The Follower (42 page)

She connected the landline and called her parents. They said they were approaching Sheffield, Connecticut, which meant they wouldn’t be in the city for at least another hour and a half. She assured them that she was fine and to drive safely, that was the most important thing. After she hung up, she disconnected the phone again.

She was going to turn the TV back on, but decided it would be best to keep the apartment silent, so if Peter somehow got into the building, he would think there was no one home and leave. She kept the lights off as well in case he bent down and tried to look through the crack under the door.

Time crawled, but as a half hour, then an hour went by, and the doorbell didn’t ring, Katie started to wonder if she’d overreacted. Maybe she’d been jumping to a lot of conclusions and the murders had nothing to do with Peter. Like Himoto had said, two roommates had been killed—it made sense that one of the other roommates was somehow involved.

Then, at around three-fifteen, she connected the phone again and called her parents to find out where they were. They were in the Bronx, about twenty minutes away, and said that when they arrived, they would double-park in front of the building and take turns coming up to use the bathroom. Katie asked them to call her landline from the vestibule rather than buzzing her apartment. Her mother asked why they needed to do this.

Thinking fast, Katie said, “Oh, the buzzer just freaks out sometimes, that’s all.”

The twenty minutes seemed to take about an hour, but then the landline finally rang and Katie saw her mom’s number flashing.

Katie answered the phone and said, “Are you here?”

“I’n downstairs.”

“Come on up,” Katie practically screamed because she was so excited.

She buzzed her mom in, and when she saw her, she felt like it was that time at sleepaway camp when she was ten years old and very homesick. When her parents came to pick her up, she felt like her misery had finally ended.

Hugging her mom so tight she was probably hurting her, she said, “God, you have no idea how good it is to see you.”

Katie was starting to cry and her mother said, “You have to tell me what’s going on.”

“I will in the car,” Katie said. “I just want to go home.”

After her mom used the bathroom, her father came up to use it. Katie didn’t usually express a lot of emotion with her father, but she gave him a long hug and she could tell her father was very worried about her. She realized that, in some way, this whole situation must’ve been digging up awful memories for her parents. They’d already lost one daughter and they didn’t want to lose another.

Her father went to the bathroom and then picked up Katie’s suitcase and said, “Let’s get a move on. I don’t want to have to drive in the dark.”

Katie had no idea how long she would stay in Massachusetts, but as she left, she felt like she was going on a long trip, that she wouldn’t be seeing her apartment again for a very long time.

Peter was buzzing Katie’s apartment
, wondering what the hell her problem was. He knew she was home because when he’d called her office, the receptionist told him she’d called in sick today. He doubted she was actually sick. He figured she was just upset about Scrub Boy and was taking a personal day. Figuring it would be rude to just show up, he’d called her cell a few times, left a couple of messages, but then she’d turned it off. He knew she’d turned it off because at first her voice mail was picking up after six rings, and then it started picking up without ringing at all. He started calling her home phone and it kept ringing and ringing, meaning she’d either disconnected it or was screening calls. Now, to add insult to injury, she wasn’t answering her buzzer, trying to make him think she wasn’t home. Peter had no idea what he’d done to make her so upset but he knew he had to talk to her immediately, to straighten things out.

He rang the buzzer again, then he went outside, trying to decide what to do next. His timing turned out to be perfect because when he noticed the police car coming slowly down the block, he had a chance to slip away casually. When he got close to the corner of First Avenue, he ducked between two parked cars and then snuck a peek and saw the two cops getting out of the car and heading into Katie’s building.

Was it possible that Katie had actually called the cops on him? He had to give her the benefit of the doubt—maybe the police were going to another apartment. But it was hard to
convince himself of that one. It was
like
Katie to panic because of a couple of harmless phone calls. She obviously had gotten it into her head, for whatever reason, that he was a bad person. How or why she’d gotten this idea into her head completely baffled him, but just because she was a little unstable right now, he wasn’t going to hold it against her. Maybe she had some kind of anxiety disorder. When he had a chance to talk to her, and she was in a different mind-set, he would do his best to get her the help she needed.

