I’d deleted her cell phone number ages ago, so I called the main number for the museum. Most museum employees took Sunday off, but Aimee preferred to work long hours, weekends, even holidays. Maybe when she was home alone, she couldn’t stand her own company. The automated message ran with choices for tickets, hours, exhibitions, special events. I bypassed the directory and entered Aimee’s extension.
My pulse was so fast I could feel it in my throat, but the number went to voice mail. I listened to Aimee’s familiar voice saying her own name, and then the robo-voice invited me to leave a message, but I hung up, shaky and cold. Even if she had answered, I might not have been able to speak. What could I say that wouldn’t sound insane? And why would she stay on the phone with me at all?
No, this was crazy. I’d have to see Aimee in person. Maybe to warn her, maybe just to reassure myself that she was alive.
* * *
After nursing Grace, I left my folks to finish their coffee and play with her and took the travel breast pump out of my suitcase. Somewhere, a part of me I’d almost forgotten was making a separate plan. I’d need my parents to be able to feed Grace. That was crucial. And I couldn’t alarm them by racing out of the apartment. They’d come after me or call the police or somehow bring Lena’s attention to them. I needed them to stay here, stay safe, and let me go.
I could hear their soft voices. My dad must be looking up from his book while my mom talked to Grace. Safety, comfort, and family were all in the next room over, and I was going to leave it behind just to prove to myself that someone I hated wasn’t dead.
Once I’d pumped a full bag of milk, I pulled myself together and brought it to them. Dad was sitting with Grace on his shoulder, patting her gingerly, one of his cotton undershirts serving as a burp cloth. I put the bag of milk in the fridge and took the pump to the sink to clean it.
“So when Grace goes down for her nap,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral, “if it would be okay, I’d love to go get my hair trimmed, even at one of those clip-’n’-go places. You noticed how long it had gotten.”
My mother frowned. “Is that safe? I thought the police wanted you to stay inside.”
My face felt flushed, and I swept my hair behind one ear, just the way I’d done as a teenager. “Nobody knows where we are; nobody will be following me to a haircutting place. It’s just so nice to have you and Dad here with Grace. And she usually naps for two hours. If she wakes up before I get back, you can give her a bottle.” I knew how tempting that would be for my mom.
Dad stopped patting Grace’s back. “How would you get there?”
“I can call a car—”
Mom shook her head. “No, you’d have to give your name.”
“She can take our Subaru,” Dad said. At my mother’s expression, he added, “We’re staying in a place Molly sublets from some guy who doesn’t even own the building in the first place. All her mail’s been going to us anyway, so she’s probably not affiliated with this address in the least. Kacy’ll duck out, get her hair cut or whatever, and be back before you know it.” He gave me a wink. Grace’s head was drooping on his shoulder. The calm rumble of his voice had put her to sleep. This was my moment.
Mom stood. “I just don’t think you need to be taking any unnecessary risks.”
I took Grace gently from Dad. “It’s not a risk. Just an errand. I promise, Mom.”
I was pretty sure Dad knew I’d been lying, and I wondered if he chalked it up to my being stir-crazy or needing a break and using the haircut thing as an excuse. I wasn’t even thinking about what I’d say when I came home with the exact same hair as when I’d left. Those were problems for a future Kacy. Right now I had a mission, and if I told my parents, which I wanted to do, they’d argue with me, they’d be afraid, and they’d probably be right.
Once Grace was safely in her travel crib, I almost changed my mind. My mother was reading a book, my father was stretched out on the futon, and my heart contracted a little. I knew how awful it would be if anything happened to them, and it would be just as bad for them if something happened to me. It was my responsibility to be okay, to be careful. I owed that to my parents, to Grace, and to Michael, who’d sent us here to keep us safe.
But Lena was out there working on another surprise for me. I could picture Aimee, her wide eyes glassy and her lipsticked mouth slack, lifeless in the bowels of the museum. I had to know if she was alive, I had to warn her, and as I pulled the door shut behind me, everything else fell away.
