Does that mean he’s done with me? Even after everything he said? After telling me that he loved me? That he’d been in love with me for years?
Had they just been words to get her to sleep with him?
No. That didn’t make sense.
He’d told her those things after they’d had sex.
What could possibly be the point of saying them if they’d only been a lie? Why even waste his breath? And if his silence was due to Lang’s questions, why? She analyzed and reanalyzed everything that had happened until her head pounded.
She looked around. Her apartment was cold, silent . . . lonely. It was also becoming cluttered, even filthy, and stank of old food. The kitchen trash can was overloaded with empty chicken-pot-pie boxes, Hungry-Man frozen dinners, ripped-open macaroni-and-cheese boxes, empty aluminum containers of precooked spaghetti. She’d even eaten a whole double-fudge cake in one sitting. The sink, counters, and coffee table were packed with dirty dishes, and Harry’s litter box desperately needed changing. It was so unlike her. All of it. She had never allowed her place to become untidy, much less filthy. But she felt zapped of energy and didn’t care.
She’d clean everything up.
Tomorrow.
She’d been staring at her computer screen for the good part of an hour, trying to transcribe doctors’ notes from office visits—work that was due soon—but she couldn’t manage to get her fingers or brain to work.
If they wanted to fire her for turning her work in late, so be it. She had more than $8,000 in the fireproof safe she kept in her closet. She could live on that for a little while if she absolutely had to.
She pushed away from her desk in frustration, wanting desperately to feel better. Maybe she could go on a run. She hadn’t run in over a week now, frightened that Ethan was out there somewhere.
But screw him.
She needed a release, or she’d go insane. Besides, it was daylight out. If he was out there waiting for her, she’d be able to see him before he got too close. And people were already milling about, so even if he was out there, it wasn’t very likely he’d try anything.
Seizing on the distraction, she went to her bedroom and shrugged on some running clothes. Then outside, she started off on her usual route, trying to ignore all the ghoulish Halloween decorations that had suddenly popped up on people’s balconies, in storefronts, even at the public park: witches, ghosts, goblins, zombies, vampires, RIP signs, masks like Jason Voorhees wore in the Friday the 13th horror movies. Halloween was in less than a week. Just thinking of people celebrating death made her nauseated. It was so macabre. How could anyone think it was okay to glamorize death and murder? What a shitty thing to do.
Scanning her surroundings, she listened to her sneakers pound the pavement and took in chilly air laced with wood smoke and vehicle exhaust. Although daylight, it was still only a little after 7:00 a.m., so not many people were out yet.
Half a mile into her run, her nose flooded with the scents of whiskey and cigarette smoke, and the god-awful, excruciating memory of being curled up in the bathtub flashed in her head.
The white-hot pain.
The confusion, the fear.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and her legs began to feel heavy, leaden. She wiped at her eyes and nose with the heel of her hand and tried to breathe through her mouth. But the flashes kept coming, and she struggled to catch her breath.
Realizing running today wasn’t going to happen, she turned and headed back. On the way, she decided to stop in at Owen’s, a coffee shop two blocks from her apartment. An extra jolt of caffeine would do her good, and truth be told, she wasn’t quite ready to return to the reality of her filthy apartment yet.
As she pulled the door open, she was immediately enveloped in the rich, familiar aroma of coffee. It should have been a comforting scent, but it wasn’t. She was too wound up, too anxious. There was only a trickle of people inside the coffee shop. Just a few early-morning risers like herself.
Owen’s was an older coffee shop. The kind of place the national chains worked so hard to emulate. Open-loft design with exposed pipes on the ceiling and hardwood floors. The furniture seemed to have been gathered from various thrift stores and garage sales, but it all fit together perfectly in a charming, pleasing kind of way.
As she waited for her turn to order, she watched an employee arrange homemade pastries and snacks on the shelves: cheese Danish, freshly baked cake loaves, a pan of chocolate brownies, and gingersnap cookies in the shape of cartoon ghosts.
