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

by Cathryn Grant

  28

  Mountain View

  Charlie’s smart phone was on the kitchen counter. Charlie was in the shower. He’d begged me to join him, but I needed to get close to his phone, not him. I’d managed a faint blush and hinted at my period. He backed off quickly and disappeared.

  As water pounded against tile in the bathroom, I tapped the home button and the lock screen appeared. 1234 didn’t work. I tried 4321. I tapped in the last four digits of his phone number and the same numbers in reverse order. No luck. I’d underestimated him. I let the screen go dark and thought about his house number and the current year — to commemorate his law school graduation. I tried the year of his birth. Nothing.

  It seemed that in his case, I wasn’t the hacker I’d hoped.

  While I let my mind drift, searching for other significant numbers or dates he might have mentioned, a message floated across the screen.

  When are you bringing that bitch down?

  I picked up the phone, as if holding it might tell me who that bitch was. Me? I didn’t think so. As far as I could tell, he was hooked on me. Unless someone else thought his interest in me was a bad idea. I put the phone back on the counter. I tried a repeat of his age — 2828.

  Teach that ho she can’t get away with being a tease.

  It definitely wasn’t me. A lot of things can be said about me, but not that.

  The message was followed by icons of a woman’s lips and a bunch of heads with tiny curls at the top denoting children.

  Deleting the photographs of me slipped slightly on my priority list. To be rid of them, the phone would have to go missing, but that would take planning. I hoped he was as negligent as most people are about backing up his data. But now, I was more interested in the woman he was hoping to bring down.

  I put the phone on the counter and went into the living room. I sat on the couch and waited for his shower to end. Nearly fifteen minutes passed before the bathroom door opened. A minute later he was in the living room doorway. “Ready?”

  I stood up. I’d been ready since I rang his bell at ten to six for our dinner date, expecting him to be showered and dressed.

  “You look great,” he said.

  “Don’t forget your phone.”

  He went to the counter, shoved it in his back pocket, and we left.

  We were seated on the open balcony looking down on the courtyard at Nola’s in Palo Alto. Charlie was sipping a vodka tonic and I was admiring the seductive liquid in my martini glass, wrapping itself around two glossy olives. A drink without ice diluting the alcohol is so much more satisfying. I let him take a few more sips. When he looked up, I ran my tongue across my upper lip.

  His eyes settled onto me and he put down the drink.

  “Do you have any enemies?” I said.

  He laughed. “That’s random. Why?”

  “Just making conversation. I was talking to Maria about it.”

  “How did that come up?”

  I lowered one shoulder. He looked down at the neckline of my top.

  “She has a friend who seems to attract enemies,” I said. “Maria’s never had an enemy in her life, as far as she knows, and she wondered how common it was — to have enemies.” It was probably true. Maria was a trusting, forgiving person. If we’d had the conversation, that’s how it would have gone.

  “I never thought about it.” He picked up his drink and tipped it, swirling the ice cubes.

  The server came and took our orders. When he was gone, I gave Charlie a questioning, friendly look. “It’s okay to tell me.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. I never gave it any thought.”

  “I would think, studying law and all, you would think about things like that.”

  “Well I haven’t.”

  “No list of who you’ll sue first, once you pass the bar?”

  “I’m not becoming an attorney to sue people.”

  “But if you want to, it’s convenient not having to hire an attorney.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Don’t look so worried,” I said. “You’ll pass. You study all the time, and you’re a very smart guy.”

  He tried not to smile. “I’m not worried.”

  But he was. I heard it in the faint waver beneath his words.

  He sipped his drink and picked up a piece of bread. He took a bite and chewed. “I know you’re defensive of her, so don’t start arguing with me, but I guess that woman with the illegal roommates is an enemy.”

  “Silvia?” I sipped my drink.

  He swallowed most of his.

  “It must be frustrating, trying to study so hard for something so important, and having kids’ TV shows disrupt you. They can be pretty inane. It’s hard to concentrate.”

  He nodded. “So you’re on my side now?”

  “Absolutely.” I ate one of my olives.

  “She’s kind of a bitch,” he said.

  Our meals were delivered. Steak for me, catfish for him. We ordered two more drinks.

  I stabbed my piece of beef with my fork and sliced the serrated knife through the meat. The red inside opened up, the color of an uncut ruby. “It’s probably a strain on the plumbing and all that, with so many people in one unit. That’s not good for the building overall,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Do you know her very well?”

  He looked down at his plate and shook his head. He said something I couldn’t hear.

  “What?”

  He shook his head again.

  I chewed the piece of steak and put down my cutlery. “Did you ask her to keep the noise down, apply gentle pressure, so she knows she’s risking her housing?”

  He looked up. “I put a lot of pressure on her. Being able to concentrate is critical. I don’t want to be one of those guys taking the bar two or three times. It doesn’t look good.”

  “What did she say?”

  “It was disgusting. You won’t believe it.”

  “Yes I will.”

  He leaned forward. “She suggested she’d fuck me, if I kept my mouth shut about it.”

