The Woman In the Mirror: (A Psychological Suspense Novel) (Alexandra Mallory Book 1)

by Cathryn Grant

  THE WOMAN

  IN THE MIRROR

  An Alexandra Mallory Novel

  Cathryn Grant

  D2C Perspectives

  Copyright © 2016 by Cathryn Grant

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact D2Cperspectives@gmail.com

  ISBN: 978-1-943142-26-2 (ebook)

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  Visit Cathryn online at CathrynGrant.com

  Cover design by Lydia Mullins Copyright © 2016

  1

  Aptos, California

  The ad said a sweet and responsible woman was looking for housemates to share her cottage.

  The ad did not mention that the cottage was perched rather too close to the edge of a cliff overlooking Monterey Bay. It would seem easy to rent spare rooms in a house with a glistening ocean view, but the house was really, really close to the edge of a sandstone cliff that was eroding ever so slowly onto the boulders and crumbled rock forming the shore below. Nail biting territory on a stormy night when trees bowed under the wind, and rain whipped at the windows like a woman with a cat-o-nine-tails.

  Noreen Palmer told me that everyone who responded to her ad stepped inside the front door, caught a glimpse of the ocean through the back doors, and couldn’t believe their good fortune, or the below-market rent. Once they were standing on that faintly sagging deck, wondering how much rot had infested the soft planks beneath their feet, with nothing but empty space below, the flesh of their faces turned to pudding. They bolted for solid ground, calling back to her that the house wasn’t a good fit after all.

  The disturbing aspect of the ad itself was this — if a woman feels compelled to emphasize that she’s sweet and responsible, it’s a red flag. But the thing is, she did seem sweet. And the tidiness of her house, her clipboard and paperwork with forms for providing information about myself, all appeared very responsible.

  And I was desperate. I had a new job at a small high tech company based in Aptos. Nearly all of my connections in Silicon Valley on the other side of the foothills had been severed recently — murder has a way of orchestrating an abrupt change in relationships. Living at a Santa Cruz motor inn, eating meals at taquerias and burger stands, aside from the supplemental yogurt or cup of noodles, was blasting through my minimalist savings account. Desperate was an understatement. I needed a place to live, I needed a responsible landlord taking care of utilities, asking nothing from me but my monthly contribution. Cash was fine, she said.

  It didn’t occur to Noreen Palmer to ask whether I was sweet. She had her own kind of desperation — needing income from rooms in a house that might not survive the next El Niño deluge pouring down cliffs weakened by years of drought.

  I would never describe myself as sweet. It’s not that I’m horrid, I’m not an axe murderer, but I’m not sweet. In fact, I would never describe any woman as sweet. I find that word condescending and somewhat misogynistic. Sweet is for cookies and ice cream, not women.

  Noreen led me to the pine dining table surrounded by three chairs. She placed a clipboard with several forms on the table and handed me a pen. I sat down and wrote my name at the top of the first form. I looked up and smiled. I twisted my ponytail around my finger. After reading her ad, I’d had my hair cut into thick bangs, a blunt shoulder length style on which I used a curling iron to give it a slight wave. I put the pen between my teeth for a moment, then pulled it away and smiled. “Isn’t it better to chat and get to know each other instead of relying on a bunch of forms? You can miss so many things in a form. All the subtleties. All the things that really matter.”

  “That’s a very good point.” She ran her fingers through her hair, mostly dirty blonde with a few glints of a pale red that had revealed themselves when she’d stood in direct sunlight on the back deck. The gesture emphasized her slightly larger than average nose and a mouth that settled naturally into an expression between sadness and worry.

  “Tell me who you are, Noreen. Girl chat.” I put the pen down.

  She giggled. “I like to run.”

  It was an interesting introduction, not usually the first thing someone tells you about herself. I grinned. “Me too!”

  “Maybe we can run together!” she said.

  I held her gaze, smiling eagerly.

  After a few seconds, she glanced away. “You’re in better shape than I am. You look really strong.”

  “I lift weights.”

  “I should try that. I think about it, but never do.”

  “You should. It feels great.”

  She adjusted the strap on her tank top, settling it over her shoulder bone. She was thin and small, elfin, and her long, silky fine, un-styled hair added to the impression. She was currently unattached, she said. I was currently unattached. We both loved vodka martinis and pasta.

  “If you love pasta as much as I do,” she said, “You’d better be a runner.”

  I laughed. “Totally agree.”

  She bit the nail of her index finger and tilted her head to the left, expecting more from me. When I didn’t speak, she yanked her finger away from her mouth as if I’d slapped her hand.

