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

by Cathryn Grant

  On Friday night the air was cool — winter was coming fast, ripping dead leaves off trees and sticking its sharp, cold fingers into condos constructed with dicey attention to detail. We sat on the balcony bundled up in leather jackets. I wore a silk scarf to keep my neck warm. I spent several long minutes considering whether or not I should use the scarf to lead Charlie to his final breath, instead of one of his lovely king-sized feather pillows as I’d planned.

  If you didn’t have a full-blown party, you could get away with smoking a joint on your own balcony at our complex. Clearly Charlie thought breaking the law regarding smoking dope was perfectly acceptable, while sharing your rented condo with a friend so you weren’t living half a paycheck or a serious bout with the flu from homelessness, was not.

  We sipped vodka tonics and ate from a bowl of fish crackers. Charlie told stories about risqué law school parties. I smiled and gazed at his face, watching his mouth move, his eyes dart about as if they could see anything in the darkness. Each time he handed the joint to me, I put it to my lips and leaned forward slightly. I rubbed the insides of his thighs, gliding my fingers higher with firm, steady pressure. He closed his eyes and I held my breath for a moment, then released it as if I was blowing out a stream of smoke. He never noticed the joint hadn’t decreased much in size after I finished with it.

  When the joint was gone and he was nicely buzzed, I took his hand and led him inside to the couch. I got his bottle of Grey Goose out of the freezer and a shot glass out of the cabinet. I set them on the glass coffee table. I took off my jacket and scarf. I removed his jacket, tossing it on the chair. I knelt and untied his shoes and took them off his feet. He sighed and leaned back.

  I closed the blinds and pulled a deck of cards out of my purse. “Shots or strip.”

  “What?” His eyelids drooped and he looked at me hungrily but with inertia.

  “We’ll play Blackjack and whoever wins each hand gets to tell the loser to strip or take a shot.”

  He grinned and his eyes opened slightly, but his pupils were huge, bleeding out toward the whites of his eyes. “Sounds good.”

  The game went as expected. After twelve hands, I’d had one shot and was wearing nothing but a thong and my boots. That sequence had been a hassle — he’d made me take off my leggings after my first loss, and put the boots back on. I’d worn a few extra layers to make sure he had two or three shots to my one.

  It was time for the next game.

  I’d discarded the idea of using my scarf, best not to risk leaving an imperceptible fiber behind.

  We went into the bedroom and I pushed him onto the bed. I removed the rest of his clothes slowly. His breathing turned rough, inching toward the edge of snoring. I slid his boxer shorts ever so slowly down his legs, brushing my fingers over the thick hair. I gave a sharp tug to one of the hairs to see how out of it he was. He didn’t respond. I dropped the shorts on the floor.

  I had a pretty good idea it wouldn’t be all that easy to smother someone. The autonomic nervous system takes control, the body fights for its oxygen even if the conscious mind is essentially dead. But someone who likes sex with cuffs is a whole lot easier.

  In the drawer of the nightstand was a pair of handcuffs that I was familiar with. He was right-handed, so that was the hand I secured to the slatted headboard. I used neckties from his dresser drawer to secure the other wrist to the headboard and both of his ankles to the footboard. I moved to the side of the bed and climbed on. I got on my hands and knees and crept up toward him. I swung my leg over and straddled him. His dick was moderately firm, but he seemed unaware of that fact. I inched up slightly, putting most of my weight on his hip bones. He didn’t complain or move. I leaned across and picked up the large, downy pillow.

  First, I lowered the pillow gently over his face. He didn’t react. After a moment, he groaned and turned his head slightly, but he made no move to push away the pillow. I pressed gently. He tried to turn on his side, but the cuffs and ties prevented him rotating more than a few inches. He groaned and coughed.

  It was now or never.

  I pushed as hard as I could. The results of all those bench presses and curls, the triceps work, the lat pull-downs, the squats and shoulder presses, came into play. He groaned and coughed, his body thrashed, but there wasn’t enough freedom to allow movements violent enough to throw me out of position.

