The Girl Next Door

by Lisa Aurello

  Not that she did that many dishes—if there were four in the cupboard to choose from it was a good day. But time wasn’t being all that considerate to Kendra, and she was going to need to take better care of herself. For a girl whose stock in trade was her looks, it was important, and Kendra used sex as her currency. It was the only thing she was good at. That was why, when her old high school pal called her with his plan, she went all in. Right the fuck away. The money he’d pay her would allow her to start over. The bonus was that she’d be helping a friend—and as far as friends went, he had been the best. She seriously loved him. A lot. Always had. It was just too bad they’d drifted so far apart in the years since high school graduation.

  Her life had been descending into an ugly place in recent years and the crumbling apartment mirrored the rest of her existence, a physical manifestation of the deterioration inside her. As he always managed to do in the past, when things were getting tough in Kendra’s life, Mason came rushing to the rescue. His phone call last month came out of the blue but Kendra was down for anything he suggested. She never really had a strong moral compass to begin with, and she’d do anything for Mason—she loved him. Always had.

  He cared about her too—just not in the way she’d have wanted. They were friends, good friends. Even after the incident in junior year, Mace was one of the few people who stuck by her, and so she stuck by him too, refusing to give him up in any way, no matter how jealous his various girlfriends became.

  Then again, all of Mason’s friends stuck by him—and to him—forever. He was just that type of charismatic guy. There was Ben Beneke, the giant linebacker who was always hanging onto Mason, following him around like they were attached by a string and basking in Mason’s reflected glory. They’d met in first grade or something stupid like that.

  And, of course, Jake Emerson, Mason’s bestie and cousin—they’d been tight since, like, birth, given that they were related, and they were in business together now as adults. In middle school and even high school, the two of them were so similar that they could totally pass for brothers if not freaking twins, but even so, Jake still couldn’t measure up to Mace.

  No one could—not even if he had an identical twin or clone. There was just something about Mason, some irresistible force of energy, charm, mojo—whatever.

  As for girls, Kendra was certain one of Mace’s high school girlfriends would try to keep him, but no one was successful in that pursuit. Tess Gardner tried her best, terrorizing the girl he’d left her for—little-miss-perfect Shannon Graham. Kendra found the whole drama hilarious, especially when Tess went so far as to stick a dead rat in Shannon’s locker, a crime for which she never had to answer. She definitely had Shannon running scared, the psycho bitch, but she never managed to get the boy back. He went off to college a single man and met his wife sometime after. Kendra wasn’t sure when; she only knew that he’d been married for a year or so.

  With regard to his most recent request, Kendra didn’t lose a wink of sleep over it. She’d never met the woman, but if Mason said she was a bitch, that was good enough for Kendra. And who cared anyway? No one… well, except Mrs. Caldwell herself.

  And the woman they were going to frame for the murder would too.

  But when had Kendra ever given a shit about her? She was a fat slob, an unattractive girl who didn’t even try to make people like her. How dare she be both ugly and a bitch? Kendra had taken an instant and massive dislike to her from the moment she’d seen the stupid girl in the hall of the high school, freshman year. The last time Kendra had tried to put Jane in her place, the slob had ended up in the hospital for a week, and Kendra had become ostracized at school for her part in it. It’s not as if she planned it or anything. It just happened.

  But Kendra didn’t shed any tears over it, truth to tell. When Mace first called her with the plan and he said they needed a scapegoat, maybe someone from high school, she’d easily come up with Jane. Kendra clearly remembered how much the pathetic girl mooned over Mason when he barely knew she was an inhabitant of the planet. It used to piss off Kendra how the fat, nerdy bitch would follow him around.

  It was at the first football game of their freshman year that Kendra started really hating Jane. Mason was the newest star of the team, having been recruited while still at Sandringham Middle School to join the team as soon as he entered high school.