My hands trembled as I entered the destination into my phone’s GPS. Just because I’d been to the Martina V. Umana every day for two years didn’t mean I knew how to orient myself in this unfamiliar neighborhood. About half an hour from Hawthorne to Montclair, if I took the Parkway and got lucky with Sunday traffic.
On the drive, I moved with a steady stream of cars until I reached the Montclair/Nutley exit. Now, as the green lawns rolled past me, it was almost as if the years could roll back too. I was alone: no baby, no husband, ready to hop on the transit or take a bus to the city. I could still be that woman, going to meet her best friend, their whole futures ahead of them. And then with a bump, I drove under the rail bridge, and as I approached the familiar landscape of Bloomfield Avenue, the fantasy fell away.
I wasn’t that person anymore.
My pulse quickened as I caught sight of it, the soaring concrete wall running along the building until it reached the roof, then arching up and away. The museum itself was a simple glass-fronted rectangle except for that single wing, miraculous in its weight, its size, and its unsupported grace. I’d loved that building, loved going to work there. As I waited for the crosswalk to empty of pedestrians, that love felt like an old bruise. It was Aimee’s fault I wouldn’t be welcome there, Aimee’s fault I’d lost it all.
I took a ticket from the automated dispenser and drove into the parking garage, not the familiar employee lot behind the museum.
Would I even get through the door? I might have been blacklisted as a disgruntled employee or theft risk. My hair was longer now than it had been, lighter from all my walks in the sun; my body was shaped differently, softer, rounder; and I wasn’t wearing the hip contemporary clothes or polished makeup of a museum docent. I looked like a mom. Maybe my blandness would give me the anonymity I needed.
I entered through the side door from the parking garage, and the first person I saw was a familiar security guard, Jared, still working the morning shift. I hurried toward the atrium without looking at him, afraid that if I smiled in greeting, it might trigger his memory. To my right, a hallway branched off to a large community room used by caterers prepping for events. Weddings, corporate parties, fund-raising galas—those were all big bucks for our small museum. On this holiday weekend in October, odds were good there’d be something going on tonight.
Walking straight, I entered the atrium, where the ceiling soared over two stories high and a broad stairway led to the galleries on the second floor.
Through floor-to-ceiling windows, I could see the concrete steps leading from the main entrance to the sidewalk and the street. Above me, ribbons of blown glass hung from steel wires, and when the daylight moved across them, they seemed to spin like paper stars on Grace’s mobile. This was a new installation since I’d last been in the museum, and I felt a pang at how beautiful it was, and how much I must have missed.
Clenching my purse, I skirted the main desk, where a stranger, a woman who looked too young to be out of school, was rearranging the brochures in their plastic stand. Not Lena and not someone who thought of me as a criminal. Just an ordinary girl, like I used to be.
A voice echoed from the galleries above me. Yonas, who I’d always considered a friend. His passion was problem solving, using math and engineering to calculate the support necessary for an art installation of hanging steel furniture or to estimate the space needed to safely maneuver large groups of people between glass sculptures.
Now I could hear him giving orders, the tone clear al
though the words were indistinct, and even as fear flooded me, my heart yearned to see him, to catch up on the gossip, just to laugh together again. Not that it would happen like that. He’d been there on my last day, watching with thinned lips and pinched nostrils as Jared removed me from the museum. However fondly I thought of my former colleagues, that wasn’t the way they thought of me.
This open space seemed too big now, the handful of weekend museumgoers nowhere near enough to hide me if Yonas looked over the railing or Jared recognized me or Lena was lurking. My breathing was quick and shallow as I looked for a safe space. Down the hallway past the public restrooms was an entrance to the corridors with the offices where people behind the scenes decided on policies and programming and applied for grants and allocated funds. That was where I’d find Aimee, and I wouldn’t need an entrance ticket to get in.
