The Perfect Stranger (6 page)

Relax.

No one is ever going to know the truth.

And even if they do figure it out—that Meredith’s murder wasn’t some random home invasion gone bad—they’ll never in a million years suspect that you, of all people, had anything to do with it.

At first—in the wee hours of Sunday morning—those self-assurances brought a measure of comfort.

But in the three days since, it’s been increasingly hard to remain convinced that everything is going to be okay.

You dismiss one nagging
what if
—what if my fingerprints somehow came through the gloves?—only to have another pop up.

And then another.

What if . . . ?

What if . . . ?

Sleep has been all but impossible; interminable nights spent tossing and turning as fresh waves of worry seep in.

And for what? Every detail of Saturday night was well-planned in advance.

Okay—not that far in advance.

The spark of an idea ignited a while back, but opportunity to act on it didn’t present itself until about ten days ago, Memorial Day weekend, when a senile ninety-three-year-old woman happened to take a nasty fall in Cleveland.

It was Meredith herself who set things in motion by blogging about how her husband had gone up to his hometown to take care of his aging mother. The whole world now knew she was alone in the house every night for the foreseeable future.

Maybe not the whole world—but anyone who happened to stumble across her blog online.

You didn’t have to be a seasoned detective to figure out where she lived. Anyone could piece together the personal details she’d posted in her official bio and scattered throughout her blog archives.

It’s not inconceivable that someone—some stranger—might have done just that. Not inconceivable that the evil predator might have slipped into the house in the dead of night with nothing more than robbery on his mind.

The house, after all, was found ransacked.

Some valuables were missing.

One thing was left behind—for good luck.

But no one is going to notice that, in the grand scheme of things.

And Meredith—Meredith’s body was left crumpled on the floor, as if she’d gotten up to investigate a noise and surprised a prowler.

Right. It all makes perfect sense. The police are looking for a prowler, a predator, a stranger . . .

Not for you.

No one would ever in a million years guess that it was you. All you have to do is be smart and stay quiet—but not too quiet—until the whole thing blows over.

Strength Training

Battling cancer demands a certain level of fortitude. Not just physical stamina to endure symptoms and treatments, but inner strength to handle the shit storm of emotions that come your way. Getting a cancer diagnosis is like being asked to go, overnight, from couch potato to the Olympics. No, not asked—told. Because really, what choice do you have?

Your only option—unless you have a freaking death wish—is to fight. And fighting takes strength. Physical strength, yes—and you supposedly build that by taking vitamins, getting plenty of rest, exercising, and eating that crap otherwise known as health food. But emotional strength is just as important. How do you build that? Through daily challenges that include not just fighting back tears, but also counting your blessings, living in the moment, taking small setbacks in stride . . .

—Excerpt from Elena’s blog,
The Boobless Wonder 

Chapter 4

Landry’s cell phone rings as she again paces the length of the master bedroom with it in her hand.

It’s about time.

Over an hour has passed since she e-mailed her number, along with a link to the Cincinnati newspaper article—
LOCAL WOMAN MURD
ERED IN APPARENT HOM
E INVASION
—to the three remaining online friends with whom she communicates most regularly: Elena, Jaycee, and A-Okay.

She also tried to call A-Okay at the number she’d provided earlier, but there was no answer; it went right into an automated voice-mail recording. She hung up without leaving a message. Now, looking at the caller ID to see which of the bloggers is calling back, she sees a 310 area code. That, she knows, is Los Angeles.

Guess it’s not one of my online friends after all.

“Hello?”

A vaguely familiar voice says, “Hi. I’m looking for . . . BamaBelle? Is this you?”

“It’s me. Who is this?”

“It’s Jaycee. You know—
PC BC.
Hi.”

“Oh! Hi. I’m—I guess I should tell you my name. It’s Landry.”

“Landry? First, or last?”

“First. It’s Landry Wells.”

“That’s pretty. And unusual.”

She quickly explains that Landry was her mother’s maiden name; that last names as first are a southern tradition.

“I love that,” Jaycee tells her. “Did you follow it when you had your own kids?”

“Well, my own maiden name is Quackenbush, so . . .”

“No?” Jaycee laughs. “At least, I hope not.”

“Well, my husband used to joke that we could always call them Quack or Bush for short, but in the end we went with names from his side of the family,” Landry tells her.

Then her smile fades as she remembers the reason for the call, and she turns the subject to Meredith.

“I don’t even know what to say,” Jaycee tells her. “I’m shocked. This is horrible.”

As she talks on, Landry tries to focus on what she’s saying and not on why her voice had initially sounded so familiar. It’s low-pitched, with a distinct, husky note, and her words come at a measured cadence not very typical of New Yorkers. Not the ones Landry had known in college, anyway. She always had trouble decoding their rapid-fire speech and accents. Jaycee doesn’t even have one.

She mentions that she’s away on a business trip and just woke up a few minutes ago, so she wasn’t available when Landry was trying to IM her earlier.

“I’m just so stunned and sick about this. It was a robbery?”