  Kendra and her friends had front-row seats, right behind the cheerleaders. Kendra had almost made the cut for cheerleader but when Shannon Graham decided she wanted in, Kendra was out. Shannon was one of the high-gloss girls of their town so of course she dated Mason at one point. They made the perfect couple. That night Kendra had been huddled on the bleacher, bony fingers wrapped around a cup of hot chocolate and zoning out when she zeroed in on a conversation behind her between two females.

  “Mason is going to win the game, I’d bet anything. Just look at him: he is perfect.”

  “I don’t know about perfect, but he’s definitely hot. I doubt he’ll be the deciding factor, though, since he’s a new player. Maybe next year… or junior year, but not now.”

  The first girl practically hissed at her friend, “Don’t you dare dis him. He’s going to score more than one touchdown. Just wait. I can feel it in my bones. Watching him play is like seeing poetry in motion.”

  “Whatever,” the other girl had groaned.

  Kendra whipped her head around to check out her competition. At that point, she’d still hoped for a romantic alliance with Mace. That hope wasn’t doused until the middle of sophomore year when he’d made it crystal clear that he considered her a very good friend but that they’d never go beyond platonic. He said he wouldn’t want to ruin their solid friendship. Kendra hoped that was the reason and not that she wasn’t pretty enough. All the other boys thought she was hot. Fact was, Kendra blazed through pretty much the entire football team by senior year. The only two she didn’t fuck were Mason and Rick Brando, and Kendra was sure that Rick was a closet case.

  When she saw who was swooning over Mason that night, she was torn between two emotions: laughter at the absurdity of it and anger over the audacity of the stupid girl. As if she’d ever have a chance with the hottest guy in the whole school. At that minute Kendra was filled with hatred for the outcast named Jane Jensen.

  Just because she had the audacity to think she could have a crush on the most popular boy in the whole school.

  Just because she existed.

  Just because.

  Not that Mason belonged to Kendra—he didn’t. She knew that, even accepted it after a while. He would date other girls, but they always had to tolerate Kendra as his friend. If they didn’t, they didn’t last long as his girlfriend.

  They never lasted long anyway: Mason was impatient and easily bored, but those two failings were his only shortcomings, so they could be overlooked—at least as far as Kendra was concerned. So despite wanting Mace beyond anything else, they remained only friends as Kendra worked her way through the roster of high school jocks. There were a few of them that she liked quite a lot. Like Tomas Velez… and Adam Toledo. Yeah, Adam was built like a brick shithouse.

  No boyfriend ever lasted, though—but her friendship with Mason did. She was his protector; she ran interference for him. That’s why it drove Kendra crazy that stupid, fat Jane Jensen spent her days mooning over Mason as if he’d ever notice her in a million years. She had no right to even think about him.

  Kendra decided to make Jane pay for her audacity. That’s why whenever any chance presented itself, Kendra snatched it to humiliate the girl who always dressed in brown and tried her best to make herself inconspicuous. Nowadays Kendra would be called a bully but back then… it was a rite of fucking passage. The strong versus the weak. No one could really blame Kendra for her teenage shenanigans any more than anyone can be blamed for stupid shit done in the volatile crucible that is adolescence.

  This time, though… this time it was a golden opportunity to get at Jane. And it all worked so beautifully.
Mace got pissed when she improvised, but Kendra considered every unexpected opportunity a gift. She still didn’t understand his reaction. Yeah, it wasn’t planned but it worked out fine. But no, he wanted every last detail planned out to the nth degree—Kendra on the other hand was a spur-of-the-moment kind of girl, the kind of boy that he used to be.

  Anyway, she made it up to him when she risked going to Jane’s house, passing herself off as a realtor when some scary dude started messing with her, asking her what she was doing there. Kendra went there hoping to leave some more incriminating evidence, a letter ostensibly written by Jane to Mason, professing her love for him. She put it in the slob’s underwear drawer, tucking it under her panties, which to Kendra’s ever-loving surprise were actually pretty lingerie. Wasted on that woman, for sure.

