The Perfect Stranger

by Megan Miranda

  Davis Cobb had managed.

  “You became friends?” Detective Donovan asked.

  “Not really.” I tried not to fidget, with moderate success.

  “Has he ever contacted you directly? Called you up?”

  I cleared my throat. And there it was. The evidence they had, the reason they pulled me from class. Careful, Leah.

  “Yes.”

  Detective Donovan looked up, my answer a spark. “Was it welcome? Had you given him your number?”

  “The school has a directory. We all have access to the information.” That and our addresses, I had learned.

  “When was the last time he called you?” Detective Egan cut in, getting right to the point.

  I assumed if they were asking, they already knew and were just waiting on me to confirm, prove myself trustworthy. “Last night,” I said.

  Detective Donovan hadn’t taken his eyes off me, his pen hovering in the air, listening but not making any notes. “What did you speak about?” he asked.

  “I didn’t,” I said. I pressed my lips together. “Voicemail.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I deleted it.” This had been Emmy’s idea. Frowning at the phone in my hand a few weeks ago, asking if it was that Cobb asshole again. After I’d nodded, she’d said, You know, you don’t have to listen to it. You can just delete them. It had felt like such a foreign idea at first, this casual disregard of information, but there was something inexplicably compelling about it, too—to pretend it never existed in the first place.

  Detective Egan opened his mouth, but at this point, the woman—Allison Conway, role undetermined—cut him off. “Is this something that happens often?” she asked. From the cell phone records, they knew that it was.

  “Yes,” I said. I folded my hands on the table. Changed my mind. Held them underneath.

  Detective Donovan leaned forward, hands folded, voice dropping. “Why does Davis Cobb call you night after night, Ms. Stevens?”

  “I have no idea, I don’t pick up.” Yes, it was a good idea to keep my hands under the table. I felt my knuckles blanching white in a fist.

  “Why didn’t you pick up?” Donovan asked.

  “Because he called me drunk night after night. Would you pick up?” It was a habit Cobb seemed to have grown fond of. Heavy breathing, the sounds of the night, of the breeze—back when I still used to listen to the messages, trying to decipher the details, as if knowledge alone were a way to fight back. It always left me vaguely unsettled instead. Like he wanted me to think he was on his way. That he was watching.

  Mitch Sheldon was just outside the door, and I knew he was probably listening.

  “What was the nature of your relationship?” Egan cut in again.

  “He drunk-dialed me late at night, Detective, is the gist of our relationship.”

  “Did he ever threaten you?” he asked.

  “No.” Are you home alone, Leah? Do you ever wonder who else sees you? His voice so quiet I had to press the phone to my ear just to hear it, wondering if he was coming closer as well, on the other side of the wall.

  “Did his wife know?” he asked, implying something more.

  I paused. “No, I think it’s safe to assume his wife didn’t know.”

  * * *

  LONG BEFORE THE CALLS, there had been the Saturday night, a car engine outside, smoother and quieter than Jim’s. Emmy sleeping, me reading a book in the living room. The footsteps on the front porch, and Davis Cobb’s image manifesting out of thin air, like a ghost. He knocked on the glass door, looking directly at me.

  “Leah,” he’d said when I slid the door open a crack, like I had invited him. His breath was laced with liquor, and he leaned too close, the scent coming in with a gust of night air. I had to put up my hand to prevent him from sliding the door open all the way.

  “Hey,” he’d said, “I thought we were friends.” Only that hadn’t been what he was implying at all.

  “It’s late. You have the wrong idea,” I’d said, and there was this moment while I held my breath, waiting for the moment to flip one way or the other.

  “You think you’re too good for us, Leah?”

  I’d shaken my head. I didn’t. “You need to leave.”

  A creak in the floor had sounded from somewhere behind me, deep in the shadows of the hall, and Davis finally backed away, into the night. I watched the darkness until I heard the rumble of his engine fading in the distance.

  I’d turned around, and Emmy peered out from the shadow of her room, visible only now that he was gone. “Everything okay?” she’d asked.

