by Steve Richer
SUMMARY
Some people you shouldn’t let into your home...
Times are tough for suburban couple Alice and Tom Granger. She still hasn’t gotten her promotion and they need money to fix up their income property. Desperate, they ultimately decide to rent out their basement apartment.
They couldn’t be happier when Libbie Burchett signs the lease. She’s fun and friendly, always eager to help. She’s a perfect tenant. But Alice and Tom don’t know that Libbie has secrets.
That she isn’t who she says she is.
That she’s just been released from a mental hospital.
That she’s here to get revenge.
As Libbie puts her ruthless plan into motion, driving a wedge between the couple, painful memories are dredged up for Tom and Alice. They’ll need to dig into their past if they hope to stay alive...
~ ~ ~ ~
A Perfect Tenant
by
Steve Richer and Nicholas Gifford
Copyright © 2019 Steve Richer
The cover art for this book makes use of licensed stock photography. All photography is for illustrative purposes only and all persons depicted are models.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Also by Steve Richer
The President Killed His Wife (Rogan Bricks 1)
Counterblow (Rogan Bricks 2)
Murder Island (Rogan Bricks 3)
The Pope’s Suicide
Stranger Danger
Critical Salvage
Terror Bounty
Park Avenue Blackmail
The Kennedy Secret
The Gilded Treachery
Never Bloodless
The Atomic Eagle
Sigma Division
Intense Past: Historical Thriller Collection
Eyes Only: Spy Thriller Collection
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
About the Authors
Chapter 1
Libbie couldn’t stand the institutional green of the walls anymore.
She couldn’t stand the institutional flooring or the institutional furniture which was uncomfortable and appalling to look at. She couldn’t understand how not a single chair was even. How was that possible? Did the tender call for wobbly chairs exclusively? Most of all, Libbie couldn’t take one more day of institutional food.
These grievances had started on day one. Today—at last!—it was over. When she woke up and pushed down the sheets, definitely not Egyptian cotton, she noticed the stack of clothes on the dresser by the door. It wasn’t state-issued sweats, always gray, or pink, or blue to put the patient in a pleasant mood. No, these were her personal clothes.
This must mean that, even though she had one last meeting with Dr. Holt, the decision had been made to release her as scheduled. The session would only be a formality. She smiled for the first time in ninety days.
She got up, went to the institutional bathroom, and quickly inspected the clothes they had brought her during the night. There was the dark blue Michael Kors lace-up side jumpsuit she’d gotten from Bloomingdale’s. The one she’d worn when she arrived at the hospital. A cashmere hooded shirt from Saks Fifth Avenue. Her favorite velvet sweatshirt by Graham & Spencer. Everything that had been in her bag when she’d arrived.
She opted for jeans, an Armani T-shirt, and Giuseppe Zanotti sneakers. The colors of her ensemble were bright, completely clashing with what the others wore. It was exactly what she wanted.
“Hey, Libbie,” she heard as she came out of her room.
She found old Greta staring at her. Seventy years old and no sign of her getting better. She’d been told that she would never get out of here. Libbie smiled tightly at her, but didn’t reply.
She walked down the hall toward the cafeteria, her head held high. She wanted people to see her, to see how she was dressed. She was different. She wasn’t like them. Most of all, she was a free woman.
Almost.
Following a breakfast of institutional powdered eggs and institutional coffee, she was made to wait in the community room. The nurses pointedly didn’t treat her differently than usual. Maybe putting on this outfit had been the wrong move, she thought. She was bringing too much attention to herself and it made people hate her.
Libbie was used to being hated. She could handle it. She had handled it all her life. She could do it a few more hours.
She watched a morning show on TV. She resisted the urge to bribe another patient for her Valium, just to be able to tolerate the vapid hosts. She flipped through magazines she had read a dozen times already. She played chess by herself, handling both sides, and the match ended in a draw.
It was almost lunch when the nurse with the bad perm came to fetch her. “Dr. Holt will see you now.”
Libbie walked ahead of her, once again the center of attention. She didn’t need to be escorted, yet she couldn’t escape it. The only way to get dignity out of it was to walk as if it was her choice. Again, people openly gawked as if she didn’t belong here. She didn’t.
Nurse Bad Perm hurried past her to knock on the door and open it. “I have Libbie for you, Doctor.”
“Thank you. Libbie, come in.”