  She was about to get the hell out of Jane’s townhouse when she thought better than to leave the letter. What if it made Mason look guilty too? They were treading a fine and dangerous line here—the spouse is always the first suspect. Plus, Mason had warned her not to go anywhere near Jane’s house, even though she thought he was being overly cautious. It’s not as if the police were going to look at Kendra, after all. While she was deciding whether or not to leave the letter in place, the doorbell rang and she got spooked and took off. Now she was slightly worried that she’d made a mistake but she had plenty of time to retrieve the damn thing if it came to that.

  Her phone buzzing jolted her back to real time—her date tonight with the boss. She called him boss because he essentially owned her—for now, anyway. The most accurate way to describe the old bastard was sugar daddy, though he sure didn’t give her all that much sugar, just the bare minimum to keep her afloat and on a leash. He paid her monthly bills in return for favors whenever and wherever he wanted them. A lot of fucking favors. When she took him on a few years ago, she figured he wouldn’t be able to do all that much at his age and assumed it would be easy money.

  It wasn’t.

  Pfft. She would be the lucky one to get a geezer who could still get it up like a young dude. She’d been screwing this guy for almost three years already and he showed no sign of letting up. Grabbing the phone, she ignored the call, instead texting him to say she’d be down in five minutes, but that wasn’t good enough for him. A minute later, her phone rang again.

  “I’m almost ready, sir.” The fucker insisted she call him that. He was going to be sixty next year, and he said he deserved the respect and deference of his years.

  “Kendra, how many times and ways do I have to tell you that I expect punctuality? My arm hurts from beating your skinny ass last week, so don’t make me do it again.”

  Her face burned, remembering the belting the sadistic bastard gave her to punish her for forgetting to take her birth control pills. She’d had vicious welts on her thighs and ass that were just now disappearing. “No, sir. I’m just trying to look good for you.”

  “Well, that might take a small miracle,” he said under his breath but loud enough for her to hear the snide remark. “Just get your ass down here. I’m outside your building already.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said and disconnected the call. “Oh my God,” she screamed to the wall, “I cannot wait to tell the old goat to go take a flying fuck. A million dollars will buy me the ability to burn all my bridges.

  “And who knows? Maybe I could even buy some fucking furniture while I’m at it.” She stormed out of the apartment, her heels pounding the bare wood floor.

  Aaron Rinder sat in his white Lexus, the engine idling. He had the look of a man who’d been handsome when he was young but those same features that had made him attractive—almond eyes, pointed nose, angular cheekbones—now served to give his face a cruel bent. Or maybe it was just his rancid disposition that petrified his bad moods into a permanent scowl.

  Whatever the case, Kendra was forced to look at it and him for the moment. She stepped closer to the curb and opened the passenger door.

  “Good evening, sir,” she said as sweetly as she could stand as she folded herself into the car.

  His anemic blue eyes scanned her up and down before he frowned, put the car into gear, and smoothly pulled away from the curb. Once they were moving onto the FDR he lit into her. “You do realize that I’m paying a fair amount of money every month for a hole on the side—and this is the best you can offer?” He jerked his chin at her. “You look like a street hooker, Kendra. Honestly, I can probably do better picking up a slut at a strip joint. At least I wouldn’t have the monthly outlay I do now to maintain you.”

  Kendra nearly bit off her tongue to keep silent. The old bastard had been insulting her since they’d met years ago at a party, but this time his biting words crossed even Kendra’s almost nonexistent line. To be called a body part—and a fucking crude one at that—as if her entire worth was tied up in only that piece of her anatomy was almost more than even she could bear. The idea of jamming her small yet effective switchblade into his pale belly crossed her mind seriously.

  His eyes once again left the road to glance at her. “The late nights and all the drugs you do are taking their toll, my dear. If you lose your looks entirely… then what?”

  She leaned back on the headrest and rolled her neck to confront him. “What do you care? You’re just buying a product, right? A hole, I think you said?”

  He didn’t acknowledge her comment. Instead, keeping his eyes on the road, his hand slid down to unzip the fly of his suit trousers, and then he reached his arm over to her, his hand curling around the nape of her neck, and forced her head down into his lap.