  “Just some guy from work. Davis Cobb. He’s leaving now.”

  “He shouldn’t be driving,” she’d said.

  “No,” I’d said, “he shouldn’t.”

  * * *

  IT WAS WARM IN the conference room. Egan shifted in his seat, whispered something to Conway, but Donovan was watching me closely.

  “He hurt that woman? The one they’re all talking about—Bethany Jarvitz?” I asked, looking directly at Donovan.

  “Would this surprise you?” he asked, and now I had everyone’s attention again.

  I paused. There was a time in my life, from before I met Emmy, when I would’ve said yes. “No.”

  There was something in his look that was close to compassion, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it. “Any reason you say this?” he asked.

  Davis Cobb, married, respectable member of society, small-business owner, high school basketball coach. I had learned long ago, in a brutal jolt into reality, that none of this mattered. Nothing surprised me.

  “Not particularly,” I said.

  He leaned a little closer, let his eyes peruse me briefly and efficiently. “Do you know Bethany Jarvitz, Ms. Stevens?”

  “No,” I said.

  Detective Donovan slid a photo out of a folder, tapped the edge against the tabletop, like he was debating something. In the end, his decision tipped, and he let the photo fall, faceup. He twisted it around with the pads of his fingers until it was facing me.

  “Oh.” The word escaped on an exhale—the reason for the double take, for the looks. It would seem that Davis Cobb, too, had a type, and it was this: brown hair and blue eyes, wide smile and narrow nose. Her skin was tanner, or maybe it was just from the time of year, and her hair was longer, and there was a slight gap between her two front teeth, but there were more similarities than differences. If I had these two students in my class, I’d have to make a mental note—Bethany needs braces—as a way to remember.

  “She was found less than a mile from where you live, in the dark.”

  In the dark, at first glance, we could be the same person.

  Someone cracked their knuckles under the table. “We would like you to make a statement,” Egan said to me, gesturing to the woman beside him, and at this point, Allison Conway’s role became apparent. She was the one who would be taking the statement. She was a woman, a victim’s advocate, who would be gentle with the sensitive topic.

  “No,” I said. I needed, more than anything, to stay out of things. To keep the fresh start, with my name a blank slate. I had to be more careful whom I confided in, to be sure whom I could trust.

  Before I’d left Boston, before the shit had hit the fan, I’d been seeing Noah for nearly six months and had been friends with him for longer. We’d worked together at the same paper, and the competition had fueled us. But it had been a mistake, thinking we were the same underneath. It was Noah who had turned me in. It was Noah who had ruined my career. Though my guess is he’d say I’d done it to myself.

  Becoming involved now could only disrupt the delicate balance I’d left in Boston. It was better for everyone if I disappeared, kept my name out of the press, out of anything that could make its way to law enforcement.

  “It would help the case,” Donovan said, and Conway shot him a look.

  “No,” I repeated.

  “If Davis Cobb was stalking you,” she began. Her voice was soft and
caring, and I could imagine that she would try to hold my hand if she were any closer. “It would help our case. It could help Bethany and you. It could keep others safe.”

  “No comment,” I said, and she looked at me funny.

  This was code for Back the fuck off. For You are not free to print my name. For Go find a different angle. But it didn’t seem to be translating here.

  I pushed back my chair, and that seemed to get the message across just fine.

  “Thank you, Ms. Stevens, for your time.” Kyle Donovan stood and handed me his card. From the way he was looking at me, once upon a time, I would have thought we’d work well together. I thought I would’ve enjoyed that.

  I turned to go. Stopped at the door. “I hope she’s okay.”

  * * *

  I WAS RIGHT. MITCH had been waiting just outside the door. “Leah,” he said as I passed. Serious business, then, using my first name in school.

  “I’ve got to get to class, Mitch,” I said. I kept moving, leaving through the back entrance beyond the offices that cut straight to the classroom wings.

  The school was like a different beast when class was in session. A pencil dropped somewhere down the hall, rolling slowly along the floor. A toilet flushed. My steps echoed.