  I filled out the forms anyway because I could see it was important to her peace of mind — Alexandra Mallory (middle name and last name), age twenty-seven (I can’t say why, exactly, but it seemed wise to be closer to Noreen’s age), employer Macy’s Department Store (I prefer to keep work and home separate and the best way is if work is an unknown), job title sales manager (the manager part was correct), non-smoker (I would never smoke inside her house, so the white lie wasn’t important), no pets (true!). I filled in the lines asking for years with my current employer (less than one, but that didn’t bother Noreen and she didn’t ask how much less than one), previous employers, personal references, job references. Those slots were filled with names of a handful of people from the less recent past who owed me, even if they didn’t want anything to do with me. Noreen wouldn’t bother to check anyway. We’d bonded — kindred spirits. Besides, her nervous, eager smile said she needed two bodies in those spare rooms, and money coming in. It was a perfect place for me — a desperate renter and a desperate landlord, no important questions asked.

  The candidate for the other unoccupied bedroom was male.

  Are you okay with that? she said.

  Absolutely, I replied.

  The three bedrooms were on one side of the open floor plan living and dining area. Noreen’s room had an adjoining bathroom and was on one side of the short hallway. The doors to the second and third bedrooms were side by side across from hers. The guy and I would share the second bathroom off the same short hallway. She didn’t ask whether that was okay.

  The kitchen counter opened into the living and dining area, and there was an alcove off the living room with French doors giving access to that treacherous back deck. The floors throughout the house were sand-colored tile, the grout chipped in a few spots. The tile would be easy to keep clean, but on foggy mornings, it turned cold as a gravestone. The garage had space for a single car, Noreen’s Jetta would be parked there. I’d only been told my share of the rent and utilit
ies, not the total cost, and I began to wonder if this was a profit making deal for her despite the low rent. It wasn’t the first time I’d run into such an arrangement.

  The house was adobe with a red, glass-paned front door. The front yard was slightly barren with dying grass and a Japanese maple holding its own against years of drought. An eight-foot fence surrounded the side yard. It contained a dead vegetable garden, a small lemon tree, and a metal shed.

  “When does the guy move in?” I said.

  “Jared. Jared Wellington. I’m not sure. He already paid the deposit and first month’s rent, so he can take his time.”

  It was another two weeks before I met Jared. The man knew how to create an aura of mystery around himself. Who has money to pay rent and not move into a place right away? If he had money to burn, why was he renting a room in — let’s face it — a sagging bungalow? The window frames needed scraping and repainting. The tile floor was nice, but the bathroom had a vague hint of mildew, despite looking spotless. And there was no covered parking, which became more surprising when Jared pulled up in a brand new white BMW. He climbed out and closed the door with obvious care. In my experience, a guy that good looking would somehow end up with the only covered parking for his Beemer, but Noreen didn’t offer to park her faded Jetta in the driveway, and he didn’t ask.

  When he climbed out of the car, Noreen’s lips parted slightly and she ran her fingers through her hair, separating it into chunks. Hitting on a tenant is generally not a good idea. But a woman who advertises her sweetness might be a tiny bit naive. She snuck a glance at me as he walked around the car.

  Jared was six-one. He had dark, almost black hair, longish but not grubby and stringy like some kind of beach bum. He removed his sunglasses, revealing dark brown eyes with thick lashes. He had a perfect nose, and teeth that had been well-cared for by an orthodontist.

  As it turned out, Jared was not attracted to elfin women. And it only took a moment for him to express his opinion of my appearance. He did it with an exaggerated wink. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the discretion to hide that wink from Noreen. A grimace crossed her face, tight with rage, complete with red streaks on the pale skin of her forehead. Her fists tightened and her knuckles turned chalk white. It was clear, no matter how confidently she advertised her sweetness, she was fully capable of putting a knife through my ribs if I followed that wink to its natural conclusion.

  2

  Jared Wellington fell in love with Alexandra the moment he saw her. It wasn’t something he’d admit because it sounded trite, and he would never trivialize her like that.

  He’d climbed out of his car and looked at the two women standing near the edge of the rough, faded lawn. They couldn’t have been more different.

  Noreen smiled and took a step forward, eager to wrap the warm arms of her home around him. She raked her fingers through her pale, oddly colored hair and deepened the smile.

  Alexandra remained where she was, a look on her face that said she couldn’t care less whether he stayed, or climbed back in his car and drove away, no longer willing to live in a house that was ready to slide down the cliff into the Pacific Ocean. She seemed to be more taken with his car than she was with him, gazing at it as if she wanted to stroke its sleek, white haunches. He shut the door and walked toward them. He took off his sunglasses.

  Fog was blowing in from the ocean, and behind the two women, the house looked like it was fading out of existence with its beige stucco walls, thirsty tree, and the grayed worn boards of the fence surrounding the side yard. All that stood out was the red frame surrounding the glass panes of the front door.

  Noreen grabbed his wrist and pulled him onto the dead lawn. He tried to slide his wrist out of her grip, but it was too strong. Wrenching violently away would hurt her feelings, and she looked like a woman whose feelings were easily hurt. Alexandra did not.

  Noreen introduced them, finally releasing his wrist so he could shake Alexandra’s hand. Alexandra still didn’t smile, but she managed to look pleasant and mildly welcoming without a smile. Her hand was cool and soft, her grip firm.