  The scenario he described might play out with a lot of women, but not Sylvia. The glazed look in his eyes, the barely concealed rage, said that it had been exactly the opposite. He’d been the one to make the proposition. And now…

  “She’s such a whore.”

  “Shh. People can hear you.”

  He shoveled fish into his mouth and took a drink before he finished chewing.

  I looked away, my appetite fading as the contents of my stomach rocked gently.

  “I’ll tell you in the car,” he said.

  We’d parked in the garage below the historic Spanish building that housed Nola’s. Charlie started the car. The Mustang roared to life. He backed out and drove up the tightly curved ramp, turning left onto Ramona Avenue. Once we were on Central Expressway headed back toward Mountain View, he let loose.

  “That bitch thinks she can do whatever she wants. She can move in extra people in flagrant disregard for the rules that make this place livable for everyone. She thinks she’s above it all and that we should all feel her burden. We aren’t responsible for cutting her slack just because she can’t keep her husband. That’s not how society works. She’s a slut. Those kids have two different fathers and she didn’t marry either one of them. It’s inhuman to bring children into the world without a family unit. She gets herself pregnant…”

  “I don’t think you can get yourself pregnant.”

  He grunted. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do, it just sounds funny.”

  “Ha ha. Anyway, this is a nice place in an upscale town. We don’t need trash like her and her friend, we don’t need kids who grow up to be thugs without the firm discipline of a man. The racket from that TV proves she’s not raising them properly, parking them in front of idiotic shows all day and half the night. And to come onto me like that…”

  “When did this happen?”

  He took his hand off the wheel and flap
ped it at me as if he were brushing away my question, or a fly. “Not important.”

  “Is that why you need to bring her down?”

  He glanced at me then put his attention back on the road. “Exactly.”

  “How did she come on to you?”

  “I don’t think I need to describe it. You know how those things go. Thinking I’d be on her side, that I could be bought for a blow job or something. Like I have no integrity. Strutting around in her little skirt and skimpy top.”

  “Did she actually say something, or you…thought she was implying…”

  “She’s a tease. She’s the definition of a whore.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not just reporting her to the association. They have no teeth, and even if they reprimand her, it’ll take forever. I got the information for the owner of that condo. I’m reaching out to him, man to man, and suggesting he evict her.”

  He was precise enough and vague enough that I knew it hadn’t been the way he described it at all. He liked her legs and her cute little skirts. And they were little. He thought his outrage over her disturbance of sacrosanct study time would frighten her. He thought a single mom, lonely for a man, worried about keeping a stable home for her kids, would cave with a wink. She told him to get lost and his law school ego was bruised.

  “Don’t you need legal…”

  “I know the law, Alex. You don’t need to explain it. I’m checking into what’s required before I give him a call.”

  It was clear he imagined himself pacing in front of a jury box, articulating his point of view and her failure to obey the laws — mostly those in his own, early twentieth-century mind. Instead, he sounded like a misogynistic madman.

  I thought of brownies and working all day, coming home to diapers and meals to fix, lunches to pack, dishes to wash, laundry, baths, reading stories, bedtime. I couldn’t imagine the entire list. The father of those kids should be there doing half that work. I thought of those kids with their big gray eyes, like kittens — playful, cunning, and fierce. Like me.

  29

  Aptos

  Falling into Jared’s bed again had not been the best idea. Confusion erupted out of his mouth in short bursts of unfinished thoughts. But after the Boxster driver’s startling, searing, sidewalk kiss sending ripples of warmth to the soles of my feet, my body hummed with wanting.

  My body can be a confusing tangle of cells and muscles and nerves, sometimes woefully mis-communicating with my brain. Take smoking. Only someone who has lived in a cave is ignorant about what cigarette smoke does to your body, and the risk of an ugly, early death, or a bloody cough that allows you to live but dogs you every step of the way to your grave. The problem is, it feels so damn good. It’s relaxing. It releases your thoughts to float casually over the surface of your brain, no single thought turning into a troublesome nagging sound that won’t let go. And no matter how much the American Cancer Society shows pictures of haggard, withered people with cigarettes stuck to their dried lips, they can’t beat Hollywood. Smoking is sexy. Everyone knows it’s sexy — lips wrapped around a slender tube, smoke gliding out of your mouth in a thin, delicate stream. Yes, it leaves behind tobacco breath and clings to your hair, and even fresh, fruity lotions fail to cover the odor. But standing in front of a nice restaurant or an exotic hotel, smoking a cigarette, gives me a feeling of power and control. No one can touch me.

  I was turning Jared’s head inside out, messing with his life, but he was too good looking to keep my hands off, and too convenient. In the time it took to breathe in and out, I could slip into his bedroom. It was like having a bowl of potato chips on the table and expecting it to remain full.

  The night after we had sex for the second time, I had to get out of the house. He’d be hunting me down, trying to discuss our relationship. Even if we didn’t discuss it, staying at home raised the chances of two nights in a row. That would give him the impression that our connection was locked into place.