“That’s what it sounds like. All I know is what’s in the newspaper. Someone must have broken in, and she must have woken up and confronted whoever it was.”

“She must have been so scared.”

“I know.” Landry shudders at the thought of the terror Meredith endured in her last moments alive. It happened late last Saturday night or early Sunday morning, while Landry and Rob were at a charity ball in Mobile with some of his colleagues.

To think that at the very moment Landry was blissfully sipping champagne or spinning around the dance floor in her husband’s arms, Meredith was—

“Have you been in touch with anyone else yet?” Jaycee’s question shatters the macabre vision taking shape in her brain.

“I chatted online with A-Okay . . . that sounds weird, doesn’t it?”

“What does?”

“To refer to someone only by her screen name. But I don’t even know what her real name is, do you?”

“No. And by the way, I know I shouldn’t be saying it at a time like this, but your accent is so sweet.”

Taken aback by the abrupt shift, Landry says, “Well, thank you—I guess?”

“Oh, I meant it as a compliment for sure. I love southern drawls. Somehow it never occurred to me that you must have one, but of course it makes sense. You live in Alabama, right?”

“I sure do. And since you brought it up . . . I guess I’ll admit that I thought you would sound more like a New Yorker.”

“Yeah, well, I usually
tawk
like
dis
,” Jaycee replies with an exaggerated tough guy accent, “but I didn’t wanna, ya know, scare you
awf
.”

For the first time today, Landry laughs. “So what are you doing in L.A.?”

There’s a pause. “Did I mention I was in L.A.?”

“I think—no, you said you were away,” she remembers, “but I knew it was L.A. because of the 310 area code. I saw it on caller ID.”

“Oh. Right. Well, I’m calling from the phone in my hotel room, so . . .” Jaycee clears her throat. “Actually, you know what? This is probably costing a fortune, and it’s on my company’s bill, so . . . I should hang up.”

“Do you want me to call you back there from my phone? Or do you have a cell?”

“I do, but—what time is it? Oh, wow—I have a meeting to get to anyway. Let’s talk later, okay?”

“Sure. Do you want to give me your cell number?” She looks around for something to write on, and with, coming up with an old grocery receipt and a Sharpie.

Jaycee gives the number, then hurriedly hangs up after asking Landry to keep her posted if she hears anything else.

She didn’t even have a chance to get Jaycee’s last name or home phone number, or bring up the prospect of going to Meredith’s funeral.

That’s something that occurred to her earlier, when she was talking to Addison in the kitchen. Her daughter asked if she was going, and wanted to know why not when she said she probably wouldn’t.

“Because I have you and your brother to take care of, and—”

“Please, Mom, we’re old enough to take care of ourselves! Dad’s always going away on business and on those golf weekends with Grandpa and Uncle Will and Uncle Wade. Why shouldn’t you go away, too, for once in your life?”

“I don’t know . . . I’ve never met Meredith’s family—I haven’t even met
her
. I might feel like I was intruding.”

“That’s crazy. It’s a funeral, not some party y’all are crashing.”

True.

But the thought of confronting this loss head-on, in person, doesn’t sit well with her . . .

Which is precisely why she should force herself to do it.

Strength training,
as Elena likes to call it.

This isn’t about herself, though. It’s about Meredith. About paying respects to a friend who met a tragic, violent death.

If something happened to me, Meredith is the type who’d rally the troops and come down here to see how she could help Rob and the kids. I owe her the same.

By the time Jaycee called her, she had decided it would be a good idea if they all went. Together. For Meredith. She was going to ask how Jaycee felt about it, but Jaycee was in such a hurry to get off the phone . . .

That was strange. One minute she was kidding around, the next she was abruptly ending the call. Why?

Maybe because I asked her what she was doing in L.A.

Jaycee seemed taken aback that she knew where she was, almost as if . . .

Maybe she didn’t want anyone to know.

But why not? What do I care where she travels on business?

Oh, well.

Maybe she’s paranoid about sharing too much with someone she doesn’t know very well. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t post a photo on her blog.

At least Landry now has a voice to go with Jaycee’s name . . . a familiar one, at that. Jaycee definitely reminds her of someone. She just can’t remember whom.

“Mom?”

Addison is in the doorway. She’s changed into a cornflower blue sundress and white sandals, sunglasses propped on her head and a purse over her shoulder. She’s added a necklace of blue and silver beads that complement the necklace and earrings she put on earlier. As always, she looks perfectly put together in an easy-breezy way, so that you’d never guess everything she’s wearing was carefully coordinated to create a very specific overall effect.

“I’m ready to go shopping. Can I have the car keys and . . .”

“Bathing suit money?” Landry smiles. “Sure. Come on downstairs and I’ll find my purse.”

About to shove her cell phone into a pocket, she realizes that the gym shorts she threw on earlier don’t have one. The battery is running low anyway—and she’s had enough, for now, of talking about Meredith’s death. She plugs the phone into the charger near her side of the bed and walks downstairs with Addison.