The nurse disappeared, closing the door behind her as Libbie entered the tiny institutional office with the green walls. She had asked about the unfortunate color choice and he had told her that it was supposed to be soothing. Personally, it made her want to murder someone.
“Have a seat,” he said as he opened a file on his rickety institutional desk.
She sat in the plastic chair across the desk from him. “Good morning, Doctor.”
He gave her a pleasant smile before making a show of reading the documents before him.
He was a handsome man, about thirty years old and still getting his feet wet in the world of psychiatry. He had to pay his dues before he could afford to open a private practice in the suburbs. He had dark curly hair and olive skin. His beard was carefully trimmed. Libbie had heard most of the nurses gushing over him at one time or another.
“I see you’re already wearing your own clothes.”
“Wasn’t I supposed to, Doctor?”
“It’s fine.”
“Do you think I look pretty?” she ask
ed, crossing her legs and cocking her head to the side.
He didn’t take the bait. “You look well.”
“I feel well. That was the point of me being here, wasn’t it?”
“Of course, Libbie.”
“It’s a beautiful fall day, I’m happy, and I’m feeling great. I can’t think of anything negative right now. I can’t think of any reason why I have to stay here.”
The psychiatrist squinted. “You don’t?”
“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? That’s what this meeting is about? I’ve been here for the mandatory ninety days. You’ve evaluated me and now you can see that I don’t belong here anymore.”
“Is that the truth or what you think I want to hear, Libbie?”
She leaned forward slightly, her turn to squint. “I think you already made your decision. That’s why my things were in my room when I woke up.”
Dr. Holt scribbled something in Libbie’s file. She couldn’t see what it was.
“What are your plans after being released?”
“I have a life to get back to. I have plans.”
“What plans?” he inquired.
“I want to visit old friends, maybe make new ones. Thanks to your thoughtful care and therapy, I’m a healthy woman now.”
He studied her closely, letting the silence draw out. He wasn’t buying it. Libbie’s skin prickled. She was almost out of here. She could taste her freedom, but this man could still screw everything up.
She said, “Dr. Holt, I know I did something bad. I did something absolutely terrible to land in here. I realize that now. More than anything, I learned not to act out my frustrations with a baseball bat any longer. It won’t happen again, I promise.” She smiled so he knew she was joking. Humor was good, right?
Maybe not, going by the look on his face.
She smiled again. “I have a support network out there, Doctor. Family.”
They both knew that was a stretch of the truth. She had no real friends, and the only family she had left was her brother Jonathan, who always seemed more concerned about protecting the family name, usually by throwing money at problems.
There are some things money can’t buy, though.
Like revenge.
The psychiatrist looked at her for a long time, then at her file, and finally at the stack of documents on the corner of the desk. She was ten minutes in a fifty-patient day. He sighed and shook his head with resignation. He pulled a form from his drawer and wrote something down before scrawling his name at the bottom.
“I’m signing your release, Libbie. I really hope you told me the truth because the next time you get frustrated, as you said, I’m afraid you’re going to go back to your old ways. I’m afraid you might go even further. You need to promise me you won’t.”
“I won’t, Doctor. I swear I feel better. I don’t have a violent bone in my body. Not anymore.”
She couldn’t prove it though, and they both knew it.
Chapter 2
Tom walked around the kitchen island and took the wooden spoon away from Alice. She was mildly surprised but he winked, as always making everything all right with that small gesture.
“You’re such a gentleman, taking over for me so the onions don’t make me cry.”
He shook his head. “I’m taking over so you don’t burn the onions. Some of us want to eat dinner in this century.”
She extended her tongue at the playful jab and he swatted her on the butt as she moved out of the way. Tom stirred the onions before they caramelized and added chopped celery.
“You know,” Alice began, “a good stay-at-home husband would have done this in advance before his wife got home from work.”
“Who ever said I’m a good husband?”
She laughed and he smiled in return, taking his attention away from the pan long enough to admire her. She looked smart in her charcoal pantsuit, her fair hair pinned on top of her head. She was the very picture of a high-powered executive which they both knew she was about to become.
“How’s the house, Alice? Did you get a chance to drop by on your way back?”
“I did, just for a minute.” Her attention wasn’t on him now. She washed her hands and fetched the little black case on the counter which contained her glucose meter. “The guys were still working.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“How does it look? Still on schedule?”
She shrugged as she stabbed her finger with the spring-loaded needle. She didn’t even feel pain from this anymore. “They say they’re on schedule, but who really knows, right? That’s what they always say.”