Heat was rising in my face, and I hurried out of the atrium just as a trio of women emerged from the restroom. I ducked past them and barreled through the bathroom door. Resting my hands on either side of the sink, I took a deep breath, then another.
These feelings were like a wicked hangover, stomach-churningly awful but temporary, brought on by events of the past. I could endure them now, and they would fade. I was stronger than I had been.
I caught sight of myself in the mirror, my expression so serious that I smiled in response. I could do this, not because Aimee mattered to me, but because it was the right thing. All I needed to do was make sure Aimee was alive, and then I could go back to my real life.
Walking with a confidence I almost felt, I exited the bathroom. At the end of the corridor was an unmarked door with an electronic pad to swipe a key, but it was always unlocked when the museum was open to the public. I pushed right through it.
The corridor smelled the same, as if the deliberately neutral scent of the larger museum was concentrated, revealing notes of musty paper and linen, pungent glue and disinfectant. That was something I hadn’t even thought about. If I closed my eyes, it might have been any day at all, any day from before. I dashed past the first two offices until I reached the one I used to share with Aimee. Now the oversized table at which we’d worked together was piled with boxes and papers, and the whole thing felt like an unused storage room. Empty.
Of course, she’d probably gotten a raise.
There were only two offices bigger than this one. The one at the end of the hall that had belonged to the museum director and was almost always vacant, and the one to my left with a view of the sculpture garden. Now I could almost smell the jasmine and cedar notes of her perfume.
I felt sick.
Either Aimee was dead, violently, viciously murdered, or she was alive and I’d have to face her. I raised my hand to tap on the door but stopped. This corridor, this closed door, this building, featured in every nightmare I’d had for the last two years, but I had bigger fears now. I didn’t need to force myself to face this one. I’d just ask at the desk if Aimee had come in. I didn’t have to lay eyes on her. This was stupid.
But before I could flee, the door opened and she was right in front of me, perfectly polished, from her sleek angled bob to her glossy plum lipstick. Instead of the sapphire sheath, she had on a white silky blouse, an A-line skirt in a Rorschach print, and curvy heels that had probably cost a mortgage payment. Guess she was still making plenty of money on the side.
When she saw me, her mouth sagged open. “Kacy? What are you doing here?” Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the office behind her, I could see a piece from the sculpture garden with rough metal spikes arching away from a polished basalt center, as dark and glossy as Aimee’s modern desk.
My mind went blank. After almost two years of poisoned memories and social media photos, now Aimee looked smaller than I’d remembered, or at least no taller than me. Her skin stretched taut across her collarbones, and concealer couldn’t quite hide the shadows under her eyes. Maybe her life wasn’t so perfect after all.
“There’s a woman,” I blurted. “The police are looking for her, and I think I saw her in your picture, your story last night.”
“Why are you here, Kacy, really?” Aimee’s tone was stagy, the way she’d talked when we were at a bar and she wanted the guy two drinks down to hear us.
“Brady Voss was on the news, the serial killer from Texas.” But Aimee knew this. She’d taunted me about it in a postcard.
Now she tilted her head, her eyes bright and blank as glass gems, waiting.
“His wife is here, and she was right next to you at the bar last night. I saw it in your feed. She knows about the museum. You’re in danger.” I sounded crazy, and I hated it. She’d think I was looking for a way to get back in, but all I wanted was to convince her so my conscience would be clear.
She arched a perfectly shaped brow. “You were post-stalking me? Sad.”
“No, I came to warn you—”
“Is this a threat? Is that what’s happening here?” She slipped her hand into the pocket of her skirt. “You found some other unhinged lunatic and sent her after me?”
“They thought he’d killed her, but she sent me a postcard, like you did.” I spoke sharply now. How had I ever put up with the drama and the game playing? Gossip at work, drunken nights and crowded clubs, hangovers that made thinking harder and emotions more raw.
“I didn’t send you any postcard.” Her voice had a singsongy tone, light, like a child’s playground chant. She was lying, and she didn’t care if I knew it. Why should she? The director was never on-site, and in his absence, she was queen.
