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

by Cathryn Grant

  She went to the door and stood looking through the glass panel into the hallway. Without turning, she said, very softly so I almost didn’t catch the words, “It’s really nice to have a female friend at work. They’re hard to come by. Male friendships at the office are never equal. Never.” She opened the door and stepped into the hallway without looking back.

  42

  Los Angeles

  When Randy tweeted @GirlStuff29 that he wanted to meet up at Majestic Park, my first thought was I would have preferred a private place where we could also get naked after we got high. I guessed he had other things on his mind. Like finding out how certain they were that Dianne’s death was not an accident. Like finding out how much effort was being put into locating him, if any. Like trying to determine whether he needed to disappear. I hoped he wasn’t planning on asking for my help.

  As I walked toward the picnic tables where we agreed to meet, Randy looked in my direction, stiffened, and took off running. I sat on one of the benches and waited for him to return. Twenty minutes went by and I was getting cold by the time he came sauntering into the picnic area, acting as if he didn’t see me. He was seriously paranoid.

  He sat beside me. He spoke in a whisper. “No one followed you? I saw a guy, I think, he…”

  “What is this a spy movie?”

  “Did they?”

  “How would I know?”

  “You didn’t check? You didn’t keep your radar on alert?”

  “I always pay attention to what’s going on around me, but I can’t guarantee no one followed me.”

  “Do they want to talk to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so. I need to hit the road, so this is good-bye.” He pulled out a joint and lit it, took two hits, one right after the other, and handed it to me.

  “They’ll find you.”

  “Finding someone is not as easy as it seems. If I don’t use credit cards, don’t get in touch with the fam, etcetera, it’s much harder. Almost impossible, I think.”

  I blew out a narrow ribbon of smoke. It hung for a moment in front of me, then faded. I handed the joint to him. “So far, it seems like they think it was an accident. But I don’t know for sure.” I leaned against the edge of the picnic table. It stabbed my back, but my shoulder ached from the extreme weight of my purse during the six-block walk to the park after I got off the bus, and another half mile or so to get to the decrepit picnic area.

  “They can’t prove I was the one who gave her the roofie. Anyway, they have to find me first.”

  “How are you going to get cash?”

  “I have some on me. I hit the ATM a bunch of times before this all happened.” He laughed. “See, I’m more educated than you might think. College wasn’t wasted on me, even though I haven’t managed the degree yet.”

  “I guess you won’t now. So you won our murder game. Was it worth it?”

  He took a hit from the joint and held in the smoke for an extraordinary long time. Apparently he’d thought about the short term need for cash and getting away on his bike, but not the rest of his life.

  “I did.”

  “It was never really a game,” I said. I sucked on the joint, but kept the smoke in my mouth instead of pulling it into my lungs.

  “It wasn’t. Dianne’s a whore, any way you look at it.”

  I pulled my purse closer. I unzipped it and slid my hand inside. “Explain.”

  “Oh, come on. She sleeps with me and charges me rent for sharing her bed? I get with you and she charges me more. I guess that makes her more of a pimp. A whore and a pimp. Owning the whole business, no middleman.” He laughed. The sound was rough and loud. “And then she moves Tom in? With the same financial set-up? Unbelievable.”

  “I don’t think that makes her a whore. Men do shit like that all the time.”

  “No they don’t.”

  “Maybe not exactly the same, but the point is, they conduct their sex lives without anyone calling them whores.”

  “If the name fits.”

  “Her mother was trying to dictate her entire life. The only way to get some control was to have her own money.”

  “Then get a fucking job. Don’t be charging your boyfriends.”

  “It’s a nice apartment. It seems fair to charge a little for using it.” I wasn’t really on her side, but she didn’t deserved to die for extorting a bit of cash.

  “Quit making excuses for her. She’s a whore. Lisa agreed. Lisa called her that to her face. So Dianne sicked Tom on her.”

  I hated him. I hate that word. I hate that it even exists. I hate that there’s no male equivalent. I hate the smug attitude when guys use it. I hate that women who are just doing what they have to do in order to survive, women who are giving men what they want, are shunned. The woman gets shamed even though the guy is an equal participant! A man can have sex with anyone, whenever he wants, and he’s admired and considered a stud. A woman does the same thing and she gets slapped with a filthy label that’s custom-made for women. It’s epically unfair and degrading. There were a lot of things wrong with Dianne, not the least of which was her controlling mother. Dianne was arrogant and cruel. She was self absorbed and entitled. She shoved Lisa and me into sleeping bags when we were paying rent for a nice room, holding us hostage. But she wasn’t a whore. It’s an ugly, undeserved word.

  Before I took the bus to meet Randy, I’d spent a lot of time thinking back on how unconcerned he’d been that day Tom picked the fight with Lisa and dragged her off to humiliate her. I’d started to wonder whether Randy knew something about it.

  My fingers felt around inside my canvas bag. They stroked the metal container filled with ice and enough vodka for both of us. They moved lower, touching my wallet and keys, sunglasses and a zippered leather bag with makeup. They traveled over loose coins and lip gloss and receipts I hadn’t bothered to file in my wallet.

