Three Single Wives: The devilishly twisty, breathlessly addictive must-read thriller

by Gina LaManna

  He had a point; it was darker than Penny had anticipated. Her stomach clutched at the thought of picking her way through the dark streets of Hollywood all alone on her first night. Her stomach clutched tighter at the idea of accepting help from a stranger. She knew better than to get in a car with him, but he seemed harmless enough, and the offer was tempting…

  “Well, I’m getting off at this stop,” he said. “I reckon you are, too, if that’s your address. It was nice to meet you. Hope you enjoy your time here.”

  Kurt stood, then paraded down the aisle and climbed off the bus. Penny followed behind, clumsily hauling her oversize suitcase and one backpack through the narrow opening, muttering apologies as she rolled over feet and bumped into elbows.

  When she reached the stairs, her suitcase went ass over teakettle down the steps and landed in a heap on the ground. Penny glanced at it in dismay, waiting for a moment as if someone might magically appear to help with her supersize load.

  “Off you go, lady,” the bus driver barked. “We’ve got a schedule to keep.”

  With tears pricking her eyes, Penny hustled down and retrieved her muddied suitcase from the grimy gutter. It took every ounce of her piddly bicep muscles to haul it onto the curb. Her shoulders ached, and her back was drenched with sweat. She’d worn her nicest casual dress for the occasion, along with a set of cute wedge sandals, and both were practically melting after the long bus ride.

  “Kurt,” she called on a desperate impulse.

  She was just too exhausted to walk another step. But heaven forbid she tell her mother she’d accepted a ride from a stranger. Just this once. It would be a secret she’d haul to her grave.

  “Are you sure it wouldn’t be a hassle to give me a ride to my apartment?”

  That lopsided smile reappeared. “Sure thing, honey. Hop in. It’s no trouble at all.”

  _______________________________

  “This is it,” Penny said. “You can stop here.”

  As Kurt had promised, the car ride was a short one. Penny glanced over at her driver, whose chatter had slowed once they’d gotten into the car, and waited for his reaction.

  She ignored the creeping feeling of discomfort in her stomach. Penny had learned not to take rides from strangers like every good little girl. And like every good little girl, she hated breaking the rules.

  Penny had the manners of a Midwesterner—a comfortable, steady politeness ingrained so deeply in her that it had become part of her very marrow. She never caused unnecessary waves. She apologized when things weren’t her fault. She didn’t have an ounce of confrontation in her DNA.

  That’s why, when Kurt didn’t pull over immediately, Penny merely cleared her throat, content to give him the benefit of the doubt until the first stoplight. The first stoplight came and went, however, and the piece of paper in Penny’s hands grew soaked with sweat. It tore into shreds, and Penny realized it was very lucky she’d had thirty hours on a bus to memorize the street address. The print had become illegible.

  “I think you missed the turn,” she said, struggling to balance firmness and politeness in her tone. “I know it’s nothing to look at from the outside, but the address—”

  “I thought you might like to come by my place for a cup of coffee?” Kurt slowed the car, pulling into a dark parking lot a few blocks from her apartment. “I live around here.”

  “It’s late.” Penny thumbed apologetically toward the setting sun. Twilight was rapidly becoming night, especially here, where the last fingers of sunlight were blocked by sloped, peeling rooftops. The apartment complexes around the lot rose to cocoon the car in a nest of darkness. “I texted my landlord from the bus that we’d be running late, and he said he’d wait up for me. He’s being really nice letting me check in after hours, and I don’t want to push my luck. Plus, I promised I’d call my mother as soon as I arrived.”

  Penny patted herself on the back for the last addition. If he knew that her mother was expecting a call, he’d leave her alone. Isn’t that how it always works in the movies? This was Hollywood, after all. Men and women were supposed to be glamorous and charming and larger than life. Not fat, sweaty, and a little bit creepy.

  Kurt threw the car into Park and sat back in his seat. He paused there for a mere second before reaching over to rest a hand lightly on her thigh. “Just one cup of coffee.”