After about twenty minutes or so, the cops finally left the building. Peter remained out of view between the cars until the cops drove away. He desperately wanted to go back to the building and start ringing Katie’s buzzer again, to try to convince her to let him up or figure out some way to get into the building. He knew if she heard his voice and understood how sincere and harmless he was, she would let him up and they’d kiss, long and romantically, and everything would be okay. But he was afraid that, in her present state, he wouldn’t have a chance to get through to her. She’d panic again and call the cops and that was the last thing Peter needed—having to answer more ridiculous questions from incompetent detectives.

So Peter decided the best thing to do was wait. She would have to leave her apartment at some point, even if it was just to go to the grocery store, or for a slice of pizza, or to Starbucks. When she saw Peter, she would realize instantly how much he meant to her. Seeing him was the key. He wouldn’t have to say anything. She would just know.

Waiting was getting easy for Peter; he had gotten used to it. He stayed where he was, toward the end of the block, but continued watching Katie’s building. A couple of times the doors opened, and Peter’s heart started pounding as he expected to see Katie’s beautiful face, but each time he was disappointed when someone else appeared. Then, at around three thirty, a blue Volvo pulled in front of the building and double-parked. An older woman got out of the car. At first, she looked like no one, a stranger, then Peter realized it was Katie’s mother.

He hadn’t seen Mrs. Porter in about nine years, and she’d changed a lot. Her hair looked much grayer, and she’d put on
some weight. But she still had that Porter look. It reminded Peter of Heather Porter, and of why he was so attracted to Katie.

Several minutes later Mrs. Porter returned to the car. Then Mr. Porter got out and headed up the stoop. He’d aged well, looked almost exactly the same. Peter had never liked him, though. He knew Mr. Porter was the reason Heather used to always hit him with that “I just want to be friends” crap. Mr. Porter was putting ideas into his daughters’ heads.

Mr. Porter left the apartment, carrying a suitcase, and Katie followed. She looked around in every direction and Peter ducked out of view. When he looked again, he saw them driving away. He was positive they were going home to Lenox. Where else would they be going?

This was like a total fucking nightmare. He was furious with himself for not going up to her apartment to persuade her to take him back while he had the chance. He was also angry at Katie—this running-away bullshit was insulting as hell. It was getting harder and harder to cut her slack, to believe that she actually cared about him and wanted a future with him. He could have been misjudging everything.

He had seen before how easily love could turn to hate. It had happened with his mother. One day, she was the greatest woman in the world; the next he couldn’t stand the sight of her and knew he couldn’t be happy until she was dead. He hadn’t expected such a dramatic turn to happen with Katie, but he couldn’t deny it, either.

Then Peter sprang into action. Katie’s leaving New York altered the situation, but it didn’t change it permanently. Or at least it didn’t have to.

Peter searched the Web on his cell phone for a rental car place. He found the closest one, a Budget on First Avenue and Ninety-fifth Street. He rented a Ford Taurus and in twenty minutes he was heading through the Park on Ninety-sixth Street toward the West Side.

He had a great plan, but in order for the plan to work, he had to beat the Porters to their house in Massachusetts; he had to be waiting there for them when they arrived. He knew the
fastest route was to take the Taconic Expressway. He had no way of knowing if the Porters would take the Taconic or not, but he figured if they did, they’d probably stop someplace to eat and use the bathroom. There was also a chance they would take a different, slower route. Route 22 to Route 7 was technically more direct, but the roads wound through small New York and Connecticut towns. If they went that way, Peter would beat them easily.

Peter was convinced that, one way or another, he would get to the house before they did. He was careful, though, to avoid getting pulled over for speeding. As badly as he wanted to floor it, he drove at the speed limit. He kept a lookout for the Porters, in case he passed them, but he didn’t see them. This worried him a little. He hoped it meant that he had simply missed them on the road, or that they’d taken a different route, not that they were traveling faster than he was.