  I walked back to class thinking I had somehow dodged a bullet. Until I took over for Kate Turner, who was seamlessly hopping between her classroom and mine, overseeing the busywork she’d assigned to my class. Okay? she mouthed. She must’ve stepped in when she realized my questioning was taking significantly longer than hers.

  I nodded my thanks, feigned nonchalance. No problem.

  Izzy Marone raised her hand after Kate left. The rest of the room remained silent and riveted.

  “Yes, Izzy?” I heard the clock ticking behind me. An engine turning over outside the window. A bee tapping against the glass.

  “We were wondering, Ms. Stevens, why’d they want to talk to you about Coach Cobb.”

  And I realized I had escaped nothing.

  “Get back to work,” I said. I felt all eyes on me. For once, I’d become as interesting to them as I’d always hoped to be. As worthy of their undivided attention and their awe.

  I sat at my desk, opened my school email, deleted everything with one click of my mouse. Easier than filtering through for his messages, which were always the same thing, anyway. I was sure they still existed somewhere in the ether, but better to wipe it all from the surface.

  The town was in flux, as I had been, and I’d felt an intangible camaraderie with the place when Emmy and I first arrived. The school was brand-new, a fresh coat of paint over everything, all the classrooms equipped with the latest technology. Our first day, during orientation, Kate had commented that it was like living in a dream compared to her previous school. Here, we would not have to share printers or sign up for the television a week in advance. It was a fresh start for everyone.

  The population of the school was comprised of both old and new: the people who had lived here forever, generations gone back—former mining families, those who stayed through the economic downturn; and the new money who moved up with the tech data center, a promise of a second life breathed into the economy. I had envisioned becoming a part of this new second life along with the school, which had just been opened to accommodate the growing population. We were all in this together. Building ourselves back up, into something.

  But it hadn’t been. The jobs weren’t for the people who’d been living there. The new facility brought with it new workers. Schools doubled in size, split and rezoned, lines were redrawn, teachers were needed. With my degree in journalism, and real-life experience, and desire to relocate to the middle of nowhere, I was needed.

  Izzy Marone smacked her gum, mostly because she wasn’t supposed to chew gum, mostly because she knew nobody would stop her. She twirled a pencil, watching me closely.

  Izzy belonged to the second group of new money. As if the monstrous house in the personality-devoid neighborhood and her status in the middle of nowhere were something to flaunt.

  Sometimes it took nearly all of my willpower not to lean forward, take her by the shoulders, and whisper in her ear: You go to public school in the middle of fucking nowhere. You will become nonexistent if you try to take a step beyond the town line. You will not hack it anywhere else.

  Well. I shouldn’t talk.

  CHAPTER 5

  I left school early on purpose. Fourth period was my free block, and although, technically, I was supposed to stay until at least fifteen minutes after dismissal, I figured no one would mention it today. Emmy still hadn’t called, and I wanted to catch her before she left for work. Something had wormed its way into the back of my head, unsettling, unshakable. I needed to see her.

  Our home was a ranch on the outskirts of town. Emmy had fallen in love with this house before I made it down; she said it looked like one of those quaint grandparent houses, said we’d be like two old ladies and we’d get rockers for the porch and take up knitting. I saw it first through her eyes—something calm and idyllic, another version of Leah Stevens, a person I had yet to meet. When I came down in the summer, I fell in love with the house, too. It was surrounded by all greens and browns, the sound of birds singing, leaves swaying in the breeze. It was a small part of a larger landscape, and I felt part of something real for the first time. Something alive.

  Farther from the stores and restaurants that lined the industrialized area, the house was closer to the lake, sitting in the woods to the southwest of the water, entrenched in the land with history, street signs that carried the last names of the kids in my classes. The lake had a tiny sand beach, occupied mostly by geese, and a lifeguard stand in the summer.