  Penny struggled to swallow. How had she ever assumed this man was a Good Samaritan? She’d heard horror stories. They just weren’t supposed to happen to her.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not interested. Like I said, my mother’s waiting for me to call. My boyfriend will be worried if I don’t let him know I made it.”

  “Uh-huh,” Kurt grunted, clearly not falling for Penny’s shtick. “Your boyfriend in Illinois? You need someone here, someone who can show you the ropes, teach you the tricks. Give you the connections you need.”

  “I’m really not interested, thank you.”

  Penny slipped one hand against the door handle and discreetly tried to pull. It had gotten locked somewhere along their drive. Her heart rate rose, pumping in her throat as panic set in. It was happening to her.

  All those movies she’d seen where pretty young girls got kidnapped. All the awful newspaper clippings her friends had taped to her notebooks to scare her into staying put. She was going to die, here in Hollywood, as an unknown. At the hands of a man who smelled like stale Doritos.

  “I think I’ll walk from here,” Penny said. “If you could let me out—”

  He leaned over, aimed his sticky lips at Penny’s. She managed to dodge the worst of it, but still his mouth pressed against her neck, and she felt the disgusting heat of him as it played over her skin in a filthy little orchestra of sweat and shock.

  She gasped, unable to scream. Penny knew she should scream, knew she should pull out the pepper spray her mother had fastened to her backpack, but she was too startled. Frozen.

  Finally, her brain clicked back on, and she fumbled for the door handle, her fingers toying with the lock. They shook so thoroughly she’d never understand how she managed to depress the button, but eventually, she fell through the doorway and piled in a heap on the pavement. Her backpack landed on top of her, though the larger suitcase remained captive in the trunk, put there by Kurt himself in what Penny had wrongfully assumed was a display of gentlemanly manners.

  “Don’t you dare come near me.” Penny crab-walked backward, not caring that her pale-pink panties with hopeful little sunflowers embroidered on them were exposed to the world. She was oblivious to the fact that gravel had dug into her hands and knees, leaving tiny trails of blood as she scraped herself away from him. “I’m calling the police! Help!” Finally, Penny found her voice and screamed again. “Someone help!”

  “Whatever, you fat fuck.” Kurt merely shrugged, reached over, and shut the door. He rolled down the window, stared at her with vacant eyes that told Penny he’d done this before. “You’re all the same, you know. You come here with big dreams, but none of you make it. You just take the shit jobs nobody else wants, thinking one day it’ll pay off and you’ll be famous.”

  Penny scrambled to her feet, her hand finding the pepper spray and pulling it out. She aimed it at him but couldn’t bring herself to press the trigger. A part of Penny still couldn’t believe this was happening.

  “None of this will pay off, honey,” he said. “You’re not pretty enough, not talented enough, not lucky enough—none of you are. Y’all come in here by the busload with big shiny eyes. Some of you last longer than others. You?” He scanned Penny from head to toe. “You won’t last longer’n a week.”

  Penny depressed the trigger. The pepper spray shot forward, but Kurt was already screeching out of the parking lot, leaving Penny to cough, tear up, and hunch in pain from her own defense.

  She crumbled then, right there on the ground. Bloody knees, broken spirit. She pulled out her phone, intent to call the cops. She wouldn’t be weak! She was strong, confident, beautiful—despite w
hat he’d said. She was different. She refused to fade into obscurity like the others.

  But as she typed the numbers 911 into her phone, her eyes blurred. What would she tell the cops when they arrived? That a man named Kurt had attacked her? Kurt probably wasn’t his real name. The best description she had of him was that he smelled of Doritos and had sweat on his brow.

  Dark hair, average build, a standard face. She had no clue of his license plate, and the best she could do on the car make and model was that it was a maroonish sedan and wasn’t brand new. She’d never been one to have a knowledge of cars or to care, and tonight was no different.

  As for the attack—what attack? Penny thought back, her face flushing with embarrassment. He’d rested a hand on her leg and tried to kiss her. She’d gone berserk. What woman hadn’t had a man do something of the sort? It happened all the time. Every day.

  Her mind went through all the scenarios, and eventually, they all circled back to the same thing. The police wouldn’t lift a finger. This was Los Angeles. There were television shows made about the LAPD and their wild cases. A young woman who was brand new to town and offended because a man had tried to invite her up to his apartment for a cup of coffee? Not even a blip on their radar.