His tension remained high until he arrived in Lenox and approached the Porters’ two-story Colonial house on East Street and didn’t see their car parked in front. He drove up the road a bit, past the house, and parked the car in the lot at the middle school. The school didn’t exactly bring back fond memories. He had been tormented as a teenager; those assholes had made his life hell. But there was no use thinking about the past, letting that negativity seep in. He reminded himself of an article he’d read somewhere about how the body’s cells changed every seven years. That meant that the unhappy teenager in his memories wasn’t even him.

He walked back to the Porters’ house. Okay, now it was a matter of finding a way inside. It was dark out, nearly pitch-black. The cool, crisp mountain air reminded him of how much he missed the country. Maybe he could convince Katie to leave the city, move upstate. Maybe she was getting tired of the whole city thing; maybe she wanted to return to her roots. He could see it clearly—he and Katie hiking in the woods, getting into bike riding and winter sports.

As he approached along the driveway, he hesitated, remembering that the Porters used to have a German shepherd. Peter wasn’t good with dogs; he sucked with them, actually. When
he was a kid, he was chased by a big black dog on the way home from school one day, and it seemed like dogs had hated him ever since. Trying to make as little noise as possible, he went alongside the house, toward the backyard. He figured they didn’t have a dog anymore—maybe the mutt had died—or it would’ve been making a racket.

He looked around, trying to find a way in. It wasn’t difficult. In Lenox a lot of people still left their doors unlocked, and the only people who had alarm systems were “summer people” who were fearful of break-ins when they closed up their houses for the winter. Toward the back of the house, Peter found a window that was partway open. He opened it all the way, pushed up the screen and voilà; he lifted himself up and over, and he was inside.

But, a moment later, he heard the clatter of clawed feet approaching on the hardwood floor. He panicked, was about to scream. Then his whole body relaxed when a fluffy tabby entered the room and came over and sniffed him a few times and started rubbing its head against his pants leg. He and cats had always gotten along beautifully. He bent down, petted the cat, and said, “Thatta, girl, thatta, girl,” and the Tabby started purring, snuggling up against him.

Riding in the backseat of her
parents’ car, Katie was finally able to get hold of herself. Calling her mom and dad and leaving New York had definitely been the right move. If she had had to stay in the city any longer, she would’ve lost her mind.

In the car, she told her parents, in general, what had been going on with Peter since Andy had been killed. But still not wanting to get them all freaked out, she downplayed most of it, saying things like “he kept buying me stuff” and “he got kind of clingy,” instead of telling them the truth, that he had been stalking her and harassing her, and had bought her an apartment and a ring, and, oh yeah, might have even murdered a couple of her friends. She also didn’t tell them anything about the connections she’d made between Peter and Heather’s suicide, knowing that would be way too much for them to handle.

Her mother, of course, couldn’t restrain herself from getting jabs in, like “I told you to stay away from Peter Wells,” and “Next time maybe you’ll listen to your mother.” Katie didn’t want to get into it and gave in, saying, “I know, you were obviously right, Mom.”

At a Burger King in Pawling, they stopped for some dinner to take away and to use the bathroom. Katie couldn’t help feeling like a kid, in the backseat of her parents’ car, eating a Whopper with cheese and sipping a chocolate milkshake. But the childlike thing was comforting; it was starting to grow on her. The familiarity of her parents’ bickering and the staticky
radio—her dad refused to go twenty-first century and subscribe to satellite—brought her back to a time in her life when everything was simple, when she didn’t have serious worries about anything. For short periods, she even managed to forget all about Peter and what had happened to Andy and Will.

When they crossed the Massachusetts border, it was around seven o’clock, past sunset. After a deer darted across the road about twenty yards in front of them, her mother insisted that her father drive slower the rest of the way, and they did, going about thirty miles per hour until they reached the less windy Route 7.