“Did you figure out what you’re going to do about your friend’s funeral?” her daughter asks.

“The arrangements haven’t been posted yet, but when they are, I’ll send out a group e-mail to the other bloggers to see if they want to meet in Cincinnati.”

“What if they don’t want to?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re still going either way, right?”

Landry hesitates. The last thing she wants is to give her teenage daughter the impression that you should reconsider whether to do something just because your friends aren’t doing it.

But it would be hard to go alone.

When was the last time she traveled far from home completely on her own?

The semester abroad she did back when she was an undergrad English major at the University of Alabama?

Those four months in London felt like a stepping-stone to a future spent traveling the world. But then it was over and she was back in Tuscaloosa, and the next thing she knew, that, too, was over. She graduated and found herself back at home, where she spent the summer sending out résumés for jobs in London, jobs in New York, Chicago, L.A. . . .

A few weeks later she met Rob, and almost simultaneously was hired as an assistant in a tiny PR firm in Mobile. She decided that everything she wanted and needed—for the time being, anyway—was right here.

“Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re going to Cincinnati, right?”

“Of course,” she tells Addison. “Of course I’m going.”

And somewhere in the back of her mind, a flicker of anticipation accompanies her apprehension.

“Hi, you’ve reached Landry Wells,” drawls a pleasant, recorded voice. “Please leave a message and I’ll get right back to you. Have a great day!”

Elena hesitates, then hangs up without leaving a message. By the time Landry returns the call, this brief lunch break will probably be over. Better to wait until she gets home tonight and try her back then.

She looks again at the headline on her computer screen, the one that made her heart pound when she first clicked on it. The kids were still in the classroom then, so she couldn’t react. Now they’re in the cafeteria, and the salad-filled Tupperware container she brought from home is sitting untouched on her desk.

LOCAL W
OMAN MURDERED IN APP
ARENT HOME INVASION

There isn’t much detail in the article. It doesn’t report how Meredith was killed or where she was in the house when it happened. Standard procedure, Elena guesses, to leave out certain details. It’s an active police investigation. No mention of suspects, and anyone who can provide a lead is asked to call a special crime hotline.

“Elena?”

She looks up to see Tony Kerwin, the gym teacher—
again
. The guy manages to find his way into her classroom several times a day, and she’s not exactly in the mood for him right now.

Really, she’s
never
in the mood for Tony.

Ironic, because when he walked into the first staff meeting right after he was hired here last fall, she was immediately drawn to him. So was her friend Sidney, a fellow teacher and recent divorcée.

When Tony introduced himself, it turned out he was in his early thirties, like Elena. He had grown up south of Providence, just as she had—he was from Cranston, she from neighboring Warwick.

Over drinks after the meeting, Sidney mused, “The new gym teacher looks like what’s his name—that hot actor who was in the movie we watched on cable last weekend . . .”

“Mark Wahlberg?”

“Yup. Do you think he’s married?”

“Mark Wahlberg?” Elena chose to deliberately misunderstand the question, buying herself a moment to decide whether she wanted to admit to Sidney that she, too, found him attractive. If she did, Sidney would probably back off in her intended pursuit.

As a statuesque, slender blonde, Sidney has no shortage of dates and—to her credit—is well aware that men gravitate toward her instead of relatively short, curvy, brunette Elena when they’re together.

“I don’t care whether Mark Wahlberg is married!” Sidney said. “I’m talking about the new gym teacher.”

“Nope. Not married—unless he is and he doesn’t wear a ring.”

“You looked?”

She grinned at Sidney over the rim of her pinot grigio glass. “Oh, I definitely looked.”

With that comment, Elena knew, she’d sealed the unspoken deal. Sidney would let her have the first shot at Tony.

It’s hard to remember, now, that there was a time when she thought of him as potential dating material . . . let alone that she actually went out with him.

Just once, back in September.

Once was all it took for her to realize that the guy was an opinionated jackass. Sidney was welcome to him—except by then she didn’t want him, either.

But he wanted Elena. He persisted in asking her out, so clueless that she finally resorted to inventing a fake boyfriend to get rid of him.

That was Meredith’s advice; Elena had confided in her about the situation. Confided in her about almost everything, really.

Tell him that you’re seeing someone else,
Meredith wrote in an e-mail after Elena told her she couldn’t shake Tony.

You want me to lie? I can’t believe it!
Elena wrote back teasingly.
And here I thought you were a fine moral character.

Where did you get that idea?
was the response, followed by
;-)—
the Internet emoticon symbolizing a wink.
A little white lie never hurt anyone. Trust me.

Meredith was right. It did the trick.

“I hope he makes you very happy,” Tony said about her fictitious boyfriend, and every time she saw him after that—which was every single weekday—he’d give her a sappy, sad little smile and ask how things were going in her relationship.

It took him a few months to stop asking and stop sad-smiling. In February he overheard Elena asking Sidney if she wanted to go to a singles night, and he asked if she’d broken up with her boyfriend.