  Before my arms grew tired from the effort, it was over.

  I took a folded trash bag out of my purse and put the pillow inside. I lifted his head and dragged the other pillow underneath. I picked up his phone, powered it down, and dropped it into the bag with the pillow. I went into the living room and dressed quickly.

  For the next hour, I wiped down every door, table, chair, counter, and piece of glass I’d touched. I cleaned the handcuffs and flushed the joint and the ashes down the toilet. Although I’d wiped it down, I grabbed the bottle of vodka at the last minute, tucked the deck of cards into my purse, and let myself out.

  40

  It was clear that I had to immediately leave the condo I shared with Maria, without saying good-bye to Sylvie and her brownies, not to mention my very solid roommate. The police would question everyone in our building. Charlie and I weren’t a couple with an established relationship, but we’d been seen together at the pool often enough. Maria knew we went out to dinner and that I hung out at his place on a somewhat regular basis. She knew we slept together. What she didn’t know was very much about me.

  In the photo used for my gym membership ID, I was blonde, with a pixie haircut. The blue shadow on my eyes and the lipstick that was too dark for my complexion made me look a little cheap. Maria wouldn’t be able to tell them my previous address, my employer, or anything about my relatives. She didn’t know. It’s amazing how a few weeks of bonding over fitness and diet, chatter about guys and clothes, can make a woman feel like she’s your best friend. She was so anxious to get a roommate for help with her mortgage, and believed she knew me so well from the gym, she let sensible caution dissolve in favor of foregoing a bunch of unnecessary paperwork.

  On the Saturday morning after Charlie died, I pleaded a hangover and told Maria to go ahead to our usual yoga class followed by a full workout. I cleaned her condo more thoroughly than I had Charlie’s — bleach and a disposable cloth on every surface, including the inside of the refrigerator and the medicine cabinet. The place reeked with the burning sensation bleach produces. I filled my two suitcases and packed the rest of my clothes loose on their hangers in the trunk of my car. I filled boxes with shoes and purses and with make-up and shoved them as high as the ceiling on the back seat. Fifteen minutes before Maria was due back, I did one last walk through. I wrote a short good-bye note on a scrap of paper. I left cash for the first half of next month’s rent, just to be nice.

  Before I climbed into my car, I wiped Charlie’s phone. I set the phone on the pavement and drove over it until it was a pancake of glass and metal. I stopped at a Target store, opened the lid on one of the dumpsters, and dropped the phone inside.

  Of course, leaving abruptly made me more suspect, but it was cleaner.

  While I’d been contemplating the end of Charlie’s life, I’d landed the job with CoastalCreative and quit my former position in Silicon Valley. I was thrilled to find Noreen’s ad, and thrilled that I could move in so quickly.

  It’s not that I’m completely invisible. I have a passport. I have a driver’s license and a social security card. You need those things to get a job, but the woman people know is not the woman in those documents. And who, beyond the Security or HR department at a company, ever looks at those images or processes that information? It’s just numbers and bad photos. I never use credit cards. I don’t even have a debit card. I use disposable phones and gmail at internet cafes. All my music is uploaded from CDs and people are generous about sharing their streaming accounts with friendly, easy-going roommates.

  Leaving Sylvia and her cute kids without saying good-bye was disappointing. R
emembering her brownies left me feeling deprived. She’ll never know I saved her life, but I don’t need her to thank me or anything self-serving like that. I just want her to be able to do what she needs to do in peace, to become a strong, self-supporting woman who isn’t vulnerable to a takedown by a guy who doesn’t know shit.

  41

  Aptos

  Tess opened my office door, stepped inside, and closed it firmly behind her. “I figured it out.” The triumphant, superior tone in her voice ran into my ear and pressed against the soft tissue inside my skull, causing a sharp pain.

  “I saw your picture on Twitter.”

  I smiled regretfully. “My picture hasn’t been on Twitter.”

  “Yes it has.”

  “There are upwards of three million photographs a day on Twitter. How on earth would you remember one that looked like me?”

  “I explained what my memory is like.”