“Quit playing games. I’m trying to help—”
“Oh, please.” She rolled her eyes. “Only an idiot would come back after what you did.”
“I didn’t do anything. I … you …”
“I … you …” she mimicked, and then the smirk vanished from her lips. “You’re crazy. You’d have to be. After all you’ve done, you have the nerve to show up here?”
Screw this. “Fine. I’m leaving. I just came to warn you. You’re not safe. There’s a killer after you, and you’re not safe. Do you understand?”
Our eyes met, Aimee’s brow furrowed, and for a moment I thought my friend, the one who’d laughed with me on rooftop bars and pulled all-nighters in our office, might still be there under that painted mask. But she widened her eyes and said, “I don’t know what you mean. It took me ages to trust again. After all your lies, the way you hurt me, I’m lucky I didn’t lose my job too.”
My hands were clenched fists, and I burned to smash the smugness out of her. “I hope Lena does kill you.”
Aimee pulled her hand out of her pocket, and I saw her phone was lit up. “Oh, I’ll be fine, Kacy. But thanks for your concern.”
A man spoke behind me. “Everything all right in here?”
Jared. That bitch had called security.
She looked past me. “Took you long enough. Escort Ms. Tremaine out.”
Jared took my arm; then recognition flashed over his face. “Kacy? Is that you? It’s been a while.” He sounded almost pleased. Then he glanced at Aimee and said firmly to me, “How about I walk you to your car?”
“I’m going.” I pulled my arm away and turned to follow him, saying over my shoulder, “She’s a killer, Aimee. And she’s coming after you.”
Jared and I walked in silence through the hallway and back into the atrium. I couldn’t hear Yonas, so maybe he wouldn’t see me getting thrown out of the museum a second time. Finally, Jared asked, “What was that all about?”
“I wanted to talk to Aimee. Did you hear about Brady Voss?” Heat rose in my face, but this was my second chance to warn someone. Even if I sounded like a lunatic.
“That guy down in Texas?” He kept his hand on my arm as we passed the front desk with its metal spinner of postcards.
“He’s my next-door neighbor.”
“No shit.” Jared opened one of the heavy doors, and the hush of the museum dissolved in the noise of traffic echoing through the parking garage. �
��You can never tell about people.”
I stopped walking, letting him stand there holding the door, and for a second it was just like it had been the day I’d been fired. Jared had been kind then, too, as if he had just been walking me to my car out of courtesy. And I’d been too stunned to make a scene, stumbling, desperate to wake from the nightmare. Once I’d reached my car, I’d sat blinded by the tears I no longer needed to hold back. Finally, I had wiped my face and raised my head, only to see Jared still there, watching like he hadn’t wanted to leave me in that state.
Had he pitied me then? Maybe he still did, but if Jared would only listen to me, I could live with the mortification.
“Let me show you a picture.” I opened my phone. The first picture that came up was the one of Aimee at the bar, but it was hard to see anything but that sapphire dress. I totally looked like a stalker. “Not Aimee. The woman next to her with the dark hair, see?”
Jared nodded, but I couldn’t tell if he’d really looked or if he was just humoring me. I scrolled through my pictures until I found the one of me and Lena, our heads tilted together. “This is Brady’s wife. I think she dyed her hair. The police and the FBI, everybody’s looking for her, but I think that was her in the other picture. She sent me a postcard. That’s how they knew she wasn’t dead. Look out for her. I think she might come here.”
He was definitely giving me humor the crazy lady eyes. And he started walking again, his hand on my arm bringing me through the door and out of the museum. “Listen, Kacy,” he said. “I don’t know everything that happened back then. But you don’t want to mess with her.”
“Aimee?” I’d just told him a serial killer was on the loose, and he was worried about the mean girl in management?
He hunched his huge shoulders and whispered, “I’m not losing this job. That’s all I’m saying.”
You Can Never Tell Page 22