  Kendra had to use every bit of willpower not to bite down with fury. She hated this motherfucker with every molecule of her being. She could barely wait for the day to come when she wouldn’t need him anymore.

  Soon.

  Who knows? Maybe he’d meet the same fate that Mason’s wife did?

  Chapter 18

  The car engine idled as Detective Fitzgibbons waited for his partner to emerge from the deli. It was a gray morning and the humid air was thick and cloying, hanging low like fog. Too warm for October, he thought, as he loosened his collar, jerking it down with two fingers. He thought maybe he should get off his ass and go see what was taking so long when he spotted her coming out behind a throng of other customers. He leaned across to reach through the open window to take the coffees from her.

  “Thanks. I got you a buttered roll, too. Here.”

  “What, no egg and bacon sandwich today?”

  She opened the door and climbed in. “You have to cut down on your cholesterol, Fitz.”

  He snorted. “Bread and butter doesn’t seem much better.”

  She tsked. “Gimme a break, will you? I didn’t know what else to get. It’s a fucking bodega, not a full-service restaurant.”

  Unwrapping the wax paper, he bit into the roll. It was still warm and the butter had melted into the pores of the bread. The way it slid down his throat instantly improved his mood. Grunting, he licked his lips. “We should talk to some of Mrs. Caldwell’s colleagues today—get that out of the way. Try to prove or disprove the adultery allegation.” Fitzgibbons held his paper cup of coffee to his lips, waiting for her acknowledgment.

  Myla darted him a look out of the corner of her eye. “I suppose so. After hearing from her mother, you’d think she was competition for Mother-fucking-Teresa.”

  He took the first sip of his coffee and almost spit it out as it shredded the roof of his mouth. Gulping it down, he shook his head, “Shit. Usually the coffee is tepid. I wasn’t expecting liquid lava.”

  His partner rolled her eyes and sighed. “You always find something to complain about, Fitz.

  “Pfft. C’mon. Let’s see what all the PR people have to say about Madam Caldwell.”

  Myla fastened her seatbelt and slammed her door closed. “Let’s go.”

  As they drove, Fitzgibbons ruminated over the investigation thus far. His reptile sense was tingling over Jane Jensen though he knew intellectually that she
wasn’t a likely candidate for doing the murder. Wonder what his partner thought?

  “So… Myla,” he began.

  She was busy eating her roll. Hers had a slice of Canadian bacon, he noticed. Maybe he’d get that tomorrow. Finally, she cast her eyes up at him, her mouth stuffed with food. “What?”

  “Tell me what you think of our investigation so far.”

  She swallowed and took a swig of her coffee. “Ow, you’re right. It is hot. Um… I haven’t formed any opinions yet, to be honest.”

  “Mmm,” is all he said, his mind turning over all the information, flipping through it like a Rolodex.

  “What exactly does this company do anyway?” Rob asked, looking around the high-end lobby of the office building.

  Myla Kelvin laughed. “It’s called a boutique agency—means small as shit. They handle things like press releases and trying to keep their clients in the public eye. Plus, if someone is involved in a scandal, they use this kind of agency to try to scrub them clean again. That kind of thing. Nice building, right?”

  Rob Fitzgibbons eyed the luxurious furnishings. “Yeah, nice. PR must pay a lot. What floor are they on?”

  Myla was checking the directory. “Seventeen. Suite 1711. Let’s go.”

  They rode up in the stainless-steel elevator with six other people, all of them woodenly silent as they watched the floors tick by.

  At the seventeenth floor, four of them, including the two detectives, got out. Rob slid his pad from his pocket and checked the name: a guy named Rafael Bono was the head of the small firm.

  The two people who got off the elevator with them also turned toward suite 1711. Myla murmured something under her breath, but he didn’t catch it.

  They followed the faster two people into the double doors of the suite and were stopped by a long low-slung glass desk. A redheaded young woman sat behind it. She wore a black on white print dress, black leggings, ballet slippers, and her nails were a neon orange. She nodded to the two who walked right past her, obviously employees, and then turned her attention to the detectives, her clear green eyes curious.