  Everything else surrounding the lake was woods and logs and stone. You had to move a few blocks outward, either south or east of the lake, before you hit the gas stations, the strips of roads with shops and cafés, the empty lots under construction; and a few more miles east before you hit the business district or the school.

  Best part, Emmy had said, it’s already furnished. That had its own charming appeal. It wasn’t like the apartments in Boston, where all traces of the previous inhabitants would be wiped clean before new tenants arrived. Here, everything felt like it had history, and we were a part of it.

  Some days, if Emmy hadn’t lit a candle or left a lotion open, I’d get a whiff of its ghosts. Mothballs and quilts left in the attic, lemon-scented pine cleanser used the day we moved in. Bleach in the corners of the bathroom to strip the mold and mildew.

  The sliding door at the entrance was locked, as I had left it. Emmy must have returned sometime during the day and locked it when she left again. Two nights ago, I’d briefly woken to a light on in the living room, thinking, Emmy, and drifting back to sleep.

  I stepped inside, and the first thing I noticed was the silence. And then that scent—or, rather, the lack thereof. There had been no candles or incense or vanilla honey lotion. She had not cooked bacon or left the windows open during the day, while I’d been out. All that remained was the stale remainders of the house itself.

  How long was too long not to see someone? Someone who was living in the same house but was an adult with her own life? And a somewhat unpredictable one, at that.

  I couldn’t decide. Three days. No, four. Three, if the rent was due. Which it was.

  She’d had a tough time with steady work out here—there weren’t jobs in the nonprofit sector like she’d had in D.C., and she had no interest in sitting in a cube all day, like some mouse in a wheel, she’d said. So she took what she could in the meantime, until she found her place.

  Our hours overlapped, so we saw each other only mornings, or evenings, if I got back early. She drove this old brown station wagon that she said she was borrowing—Leasing? I’d asked. Borrowing, she’d repeated. But she drove it just half the time. Sometimes it would still be in the driveway, tucked around the corner of the house, and she’d be gone. Or sometimes she’d have Jim pick her up.
r />   He’d been in our house a few times, but I’d seen him only from behind. Once as he was leaving the bathroom in the morning. Another time through the sliding glass doors as he walked toward his car. Broad-shouldered with sandy blond hair, slightly bow-legged, tall. He didn’t seem to notice me watching him either time. The only time we made eye contact was through the front windows of our cars, Jim pulling out of the drive just as I was turning in. He had a narrow face, and it looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. Neither hand was on the wheel as he worked to light a cigarette. I took him in, in increments: thin lips, hollow cheeks, age showing around his eyes; the torn collar of a T-shirt, hair falling to his chin, his head shifting to mine as we passed. The hour of the day made me think he didn’t have much of a traditional job.

  Sometimes I felt that Emmy’s situation with Jim was the same as the one with her job: to help pass the time until something more stable came along.

  Emmy was probably at Jim’s place, I thought. But I also thought of Davis Cobb, picked up for assault, suspected of stalking, and now I wasn’t quite sure.

  The light on in the living room at night. The sliding glass doors that you could see directly through.

  A stream of statistics I once researched for an article echoing back to me: the five types of stalkers. Rejected; resentful; intimacy-seeking; incompetent; and predatory—the planners. The ones who lie in wait until something tips, and they strike.

  Davis Cobb, on the other side of my glass door as I slid it shut in his face.

  * * *

  I SAT ON THE steps of the front porch until twilight. We’d never gotten those rockers. Where did Emmy work, exactly? God, I wasn’t sure. I once asked her if it was the inn near the town center, with the wraparound porch and white-painted shutters. But she’d only laughed and said, “Nowhere that fancy, Leah. Next town over. The Last Stop No-Tell Motel.” Only she’d dragged out the syllables of Motel, to match the cadence and rhythm.

  We lived our separate lives, with separate routines, in separate circles. She had herself all set up by the time I made it down here, and I didn’t want to be needy. I barely had time for it, really—I was taking teacher certification classes online in the evenings and on weekends to meet the requirements of the district’s emergency-permit teaching program that I was currently taking advantage of.