  “You did, but you’d have to focus specifically on that photograph, not just see it passing by.”

  “Why are you arguing with me?”

  I smiled. “I don’t think I’m arguing.”

  “As I’ve said, your eyebrows are perfect.” She settled back in the red guest chair, crossed her legs, and folded her arms the opposite direction of her legs. “They’re a lovely shape. A perfect palette for dramatic eye shadow.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And that scowl. When you’re angry, it’s so easy to read. I hope you don’t play poker.”

  I brushed my bangs away from my forehead, exposing my perfect brows. I may utilize expressions that appear angry if it fits the circumstances, but I don’t get angry. Inconvenienced is a better word. Disgusted by the sluggish pace of evolution. Determined to do what I can to eradicate misogyny. And right then I was very inconvenienced and trying to foresee where she was headed with her discovery. I was disgusted all over again with Charlie for taking my picture when I’d asked him not to. What makes a person think they have the right to bulldoze right over a request for respect?

  Tess had no clue about any of that, so she wasn’t as good at reading me as she thought she was. I let her keep verbally patting herself on the back.

  “Your picture was retweeted by a woman I follow. Corporate_Bitch2.”

  “I’m not familiar with her.”

  “I’m surprised. She tweets about gender issues in the workplace.”

  I nodded.

  “She retweeted a guy she’s friends with. He tweeted a picture of you. Your expression was identical to the look you had when you spilled your coffee — pissed as hell. You were wearing a bathing suit. I remember exactly what he wrote.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He said, Hot chick. I thought I could love her but she’s such a bitch. Then he added, #MostHotChicksAre. Then, Corporate_Bitch2 commented that he needed to get in his time travel machine to the twenty-first century.”

  I gave her a slim smile.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  “Like what?”

  “That he was a jerk for putting that on Twitter,” she said.

  “It goes without saying.”

  “You’re not upset that he was so crude?”

  It depended on what else she was so proud of. It sounded as if the story of her sleuthing wasn’t finished yet. I rubbed my knuckle. I curled my fingers over my palm and looked at my nails. The polish was a dark gold. Suddenly, I was tired of it. As soon as she was finished crowing, and I could legitimately sneak out of the office, I’d see if they could take me for a manicure as a drop-in.

  “There’s more,” Tess said.

  I put my hand on my lap and smiled, waiting.

  “He’s dead.”

  “Who’s dead?”

  “The guy who tweeted your picture. A few weeks after that…”

  “How do you remember all of this? Do you spend all day trolling twitter?”

  “I told you I have a…”

  “Semi-photographic. Got it.” What a waste, using the valuable resource of a semi-photographic memory to store the often mindless drivel from a Twitter feed.

  “Corporate_Bitch2 tweeted about his death. She wrote — Such a loss. Such a mystery.”

  “What’s a mystery?”

  “His death was being investigated. Police believe he was smothered, but they haven’t identified a suspect, or found the weapon. They were checking into a former girlfriend.”

  “That’s a lengthy discussion for Twitter.”

  “We did it with short phrases.”

  “Okay.” I picked up my phone and rubbed the screen to wipe away the smears my fingers leave after I’ve used hand lotion.

  “Are you worried?”

  “About what?”

  She looked at me with a smile at the corner of her lips. I stared at her, not blinking. She gazed back and didn’t lower her lids or turn to the side. “He tweeted something nasty about you and then he’s dead and then they’re looking for his girlfriend.”

  “I’m not his girlfriend, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Then why was he taking your picture in a bikini?”

  “We lived in the same building, I saw him at the pool.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Hmm.” She unfolded her arms and placed her hands in her lap. “It all sounds a little…I don’t know. It’s a strange story.”

  “Not really.”

  “You don’t think so? That he called you a bitch and now he’s dead?”

  “You’ve never been called a bitch?”

  She laughed. “Of course I have.”

  “Well, then.”

  For the first time since she’d glided into my office, she looked uncertain. The things she was saying finally penetrated her own mind.