She ordered a latte and a bottle of water and grabbed a corner seat near the window, where she knew it was unlikely she’d be bothered. She tried to focus on the melody of the acoustic guitar that drifted softly through the store’s speakers, interrupted occasionally by the hiss of the espresso machine, and gulped the water down quickly to douse her dry throat. When she finished the water, she sipped her latte, stared out the window, and watched the city come to life.
It wasn’t long before more people began to emerge from their apartments, filling the sidewalks outside. As the number of cars and pedestrians increased, she found her eyes darting back and forth through the crowds a little too much.
She was searching.
Like she always did.
As a large group of college kids trudged their way down the sidewalk, she caught a glimpse of someone in the distance. Someone who wasn’t moving with the crowd. He was wearing a black skullcap, a matching leather coat, and a pair of sunglasses and was standing motionless on the other side of the street. He seemed to be staring at the coffee shop. Maybe even through the window at her.
The hair rose on the back of her neck.
Is that . . . Ethan?
She couldn’t tell.
The espresso machine hissed again, making her jump.
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
She jumped again, this time almost dropping her cup of coffee.
She spun around and found herself staring into the face of a man. He was about forty and wearing a heavy red jacket.
He held out his hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to ask if I could grab this chair?” He pointed to the chair across from her, then to a table where three other men were seated. They were one chair short.
Oh, God. I’m such a head case.
She was truly beginning to hate her own mind.
She managed a tight smile, although tears were pricking her eyes. “Yeah, sure.”
As the man carried the chair over to his table, she dragged her gaze back to where she’d seen the guy across the street.
But the sidewalk was empty.
That night, she lay on the floor of her living room, staring at the ceiling. Music whispered from the portable speaker connected to her phone. It was a Spotify playlist: Songs for the Brokenhearted. She wallowed in the melancholy music, sitting up every once in a while to take a bite of macaroni and cheese and wash it down with red wine from a bottle she’d wrestled open at noon.
She was having a pity party.
She knew that.
And she was aware that she was being ridiculous.
This must be what it feels like to be a young girl when your boyfriend breaks up with you, she thought. Except she was no longer a young girl.
Yes, she knew she’d been seeing him for a short time—okay, a very short time—but her connection to him had grown so deep so quickly. He’d filled a void that she didn’t know she’d had. And now that he was gone, she was more painfully aware of it than ever. She ached with a loneliness she had never felt before.
She grabbed her phone and checked for texts, as though one would just magically appear. How could he just ignore her like this, with no explanation at all? Despite her good intentions, she typed a message:
Where did you go?
She pressed “Send” before she could talk herself out of it. Then she struggled to her feet and stumbled to her desk, placing one hand on the back of the couch for balance. She plopped down at her desk and opened he
r laptop. She needed to see him again, dammit. Even if it was just pictures.
She Googled Boyd Lawson and saw that there was a Boyd Lawson who was a bishop for Catholic Churches International.
No, not him.
She scrolled and clicked through ten pages of Boyd Lawsons. There was a profile for a Boyd Lawson on Facebook. But he lived in New Mexico. Not him, either. She clicked on the “Images” tab. More than two hundred photos appeared on her screen. Photos of white men, black men, group photos with men and women, photos of children. Not one of whom was her Boyd Lawson. She tried to remember the name of the car-detailing business he worked for but couldn’t.
She Googled car-detailing Marblehead, and nine businesses popped up. She recognized the sixth one as Boyd’s: Fine Brush. She clicked on the results and brought up a Yelp page with customer reviews. She pulled up Google again and went to the company’s website and clicked on the “About Us” tab. A page appeared on the screen that declared they were a family-owned business. She scrolled and found him listed as the head of business development. Next to a short bio was a smiling Boyd. And next to him were two other bios. Fine Brush’s owners: an older man with gray hair and a stunning blonde woman. The woman’s name was Lisa Lawson.
His estranged wife, Lisa.