  Her suitcase was the biggest issue. The bastard had taken nearly everything she owned. He’d cleaned her right out. Her clothes, her pajamas, her underwear. The pillowcase she’d brought to remind her of home. Her little diaries filled with musings about what it would be like moving across the country—alone. Her diary hadn’t included anything like this.

  Penny’s hands dampened with perspiration from anger and frustration. It wasn’t as if she could just replace everything she owned with the snap of her fingers. While some things were priceless, others cost money. Thankfully, Penny had smartly stashed her valuables—keys, wallet, phone—in her backpack to keep them close. But that wouldn’t help her get dressed in the morning. The only article of clothing she had left was the dress on her back.

  She’d need to replace her lost items with something, and at the moment, that task felt impossible. Penny would have about $52 to her name after paying the deposit, along with the first and last month’s rent, on her apartment. She’d have to choose between restocking her closet and eating food until she could find a job. Not exactly the warm welcome to the city that she’d anticipated.

  Why was it? Penny mused. Why was it that mothers spouted such nice, pretty phrases to their little girls about having big ambitions and bigger dreams? They were conditioned to plump their daughters full of confidence and excitement and then set them free in the world. But they forgot to warn their baby girls about men like Kurt.

  Why bother carefully crafting Jenga-like formations of hope in their daughters’ hearts if only to have the pieces toppled by men smelling of stale chips? Penny had rolled into the City of Angels hoping to see stars in the sky, expecting to see stars beneath her feet. Stars, stars, stars.

  But as Penny looked up, the sky was dusty with pollution and flooded with artificial brightness. There wasn’t a glimmer of natural light. And beneath her feet were nothing but cigarette butts and discarded liquor bottles, the famed walk of stars somewhere far, far away. Penny couldn’t help but feel that the very dream that had carried her here had dissipated in an instant. Vanished like the stars.

  Then again, Penny was different. Kurt would find out soon enough that Penny wasn’t quite as innocent as she looked. With a twinge of guilt, she reached into the pocket of her dress—a nifty little feature for Penny’s nifty little hobby—and pulled out an expensive watch. She raised it to her nose and took a sniff. The faint scent of Doritos lingered, though it was nothing a little polishing couldn’t take care of.

  She wiped the clock face against the fabric of her clothes and wondered how a man as awful as Kurt had secured an authentic Rolex. Another familiar twinge of guilt nudged Penny into remembering that she had a conscience. But Penny wasn’t in the mood to deal with her conscience, so she talked back.

  Kurt was the one to blame in this mess. He’d all but attacked her. Penny had only nicked the watch from his cup holder as a reminder. A reminder that she could look at whenever she was feeling down—a reminder that she had survived worse.

  Was it really a crime to steal from a thief? Kurt had taken everything from her. Her suitcase, her excitement, her hope. He’d even tried to take her body and make it his. Kurt was a bad man. He didn’t deserve nice things.

  And it was with a feeling of quiet justification that Penny tucked the watch back into her pocket and felt her lips turn into a slight smile. All’s fair in love and war. Penny might have lost the battle, but she wasn’t a victim. She had taken her own little prisoner of war, and she had earned it. If she pawned it, maybe it’d feed her for the next few weeks. Or she could keep it, like she kept all her other precious trinkets…

  Penny found her apartment eventually. It took twenty minutes to wake the landlord, a man who looked like an extra out of The Sopranos. He held a cat in his arms and a cigarette perched between his lips, his dark hair combed back in greasy little rows.

  “I thought this was a no-smoking building,” Penny said. “I just assumed… Maybe you have a lease I could read over or something?”

  “Why?” he grunted, stepping out of his ground-floor apartment. “You pay me, and I leave you alone. We don’t need a lease. You’re just lucky I let you check in late. If we had a lease, you’d see the office hours stopped at 6:00 p.m., and I’d have to kick you out until morning.”