  I put on brown leggings topped with a baggy cream colored sweater over a red camisole, and dark brown boots with medium heels and brass zippers down the backs. The bangs I’d had cut to adjust my image toward the sweet end of the spectrum were getting tiresome, but now I needed to keep them thick and long to prevent Tess from fixating on the familiarity and perfection of my eyebrows. It was unlikely I’d see Tess, so I styled them to the side. I lined my eyes with soft, chocolate brown pencil, stroked on a bit of mascara, and left my lips naked. Noreen was right. I don’t need makeup, but it’s so much fun, and there are so many ways to transform your appearance with colors and shadows and lines.

  I flicked off my bedroom light, walked though the great room, and went out to the porch. Jared’s car was gone. I could have stayed home after all. I stood for a moment, staring at the darkened house across the street. Once you’re wearing the outfit for going to a club or bar, it’s hard to reverse direction. Besides, a martini in a bar was more appealing than mixing my own, drinking it in my increasingly claustrophobic bedroom.

  Henry’s Bar was quiet on a weeknight and I snagged one of the booths. I ordered fried artichoke hearts, an assortment of sausage slices, and a vodka martini.

  The first olive was gone and I was halfway through the drink and the artichokes when a man’s voice spoke just behind me on the left. “If I order another plate of those, can I share this one with you?”

  I turned.

  The Boxster guy. What the hell was it about him that captivated me? He was tall, which was accentuated by him standing over me. I like the feeling of a tall guy. Especially when I know he’s in my power, weak with wanting me, so there’s this weird dynamic of strength from his height advantage over me and the opposing strength from my advantage over him. This guy was thin for my taste, but it was impossible to take my eyes off his assured, fluid movements. The shape of his lips flooded my own with the memory of kissing him.

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  He slid into the seat across from me and put his bottle of Blue Moon on the table. He dipped an artichoke heart in the aioli and popped it into his mouth. “Love these things.”

  “Me too.”

  He lifted the beer and tapped the neck on the edge of my glass. The vodka and vermouth undulated.

  “It’s an odd coincidence,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Seeing you here. I had the impression you didn’t live in the area.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Are you following me?”

  “Maybe.” He smiled.

  “That’s creepy.”

  He shrugged.

  We finished the plate of hearts and he ordered another. I pushed the sausages toward him. “Help yourself.”

  “I will, thanks.” He stabbed a piece of sausage with one of the bamboo spears on the side of the plate and popped it in his mouth without mustard.

  “You’re very persistent, waiting so long for your surprise attack on Noreen.”

  “The timing needs to be perfect. I’m a patient guy.”

  I took a sip of my martini.

  “Are you ready for another?”

  I ate the olive. “Sure. Vodka. Grey Goose.”

  He ordered the drinks and more sausages. We gobbled the food and talked about what we liked and didn’t like about Santa Cruz and the surrounding beach towns. Oddly, the subject of water — beaches, surfing, boating — didn’t come up. We mostly discussed the flood of homeless people, the ready availability of medical marijuana, and the political extremes. Then we moved to the mundane topic of traffic. From there, we talked about our favorite places to eat and the never-ending supply of great, reasonably priced food. He was obviously familiar with the area.

  When my glass was nearly empty, he reached across the table and pulled the pink stick holding the last olive out of the glass. He held it close to my mouth and I sucked the olive off the stick.

  “I liked kissing you,” he said. “I bet you taste great with a vodka-soaked tongue.”

>   “I do, if you like vodka.”

  “I’m staying at a Motor Inn — the Ocean Breeze. Do you want…”

  “I do,” I said.

  He went to the bar and paid for the food and drinks. On the sidewalk outside, we stood on the edge of the curb and he gave me a long, slow kiss. I got in my car and followed the Boxster to the Ocean Breeze.

  Despite the dreamy, lighthearted name, my first thought when I saw the motor inn was of the Bate’s Motel. It had the same string of rooms connected by a single porch running the entire length, and the same run down appearance. The sense that the rooms had been unoccupied for a very long time, maybe always, added to the chill circling my spine. It had the same old-fashioned sign with thin red tubes of light forming the name. I climbed slowly out of my car, smiling at how a movie with two memorably unnerving scenes can live inside your head for years, until it starts to feel like part of your own history.

  Inside, the room was nothing like the Bate’s Motel. It had updated pale gray carpet and a bed with an iron headboard and footboard. The remodeled bathroom featured a sleek pedestal sink and a dual flush toilet. Most importantly, the shower was a stall with a stationary glass panel to keep the water contained — no tub, no opaque shower curtain hiding a freak with a butcher knife.

  After he removed my clothes, article by article, and suggested I do the same for him, we made love. Twice. It was not disappointing.

  We slept for a while, and at twelve-thirty I got up and gathered my clothes. He didn’t object to my leaving. Ending the evening without a discussion of our status was pleasant. I felt light and drained of all aggression and tension. I zipped my boots and stood up. “You know, you could have seen Noreen tonight. Jared was out, and here I am.”