They had purchased a house on the other side of town four months ago. It was run down and the neighborhood wasn’t ideal, but they’d had a good deal. They were now in the process of having it fixed up.
They weren’t quite sure what to do with it yet, however. Tom was in favor of getting it to code, slapping a fresh coat of paint on it, and selling the place for a quick profit. For her part, Alice was thinking long-term. The neighborhood was bound for gentrification and she argued that the house would pay for itself if they rented it out.
Approaching things differently was one of the reasons their marriage worked so well, she thought. They saw things from a different perspective. He was more cautious while she was willing to take a risk. He was okay with small guaranteed victories while Alice angled for bigger long-term gains. Tom was the kid who ate the first marshmallow right away while she waited the fifteen minutes for a second one.
She dipped the strip in her blood and inserted it in the tiny machine.
“Everything okay, sweetie?”
She waited until the device beeped and flashed the results on the LCD screen before speaking. She winced. “It’s a bit high.”
Tom turned down the stove heat. “You want me to cook something different? It’s no bother. I can have this for lunch tomorrow.”
“No,” Alice said, shaking her head. “I’ll just adjust my dosage later. But thank you for offering.”
“Well, I only offered because I knew you’d say no.”
She rolled her eyes and they chuckled. She came close enough for him to lean down and kiss her. It was light and fast, but passionate nonetheless.
“Behave, Tom.”
“Resorting to threats, are we?”
“Not a threat, a promise. If you keep this up, it will be nothing but canned tuna, brown rice, and oatmeal for you.”
“Alice Granger, you are a cruel, cruel woman.”
“I just know how to get what I want,” she replied with a wink, her turn to swat him on the butt.
She went to the fridge and peered inside.
“Looking for something?”
“My insulin. I swear that thing moves around at night.”
She was still searching when her phone rang. She got the phone from her pocket. The caller ID read Michael Tuckett.
“Hey, boss. What’s happening?”
“Sorry to spring this when you’re at home, but I have some news.”
“Good news or bad news?”
“Probably a bit of both,” the older man said. “We had a meeting after you left and we made our decision. I want you on the Mapleview account.”
Alice straightened up. She was agape and motionless for several seconds.
“Alice, are you there?”
“Yes, yes I’m here. Thank you!”
“You can probably guess why I say it’s both good news and bad news. This project is going to take up a lot of your time and energy. It’s going to be hard. On the other hand, you nail this and you can write your own ticket.”
Alice had been dreaming about getting this assignment ever since it had been announced. She worked for Pierson Newport, a midsize real estate holding company. They had made a small fortune following the 2008 financial collapse, snatching up houses and commercial buildings when their values dropped. Now times were tougher again, which was why they were looking at expanding. Acquiring Mapleview wo
uld make them a national contender.
Controlling her breathing, Alice looked into the fridge again to keep herself occupied. She moved the mayonnaise and found her insulin.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Tuckett. Thank you for the vote of confidence.”
“You deserve it. Now celebrate and we’ll talk more in the morning at the office.”
They said goodbye and Alice took a step back from the fridge as Tom added mushrooms to the pan.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“I got the Mapleview account.”
“Really? Congratulations! You’ve been talking about that like Molly Ringwald talks about Jake Ryan. So what happens next? They make you vice president?”
“Well, first I have to put the project together. I have to crunch numbers, put a figure on Mapleview, see how much we can afford. And then I have to prepare my pitch which is going to be like a college thesis. I’m putting a case together.”
Tom nodded. “But after that you get a promotion, stock options, and we fly on private jets?”
“Maybe business-class. Maybe.”
“Cool. I’ve never even seen business-class. Must be nice.”
Before answering, Alice came closer, gauging his reaction. She put a hand on his elbow, delicate and nonintrusive.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this, Tom?”
“Okay with what, my wife becoming a juggernaut of finance? What’s not to like?”
“Me making more money than you. This whole thing was supposed to be temporary but…”
“Sweetie, it’s fine. I’m a kept man. I’m the lucky one here.”
He flashed her a broad smile and pecked her on the lips. She returned the smile but she couldn’t help detect an edge in his voice. He was telling her this to make her happy. She couldn’t help but wonder if he actually resented her success. Sooner or later, they’d need to address this. She dreaded that day.
She wondered if she shouldn’t get it over with now and opened her mouth to speak. Right then, a shadow fell across the kitchen. The side door contained a window in the upper half and someone was standing outside. They both turned toward the visitor and recognized him.