  He couldn’t stop looking at her. She was gorgeous. Not perfect — her ass was smaller than he liked and she had a narrow nose that ended in a sharp tip — yet she seemed as close to perfection as any woman he’d seen. She held herself separate in a way that made him long to find out what was going on behind her cool gaze.

  The fog did nothing to disturb her sleek dark hair that hung over her shoulders, covering the straps of a white top and framing her round, firm breasts. She was slim with long legs. Her eyes were dark and looked at him as if she knew everything about him. Bangs covered her eyebrows, making her eyes appear larger. She wore faded jeans with a tear in the left knee. The tear looked real, not one of those phony rips that comes from the factory. Her feet were bare and she had gold rings on the second and third toes of each foot.

  He’d decided to move to Aptos after his sudden departure from Cisco, dreaming of weekends lying on the sand, swimming in the ocean, and a live-and-let-live culture. No more over-eager women with long, reinforced nails and sharply pointed shoes, clawing their way to ever higher salaries, twisting your balls into withered mice in the process. No more working until seven at night and checking email when you woke up to take a piss. No airports and meetings and hotels, no expense reports and performance reviews and PowerPoint slides.

  The magic of Silicon Valley had turned into a circus for him, with terrifying grins painted in grease on the faces of the clowns who led the show.

  His abrupt departure was viewed as an act of bravery by some and stupidity by others.

  He’d stood up in the middle of a product readiness review meeting. He’d closed his laptop and walked around the U-shaped arrangement of tables, passing behind men and women hunched over their computers, simultaneously tapping on smart phones and glancing at the slides displayed at the front of the room. They looked like gargoyles, curled shoulders and twisted faces under the panels of florescent lights. He’d paused at the bottom of the U where Michelle Oliveri, the Vice President of marketing sat with her arms folded across breasts that looked to be as empty of life as his balls. He placed his laptop beside hers.

  Without looking at him, she said, “What’s this for?”

  “I quit.”

  She laughed. “Don’t be so impatient. Your section will be up in twenty minutes. I promise. I know we’re running behind, but Mel will make up the lost time, and then it’s your turn.”

  “No,” Jared said. “I quit. I’m resigning.”

  “You can’t resign. We’re two weeks from the most important launch event in three years.”

  “Everything’s on the laptop.” He turned and walked toward the door at the back of the conference room. He paused at the door, lifted up first one foot, then the other, removing his shoes. He tucked them under his arm and waved at his colleagues. Only half of them had even noticed the interruption, the others continued typing and tapping and scowling at screens.

  Michelle laughed. “Okay, you made your point, Jared. You can go next and leave the meeting early if you have to be somewhere.”

  “Ms. Oliveri, I no longer want to spend my life sitting in meetings re-doing every project thirteen times because of some arbitrary change in strategy. I’m not leaving the meeting, I’m leaving the company. The industry. Now.” He opened the door and stepped into the hallway. In his stocking feet, he ran along the corridor, turning left twice, until he reached the lobby. He unclipped his badge. He took his corporate credit card out of his wallet and left both on the receptionist’s desk. Then he peeled off his socks and walked outside.

  He’d always liked the beach. It seemed like a good place to start looking for housing.

  Fortunately, the condo he’d lived in for the past four years had his roommate’s name on the lease. Ray was more easy going than most. Or maybe it was that he was one of the few who believed Jared had committed an act of bravery. “I always wanted to live near the beach. Mayb
e someday.”

  Jared decided not to drive a virtual sword through his friend’s heart. Instead of informing Ray that someday was now, another someday might not arrive if he never looked up from his desk, he grinned and said thanks for understanding.

  The ad for a bungalow overlooking the ocean, with its emphasis on sweet and responsible, struck him as just the sort of thing you would expect in Aptos. Despite his dramatic exit from the five story office building, among a sea of similar buildings, it took him a week or so to take care of exit forms and rolling his 401k out of the company coffers and into his own IRA, packing and selling most of his furniture, and cheerfully agreeing to a farewell bash.

  They thought his sudden race for the door was just that — sudden, but it had been coming for almost half a year. After seeing his doctor for insomnia, and then seeing her again two months later for a madly twitching eyelid, and two weeks after that for a ringing in his left ear, she suggested he try meditation. You’re showing symptoms of stress. A lot of people find meditation helps.

  In his typical hard driving fashion, he’d purchased fifteen books on the subject, a set of MP3 lessons, and taken a class at the New Age Nirvana Center in Santa Cruz. During the third class, he’d felt his brain float out of his skull, rise up to the rafters of the re-purposed church, and stretch into a thin film that then descended over him and his fellow meditators. The experience was both frightening and beyond blissful. It was better than getting high, which he didn’t do often. Better than a few drinks, better than driving a hundred and ten miles on dark, curving, deserted Highway 280 at three o’clock in the morning. He was still debating whether it was better than sex. Probably not all sex, but a lot.

  Now, standing a few feet from Alexandra Mallory, he regretted his vow that he would steer clear of sex and drinking while he continued to explore the hidden corridors of his mind, the universe, and the nature of life.