  “What are you rummaging around in there for?” Randy took a puff on the rapidly shrinking joint, of which he was enjoying three or four hits to my one.

  That was fine with me. After all, it was his joint.

  “Chicks and their purses. Did you really need to bring the whole goddamn bedroom closet with you?”

  I pulled out the travel mug. “Want some vodka?”

  “Oh yeah.” He sucked on the cigarette and held the smoke inside for a brief moment, then let it out in a thick cloud. “That sounds good. I’m thirsty. Do you have any snacks in that suitcase?”

  I held the container in both hands, feeling the icy chill that came from its contents. It was so cold, it felt as if it was burning my fingers.

  43

  Aptos

  The Saturday morning of our hike, Tess and I met at Bojo’s Coffee Cafe at six-thirty. The minute we sat down with our turkey sausage links and fruit plates, Tess started gushing about Henry Cowell’s. She’d had been going to the state park since she was a child. She had an almost mythical affection for the place because her memories were of rigorous father-daughter hikes. During these hikes, her father pushed her to improve her endurance, to learn not to complain about the heat or aching legs. Once, when a wasp attached itself to the space around her, pestering, humming, her father coached her to stay calm. The victory she felt for her stoicism when the insect left her alone without her dissolving into panicky, useless slaps at empty air, stayed with her all her life. It was a simple but empowering moment.

  Her father transferred his love of the natural world to Tess, and through their casual talks, taught her about survival in the male business world. During the father-daughter hikes, Tess’s two brothers were out of the picture and her mother was nowhere to be heard. Tess felt like the most important person in her father’s life, the only one allowed into the world of his first love. She felt he was proud of her, admired her almost, for how well she listened to his guidance and how many miles she could hike, learning by the age of eleven to never whisper a word of complaint. Apparently her brothers were quite whiny during their hikes — anothe
r point of victory for Tess.

  After the go-around in my office over the tweeted photograph, I was a little surprised that she suddenly opened up. In some ways, she seemed nearly as unstable as Noreen. At least Tess had taken her neuroses and channelled them into a successful career, making them pay, while Noreen seemed to be sinking inside herself, afraid to breathe without someone holding her hand.

  We drove to the park, paid the entrance fee, and left the car under a canopy of trees, hoping the shade would keep it relatively comfortable until we returned.

  Tess wore bona fide hiking boots, thick white socks, and khaki shorts that showed off legs tan and strong from tennis and hiking, not to mention her regular gym visits. She wore a white tank top and had a white sweatshirt tied around her waist. Despite my closet full of shoes, I didn’t own a pair of hiking boots. I wore heavy-soled walking shoes. I’d also chosen khaki shorts, shorter than Tess’s conservative mid-thigh pair, and a turquoise spandex workout cami over a black sports bra.

  The route she’d chosen — a level walk to the Redwood Loop Trail, passing the San Lorenzo river in places — would get us back to the parking lot by eleven-thirty at the latest, according to Tess. We started out, and within fifteen minutes I realized I was right to not bother with a sweatshirt tied around me like Tess had. The temperature of the air and the steady walking left me comfortably warm, even with the rising sun still nestled behind thick redwood growth. It was really beautiful, but difficult to enjoy since I was so focused on the agenda outlined in my mind. I needed to follow that script more carefully than I had to keep to the trail that wound through ancient redwoods with its musical score of cheerful birds.

  After talking about the trees and plants surrounding us, commenting on the variety of bird calls, and how far we felt from the technology and traffic and relentless movement of Silicon Valley, we fell silent for several minutes. The sound of our feet on bark and pebbles and dirt was steady, our breathing soft.

  I moved slightly behind Tess so she couldn’t read my face when I spoke. “Whatever happened with Steve Montgomery?” I said.

  “What about him?”

  “When you lost your temper…and he let you have it for being irrational and emotional?”

  She heaved a loud, lengthy sigh. “It’s a losing battle.”

  “What is?”

  “The male-female dynamic.”

  “What would your friend CorporateBitch2 have to say about that?”

  She ignored the reference. “Never yell at a customer. He was right.” She walked faster, leaning forward as if it would make her progress more rapid.

  “He’s never raised his voice at a customer? A man raises his voice, but a woman yells? All you did was insist on finishing your thought.”

  “Maybe we are.”

  “Maybe we are, what?”

  She slowed and turned to look at me. “Maybe we are shrill.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “A woman’s voice is higher pitched.”

  “Is that what you think? That the natural sound of our voices deserves mocking?”

  She shoved her hands in her pockets. Her hiking boots thudded on the path.

  “Why does he get to define what’s appropriate? Raising your voice when someone talks over you is perfectly reasonable. Men do it all the time. You know that.”

  “Yes.”

  “So what’s the problem? He’s marginalizing you for something men do every fucking day. He’s trying to take away your power.” I took a deep breath to calm myself. I needed to stay even-kneeled and let the rage build inside of her, in contrast to my understated response. If I got wound up, she would work to remain calm.

  She stopped suddenly. I plowed past her a few yards, then paused and turned.