  “I’m glad you were able to remember,” I said. “I know it was bothering you a lot. I thought with your kind of memory, your recollection would be instantaneous.”

  She laughed. “Not always.”

  “Hence the semi-photographic and not photographic.”

  “I’m not sure anyone has a truly photographic memory,” she said.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know a lot about it.”

  “We’re off topic,” she said. “I’m just curious. Are the police looking for you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Why was it so important to conceal it from me?”

  “I didn’t conceal anything. I don’t have a semi-photographic memory, and I’d forgotten all about that picture. I’d almost forgotten that guy. I hardly knew him.”

  She re-crossed her legs. “I guess if you didn’t even know he tweeted it, you’d have no way of helping me figure it out where I’d seen you.”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “He does seem like a bit of an ass, tweeting your picture and saying nasty things about you, without you even being aware of it.” She sat for a few minutes. She put her left index finger with it’s colorless nails to her lips and touched it with the tip of her tongue. She started to nibble at the cuticle, then let her hand fall to her lap. “You didn’t have a thing with him?”

  I studied her hands, now clenched into fists.

  “He said he could fall in love with you. That sounds like more than some guy you saw at the pool.”

  Something about it bothered her, but I couldn’t figure out what. It seemed as if my body was giving off a scent, rewarding her constant sniffing with an odor of…what? Not fear, I wasn’t afraid. I was simply calculating what had to be done to redirect her. I nibbled the edge of the cuticle on my own index finger, showing her I had my own occasional bad habits. We were friends. If not that, we were surely colleagues with a close friendship.

  I pouted slightly, stared at the wall behind her until my eyes grew glassy. “I don’t understand why you think so badly of me.” I looked back at her face. “He was stalking me. Saying things about me because I asked him not to take my picture. He had no right to invade my space like th
at, to assume I would politely smile and give that part of me to him just because he decided he wanted it. Wouldn’t that make you furious? Like he thought he could take what he wanted?”

  She nodded. “Absolutely. Still…”

  I waited a moment before filling the space she’d left. “The temperature is supposed to be in the mid-seventies this weekend. Would you want to go hiking? I’ve been wanting to check out Henry Cowell since I moved here. Do you know it?” Of course she knew it, she’d tweeted about it a few days earlier. She loved that place and went hiking there every chance she got.

  The change in her eyes said the unwanted photograph of me, and Charlie’s unexpected, unexplained death had slipped below the surface of her thoughts, replaced by redwood trees and wildlife. For now.

  “I love that place,” she said.

  “So? Are we on?”

  “Sure. I have a tennis tournament in the afternoon, so it would have to be early.”

  “I love early. Seven? And meet for breakfast first?”

  She nodded. She shifted in the chair, obviously not yet ready to leave me to my manicure. I’d decided to go colorless, just like her. That would be best for hiking anyway.

  “Are you trying to change the subject?” she said.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know, Alexandra. Something is bothering me about this. You seem to want to avoid giving any details.”

  “It sounds like, for whatever reason, you don’t trust me. Maybe this position isn’t a good fit for me after all, now that we’ve gotten to know each other.”

  She looked guilty. “We don’t know each other that well.”

  I relaxed the muscles around my mouth and looked down at my desk. I turned slightly so I could see the parking lot spread out beyond my window, then looked back at her. “I thought I’d proven myself as someone you can depend on. Someone you can trust completely, personally and professionally. I’m not sure what happened. I…”

  “You are.” She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “I don’t know what’s bothering me. Sometimes trivia gets stuck in my head and it’s like a piece of sand inside your sock, rubbing on your foot and even though it’s tiny, after a while, it’s all you feel. It’s the only thing you can think about. Please don’t go looking for another job.” She stood up. “It’s Twitter, for god’s sake. It’s a bunch of mindless chatter most of the time, no different from sitting in a coffee shop and listening to all the conversations around you, only hearing pieces of each one, trying to guess what’s going on. There’s no context. I didn’t mean to question you. I think because I couldn’t immediately recall where I’d seen you, I made it into something bigger than it is. Hiking will be fantastic.”