Her pulse racing, she went to Facebook and typed in Lisa Lawson Marblehead.
Bingo.
The same woman. Her relationship status said married.
She felt a crawl of horror in her stomach.
Married?
According to Boyd, they’d been estranged for almost a year, and the divorce was about to be final. Had that been a lie? Or had Lisa just not gotten around to changing her relationship status? Was Lisa hopeful that they’d work things out before the divorce became final, so she hadn’t changed her status yet?
She expanded the size of Lisa’s profile photo and studied it. The woman’s beauty irritated her. She was gorgeous. Sleek blonde hair, beautiful blue eyes, and a perfectly straight nose. Full lips. Slender body, curvy in all the right places. Smooth, unbutchered skin.
Tears filled her eyes. Did Boyd still love her? He’d told her he didn’t. That he’d fallen out of love a long time ago. Had he been lying? Had he been lying about them being estranged?
No. That isn’t possible.
I’d know . . . right?
She clicked on Lisa’s photo tab and found twelve large photo albums. Her hand trembling, she picked one that was labeled “Family” and slowly clicked through the photos: her wedding day with Boyd, at parties, skiing at some snow-covered destination, at restaurants with friends, on some lake. In every one of them, Boyd looked genuinely happy.
Had he only been acting as though he’d been happy with Lisa?
Or had he been acting with her?
She clicked back to Lisa’s page and scrolled down her wall. The woman posted mostly real-estate listings, announcements about new restaurants and local businesses. She scrolled through six months’ worth of status updates before slamming her laptop shut.
How could she be so stupid to open herself up to pain again when she’d been so hell-bent on protecting herself? Anger flaring in her belly, she stumbled into the kitchen and poured another glass of wine.
She was feeling sorry for herself, acting the victim, although she’d vowed never to do that again. She didn’t do things like this. She was a fighter. A survivor.
Or was she?
She was starting to wonder.
A few minutes later, she made her way to her bedroom. She crawled into bed and closed her eyes. Listening to a moaning wind outside, she cried.
The next afternoon, Chelsea awoke to thoughts of Lisa Lawson again. Of her relationship status declaring she was married. Then she looked around at her mess of an apartment, which had gotten even worse.
For the last several hours, she’d done little else than sleep and go to the bathroom. At one point, she had sliced open a bag of food for Harry, turned it on its side, and filled a big bowl of water for him.
She looked at the pile of untouched transcription work on the coffee table. A half-empty bottle of wine sat on top of it, next to a half-full wineglass.
A pathetic scene if she ever saw one.
And the fact that she’d mixed Valium with alcohol . . .
Not smart at all.
Dummy, dummy, dummy.
She felt a fresh rush of anger at Boyd for possibly not being estranged, for possibly still being very married. But then she turned her anger on herself. At the way she was handling it all. The way she was letting him get to her. The way she was behaving wasn’t Boyd’s problem; it was hers.
Get it together, Chelsea.
Stop this.
Now.
Why was she acting like this? She’d been so undisciplined lately. So irresponsible with her health. With her work. With her life. With her heart.
She’d been so taken with Boyd that she’d ignored everything else. She’d become completely unhinged because of someone who had reappeared in her life just a few weeks ago. Someone she’d hardly even known before. Even in her self-pity, she knew how absurd that was.
She peeled off her clothes, showered for the first time in days, then dressed in clean pajamas, determined to clean the apartment and get some work done. But when she walked back into the living room and surveyed the mess, she felt overwhelmed. Her renewed resolve fled her body, and she began to spin emotionally again.
She climbed on the couch and covered up. Harry pounced on her stomach and purred as though he knew she was struggling. “I love you, too, Harry,” she whispered. She stroked his soft fur, glad to have something with a heartbeat to connect with.
She heard a key in the door.
Elizabeth.
She stiffened and buried herself deeper beneath her covers. Elizabeth had picked up more extra shifts at the hospital and hadn’t been around for a few days, and Chelsea hadn’t expected her today, either.