  “I shouldn’t let him. I know. It’s just that…”

  I spoke softly. “You need to take back your power. You should do something outrageous and ask him to support your effort. That’s what a man would do to reassert himself, don’t you think?” I was right, but she would feel superior that I expressed doubt, looking to her authority and experience and intelligence — a triple play.

  “Do we really have to turn into men?”

  “No. But in this case, if you’re competing with a man who’s beating you with male games, you have to engage with male weapons.”

  She laughed.

  I smiled. “It’s true, and you know it.”

  “It’s just…” She started walking again.

  “You’ll show him you aren’t cowed if you demand something, demonstrate your confidence. Tell him you have a critical need and you require his support to ask for more headcount for your team, or…”

  “Or a pay increase for you?”

  It had been easy to lead her up to it. And guilt is a strong driver. It causes all kinds of irrational behavior. I’d been fortunate that I’d avoided the guilt strand in my genome. “Whatever you think would work. You’ll feel powerful and in control and that will make him respect you…he’ll sense your power.”

  “What are you, some kind of life coach?”

  “I could be.”

  She smiled, but looked uncertain.

  “What’s wrong.”

  She turned slightly so I couldn’t see her face. “I’ve trusted you before. I suppose I can trust you. I should trust you — you have my back.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s another complication.”

  “Yes?”

  “I had sex with him.”

  “So?”

  “He pretty much has the upper hand.”

  “Why?”

  “It makes me look bad, sleeping with a peer.”

  “No!” My voice was loud. A crow I hadn’t known was perched in a pine tree up the side of the hill shrieked and took off with a rapid, heavy beating of its wings.

  “Calm down,” Tess said.

  “It does not make you look any worse than it makes him look.”

  “You can pretend the world is balanced, Alex, but it’s not.”

  “He risked as much as you did. And so what if two colleagues want to hook up? It’s not as if he’s your boss, or above you in the overall hierarchy.”

  She shook her head and smiled. “I trusted you, okay? You wanted trust, I gave it. Do not tell any one about this.”

  “Absolutely not. I would never do that.” I wouldn’t. Unless I needed something from her. Even then, I wouldn’t actually spread the information. It was simply nice to have the leverage.

  44

  When Jared woke, he knew immediately that Alex wasn’t in the house. There was a flatness in the atmosphere, a lessening of tension or electricity. Something. Maybe the wall between their rooms was cooler. Maybe there were indistinct sounds that normally came from her room, and without them, her absence was palpable.

  It was dark. He pulled his phone toward him and tapped the home button. Four-forty a.m.

  He rolled onto his back. He lay there for several minutes, then realized he needed to take a piss. He felt fully awake. It might as well be seven-thirty. He would try meditating. Not that it had been fruitful in a very long time, but his teacher continued to assure him that failure was part of the process. It’s a journey. The point is observing the flow of thoughts, not necessarily taming them. You watch a leopard and observe its behavior, you don’t bind its legs and put it in a cage. Sitting was what mattered. Remaining seated on your cushion with a storm inside your mind was the practice, trusting that sitting had value. The important things were consistency and never giving up. Never. That mantra applied to Alexandra as well.

  He threw off the covers and put his feet on the floor. He yawned and stood up. He went to the door, turned the knob, and pushed. The door remained solidly closed. The force of its immovable position sent a jolt of pain up his arm. He jiggled the knob and pushed again. It refused to yield. He tried rattling it in its frame, but it wiggled only a fraction of an inch. He stepped back.

  “Jared!” Noreen’s voice came through
the partially opened window. “Come here.”

  In the few steps it took him to reach the window, he was sickened by his robotic obedience to her voice.

  “Open the window wider and let me in,” she said.

  “What the fuck is going on?” He pulled the cord and opened the drapes.

  “Does Buddha allow you to say that?”

  “What are you doing out there at four in the morning? What…”

  “It’s almost five.”

  “What’s wrong with my door?”

  “Let me in and I’ll explain.”

  “You can explain right where you are.”

  “Come on. It’s cold.”

  “Tough shit.”

  “I didn’t realize you used so much bad language.”

  “What’s blocking my door?”

  “I attached a bolt.”

  How had she attached a bolt without him hearing? It would have required drilling. He didn’t want to know, it didn’t matter. She must have done it when he was out of the house. Late at night, in the darkness, he hadn’t noticed. “Unfasten it.”

  “But I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

  “I have to take a piss! Open the fucking door.”

  “Calm down. You can hold it for a few minutes. I couldn’t get your attention with my body, or my food, I had to do something.”

  He stepped back and slammed the window down. He yanked the cord. The drapes raced across the track, swinging madly. It was an ineffectual display of anger. If he was forced to climb out the window and go around to use the bathroom, he’d have to see her. Now, he’d look foolish, relenting and pulling the drapes apart, pushing the window open again, allowing the sound of her pleading to wind its way into his room, inside the circuitry of his brain. He moved toward the bed and sat down. He reached behind his head and rubbed the muscle between his shoulder blades. There must be a way to get control of the situation, but if there was, he couldn’t see it.