t happen. She knew it was irrational, just as she knew that Chloe was perfectly capable of calling for help if an attack should occur. It was just that the worst-case scenarios tended to play in Amy’s mind when she worked at night.

She didn’t want to go back to Meredith Chomsky’s, not after spending the day there. Not ever, truth be told, but she wanted this house sold, not least because it was the only way to get rid of that damn woman. Luckily, the lawyer and her husband sounded interested. She hoped they made an offer that would pass muster with the queen.

The sale of the enormous Chomsky house would bring an equally enormous commission and Amy needed the money.

At first, she’d felt grateful to get this commission, albeit under horrible circumstances, but now she wished she’d never heard of Meredith Chomsky. How had Sheila put up with this bitch? If Amy didn’t arrange a sale soon, this property would be reassigned to another agent or Braxton Realty would lose it altogether. Amy wasn’t sure which humiliation would be worse. She urged the cabdriver to go faster, anxious to get there before the potential buyers.

It was good form to arrive before them. This way they’d see a well-lit, inviting home as they pulled in the drive. Subtle things like that could really make or break a deal.

The Chomsky estate sat on a pristine acre of prime Connecticut real estate, the house at the end of a short, curving drive. There were large stone lanterns marking the entrance, but then the lane was dark except for a few, ground-level lights along the sides of the drive. Amy paid the driver and arranged for a return ride two hours later.

Elation at arriving twenty minutes early gave way to despair when she saw the lights on all over the house and spotted Meredith’s mammoth SUV through the garage windows. Meredith was not the kind of seller that helped close a deal.

She rang the doorbell instead of using the key in the lockbox. No point in angering Meredith before the buyers arrived. While she waited, Amy nervously checked her hair in the shiny brass knocker. A long minute passed. She rang the bell again, hearing the faint chime echoing through the house.

Maybe Meredith wasn’t home after all. Amy let herself in and called out a loud “hello” just in case. She got no response. She saw car keys and a leather purse dumped on the elegant console table in the hall and called louder, “Hello? Meredith?”

She tucked the keys in the purse and hung it out of sight in the hall closet.

Moving swiftly, Amy straightened couch cushions in the family room, regretting that there wasn’t enough time to start a fire in the huge stone hearth. She entered the expansive kitchen, where she found overflowing shopping bags, an empty Diet Coke can and an open bottle of rum.

“Great, just great,” Amy muttered. She screwed the cap back on the rum bottle and whisked it and the Diet Coke can into the fridge. Then she looked around for a place to stash the shopping bags. She dragged them into the front hall closet and arranged them in a neat row. It took a precious six minutes, but the place was spotless when she was finished and everybody knew that kitchens were one of the biggest factors in home sales.

She ran up the stairs to check the second floor, her heels sinking into the plush carpeting. She moved quickly through the bedrooms, each empty and pristine. They were carefully and tastefully decorated. It was like being in a museum, Amy thought, running a hand over a Chippendale highboy. Everything was exquisite, but there was something sterile about it.

The master bedroom was at the opposite end of the hall. The door was closed but a thin crack of light peeked out from underneath the frame. She knocked twice in rapid succession and waited. Nothing, but she definitely heard voices. She knocked harder. Again, nothing. She pressed her ear against the door and heard canned laughter.

She had a sudden vision of a drunken Meredith sprawled in front of the TV and held back a nervous giggle as she imagined explaining
that
to the potential buyers.

Slowly, she turned the knob, wondering what Meredith’s reaction would be if she wasn’t drunk and Amy walked in on her. Braced for an explosion, she was surprised to see the large empty bed. Well, empty except for a small shopping bag from an overpriced skin care boutique. Picking up after Meredith was never Meredith’s job.

The entertainment center opposite the bed was closed. The TV dialogue was coming from the bathroom. Fantastic, Amy thought. The lawyer and her husband would arrive just in time to join the home’s owner in the master bath.

“Meredith?” she called, expecting the woman to step out the door, screaming about invasion of privacy. Only she didn’t. “Meredith,” she called loudly, one last time before pushing open the bathroom door.

RED
. This was the first thing she registered followed immediately by
BODY
, then
BLOOD
. The words screamed through her head as she stared at what had been Meredith Chomsky. She was hanging by her hands and her hair from the back wall. Her lower body was sprawled, legs akimbo, in the water, which was red.

It looked as if nails had been driven through her palms, which were shredding from the weight of her body. Her long blond hair had been yanked up and also nailed, holding her head forward so that Amy could see the sightless red sockets where her eyes had been.

She bolted from the room, gagging and struggling to find her cell phone. Clutching the banister with one hand, she stumbled down the steps as she dialed 911.

“What’s your emergency?” The female voice was nasally and disinterested.

“I need the police.”

“What’s your emergency?” the voice repeated more loudly.

“A woman’s dead. She’s in her tub. There’s a lot of blood.”

“How do you know she’s dead?”

“There’s blood . . . eyes gone . . . she’s dead.” Amy struggled to find the words.

“What’s your address?”

“Oh, God, um, something Brindle Lane.” She tried to think straight. “Two-fifty Brindle Lane!”

“Ma’am, I’m dispatching someone right now. You need to calm down.”

“I’m in a client’s home and she’s dead in a tub full of blood!” Amy cried. “Why in the hell should I calm down?”

“Don’t yell at me, ma’am, I’m just doing my job.”

“Oh, God. Just get the detectives. Juarez. Detective Juarez. And his partner. The other guy. Pale, short, bad glasses? Do you know who I mean?”

“The police are coming, ma’am, just try to calm down.”

That was a ludicrous suggestion, but Amy was far too stressed out to complain.

She made it to the bottom of the stairs when she realized that she couldn’t escape. Not without a car. Amy panicked, running for the front door as if she could flee on foot, but as she passed the hall closet, she remembered Meredith’s keys.

Yanking open the closet door, she ripped the purse from its hook and held it upside down so the keys spilled out on the floor, along with everything else. Scooping them up, she ran through the kitchen for the garage. She pushed a button on the key ring. The gleaming black Mercedes SUV opened. Amy slid onto the smooth leather of the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut, hitting the lock button. Only then did she realize that she hadn’t opened the garage door.

There had to be a button on the key ring, but none of the ones she pushed did more than turn on the lights or unlock the door. Terrified, she hit the lock button again and searched the car for a garage opener. There was a manila envelope addressed to Meredith Chomsky on the toffee-colored leather passenger seat. The print looked familiar and there was no return address, but Amy didn’t really know what it was until she found a second envelope within the first. Only the word written on the outside of the envelope was different: SLUT.

Inside were six photos, just like the packet sent to Sheila, and also just like Sheila’s the pictures were of Meredith naked, lounging in her bedroom or getting undressed. Amy sifted through them rapidly.

“Put your hands in the air and step out of the vehicle!”

A cop stood in the doorway, gun drawn. Amy dropped the photos and held up her hands.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m the one who—”

“Get out of the vehicle! Now!”