She heard the door open, then Elizabeth whisper, “Oh, my God.”
Harry shot off the couch in pursuit of someplace to hide.
She listened to Elizabeth’s shoes squeak as she walked around the room. She was looking at the mess. From beneath the covers, tears welled up in Chelsea’s eyes. She clenched her fists so hard, her fingernails bit into her palms.
Go away. Please.
Leave me alone for a little while. I need to be—
“Jesus, Chelsea. Did you have a party and not invite me?”
Chelsea didn’t answer her.
The couch protested as Elizabeth sat down. “Chelsea? Seriously. Are you okay? This mess. It isn’t like you. My God, what happened? Stop hiding and talk to me.”
Chelsea reluctantly emerged from beneath the covers, her cheeks soaked. She wiped at the tears with the heel of her hand.
“I’m an idiot is what happened.”
Elizabeth frowned. “That’s not true, and you know it.”
“I’m acting like an idiot.”
“This is about Boyd, isn’t it?”
Chelsea nodded.
Elizabeth got up and turned on a lamp, then sat back down again.
“What did he do?”
Chelsea told Elizabeth everything. About Lang’s visit and how Boyd seemed to freak out afterward. Then how he’d abruptly left and was ignoring her texts.
“And he didn’t give you an explanation?”
Chelsea shook her head.
“No anything?” Elizabeth asked.
“Nothing.” Chelsea looked at her friend. “This is where you tell me, ‘I told you so.’ Because you did.”
“Come on. I wouldn’t do that.” Elizabeth reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I wish I’d been wrong. I’m sorry.”
“And now . . .” Chelsea laughed. “I’m acting like a jilted teenager.”
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “A teenager who can buy alcohol, I see.”
Chelsea explained what she’d seen on Facebook. Lisa’s relationship status indicating she was mar
ried.
Elizabeth’s cheeks reddened. “What a sleazeball. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too.” Chelsea shook her head. “What the hell happened to me? Why did I give him so much power? I thought I was stronger than this.”
“You’ve been through a lot of shit, Chels. Of course you’re going to have poor judgment sometimes. It just goes with the territory. But now that you’ve accepted that you were wrong about him, you can start getting over him.”
“Yeah.” Tears burned her eyes again, but Chelsea kept them at bay.
They talked a little more. When Elizabeth finally left, Chelsea was just about to take more Valium and slip into bed when a text came through.
She slowly picked up her phone. When she saw Boyd’s name, her heart skipped a beat.
Hey, sorry for being a stranger. Business has just been insane lately. I won’t be back in the city for a few weeks, but when I am, maybe we can grab lunch.
She stared at the text. Read and reread it a dozen times. The first thing she noticed was that it lacked intimacy. The second was that Boyd was lying. Even she knew that if a man was interested in a woman, he always made time for her. Boyd was feeding her bullshit.
He was done with her, but he wanted to let her down easy. Her whole body shook as she read it one last time. Then she wrapped her arms tightly around herself and headed for the kitchen for something to crowd out the pain.
Midway there, she froze. An idea had popped into her head.
A crazy one.
Something she could do that might get her some answers. It wasn’t something she’d normally do, but she was going to do it, anyway.
She hurried to her bedroom to get dressed.
CHAPTER 17
IN HIS MOTEL room, Lang continued to pore over the files.
He’d visited the parents of both deceased girls again and unfortunately learned nothing new. The only forward movement was that the second analysis had finally come back, and all the handwriting matched: the writing on the mirror, the note left on Chelsea’s car, and the note left wrapped around the rock.
He pulled out his notebook from the piles of paperwork scattered across the bed. It contained thoughts he had written down during his interview with Ethan’s mother. She had been very withdrawn. Having lost her husband, she seemed resigned to live out her life in solitude and maybe a little gin. It was one of the first things he’d noticed when she’d opened the door. An almost overpowering scent of alcohol wafting from her breath.
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