  Penny didn’t have the funds or energy to be tossed out on the street for the rest of the night, so she stifled a sigh and gave a shrug of her shoulders. Looking satisfied, the man introduced himself as Lucky and left his door open behind him as he made his way upstairs. A loud TV blasted from inside, and the smell of animals and old smoke was enough to make Penny gag.

  She climbed behind him to the second-level apartment. He let her in, handed over a key while she traded him for the check she’d kept safely stashed in her bra. The last of her money. Her final crumbs of financial security.

  Penny cleared her throat as she stepped into a bare room. “I thought the ad said that the apartment was furnished.”

  The screen on the window was torn. Old wooden floorboards creaked even before she stepped on them, and the kitchen counter—a white, cracked lacquered surface—was stained with an unidentifiable substance. A bed frame sat in the corner, but there was no mattress. A dresser missing three of its drawers was pushed against one wall. It was painfully obvious the carpeting in the sad excuse for a living room hadn’t been vacuumed.

  Penny turned to look for Lucky’s response, but he was already gone. A door on the first floor slammed shut, and the television cranked up a few notches. Someone yelled for a glass of water above her. Moans filtered through the open window, dreadfully loud as two voices—one male, one female—rose in an excitable crescendo toward an inevitable finish.

  Penny’s very heart sagged. She sat on the floor of a studio apartment that was costing her over $1,300 a month. Penny didn’t swear (good Midwestern Catholic girl that she was), but this place was a piece of shit.

  Her phone rang. She took it out, saw her mother’s number, and pushed back the tears threatening to fall.

  “Mama?” Penny answered. “How are you?”

  “I’ve been worried! You were supposed to call me the second you arrived. According to the bus schedule, you should’ve been there forty minutes ago.”

  “I’m just getting to my apartment. Sorry to worry you.”

  “So?” Her mother’s voice hinged on the brink of terror and excitement. “Tell me all about it. Can you see the Hollywood sign from your apartment? Did you meet anyone famous yet?”

  “It’s amazing. Just magnificent.” Penny pulled herself to her feet, made her way to the window, and glanced out at her view of a dumpster where a woman was currently tugging her skirt down and pocketing money in her bra. A man climbed into a car and reversed down the alley
.

  Penny bit her lip and stifled a sob. Then she glanced at the Rolex sitting on her cracked countertop and took a deep, steadying breath as she reached for it. She clutched it in her fingers so hard her hand knotted in a fist.

  “Just wait until you hear all about it, Mama,” she said, releasing her grip on the watch and draping it over her wrist, admiring the look of her dirty, dirty secret. “You won’t believe the people I’ve met.”

  TRANSCRIPT

  Prosecution: Mrs. Tate, how long have you worked in the publishing industry?

  Eliza Tate: This is the only job I’ve ever had.

  Prosecution: How many years? Ballpark is fine.

  Eliza Tate: Over a decade.

  Prosecution: I’m assuming you consider yourself a professional, then, after ten-plus years in the business. You’ve thrown launch parties, organized readings and signings, facilitated book club discussions.

  Defense: Your Honor, is there a question here?

  Prosecution: Mrs. Tate, have you ever facilitated a literary event before?

  Eliza Tate: Of course. Plenty of them.

  Prosecution: And in your extensive experience, have you ever had a book club discussion turn to a plot for murder?

  Eliza Tate: No.

  Prosecution: Are you telling me, Mrs. Tate, that you didn’t discuss the subject of murder on the afternoon of February 13, 2019, with Anne Wilkes, Penny Sands, and Marguerite Hill?

  Eliza Tate: I don’t remember everything we talked about. We had a lot of wine. We discussed a lot of things. Do you remember everything you talked about on February 13?

  Prosecution: I don’t. But I would certainly remember if I’d made plans to murder a man.

  THREE

  Nine Months Before

  May 2018

  Carpe diem, Eliza,” Harold droned. “This really is an opportunity for you.”

  Eliza folded her hands in front of her stiff posture. Her nails, carefully manicured, were painted bone white. She’d dressed to impress for what she’d thought would be the announcing of her (well-deserved) promotion. Eliza smoothed down her custom-cut pantsuit, then touched her hair, which she’d had done in an elegant blowout especially for the occasion.