“Hilarious! I love it!” Maria snaps away.
“Hey! I was just kidding around.”
“I know, but this will show him that you have a light side. We can do the sexy shots later.”
“Sexy shots?” she echoes, already shaking her head.
“Hey, why don’t you romp around on the grass?”
“Romp around on the—”
“You know, maybe do a cartwheel or something.”
“A cartwheel? Are you insane? Or do you just want people to think that I am?”
“Just do something that shows that you have a lighthearted, fun side. Go!” Maria points her left index finger at Gaby, her right poised on the shutter. “Come on. It’s for Mr. Perfect.”
Gaby shakes her head.
She thought she had already found Mr. Perfect, a long time ago.
She was wrong.
She also thought she could live with that. Live alone. Forever.
But then—in a weak, lonely moment, after too many happy hour cocktails on Cinco de Mayo—she allowed Maria to convince her that online dating is the answer to all her problems.
“Everyone does it,” Maria told her.
“Not everyone.”
“I do.”
“You’re not everyone.”
“But everyone else does, too. Excuse me,” Maria called to a pretty waitress scurrying past their outdoor table with bowls of tortilla chips and guacamole. “Can I ask you a quick question?”
“Sure, what’s up?” The waitress paused, looking pleased at the momentary reprieve from running around in the heat. Hands full, she blew her bangs away from her sweaty forehead.
“Have you ever been on an Internet dating site?”
“It’s how I met my fiancé.”
“Really?”
“Really. Look.” Balancing her tray with her right hand, she waved the diamond ring on her left. “We’re getting married next month.”
“That’s great. Congratulations. That’s all I wanted to know. Oh, and we’ll take another round when you have a chance.” The waitress walked on, and Maria looked smugly at Gaby. “See that? You can’t argue with an engagement ring.”
Ordinarily, Gaby might have. But Maria—and the tequila, and the thought of another solitary weekend in her tiny studio apartment—had finally worn her down.
She shrugged. “Oh, why not? I’ll give it a try.”
That was three weeks ago.
She’d talked herself out of the idea in the cold, cruel light of day on May sixth, but Maria threatened to create a profile for her anyway. And Gaby knew she was quite capable of following through.
Born just a week earlier, her cousin has always done her best to bulldoze Gaby like a bossy big sister.
“Ella es cabeza dura, that one,” their Puerto Rican maternal grandmother used to say about Maria—meaning, she’s hard-headed. “Don’t let her push you around, Gabriella.”
Most of the time, Gaby didn’t. Still doesn’t.
But right now . . .
Resigned to the fact that she’s going to find herself with an online profile one way or another, she manages to muster a halfhearted smile for Maria’s camera.
But the carefree girl she once was—the girl who might actually have turned cartwheels across the grass in Central Park—had died long ago, along with her marriage and her only child.
Having completely forgotten about the long holiday weekend, Alex is alarmed by the sight of a police road block on Main Street on Monday morning.
They know. They know, and they’re looking for me.
There’s nothing to do but stop and dutifully roll down the window as the cop beside the blue barricade comes walking toward the car.
“Good morning, officer.”
“ ’Morning. You’ll have to turn around and detour back up Cherry Street to get to the other side of town. Memorial Day parade is about to start.”
Memorial Day parade!
It’s Memorial Day!
Thank God, thank God, it’s just a parade, and not . . .
Come on, of course it’s not about you. They can’t possibly know about you. You’ve been so careful . . .
“All right, officer. Thank you. Have a great day!”
Was the last part overkill? Alex wonders, carefully making a K-turn and making sure to use directional signals. Was it a blatant red flag to the cop?
Nah. People always tell each other to have a great day.
Even if he were to be summoned back—and for what?—there’s nothing in the car that would alert the cop that anything is amiss. Even if the officer were to examine the contents of the plastic drugstore shopping bag on the passenger seat, there still wouldn’t be any reason for suspicion. Of course not.
And of course it was his imagination that the clerk back at the store had raised her eyebrow when she rang up the purchases: Advil, Band-Aids, a magazine, a pack of gum—decoy items, all, meant to distract attention from the main objective: an over-the-counter pregnancy test.
“Find everything?” the clerk had asked—routine question, yet Alex worried for a moment that it was a precursor to something more probing, less discreet.
But of course that was pure paranoia. No clerk would ever question a total stranger about something so personal.
No clerk had any way of knowing that a random customer—paying with cash—had purchased the same test countless times before all over the tristate area.
You have nothing at all to worry about. Just get home and take care of business.
Alex keeps the odometer precisely at the speed limit all the way up Cherry Street, past familiar rows of old maples framing well-kept suburban houses. All is quiet this morning. The neighborhood is populated by young families and well within walking distance of Main Street. The stroller-and-leash brigade most likely headed out early to claim prime spots along the parade route.
Noticing the flags flying from poles and porches, Alex makes a mental note to put up a flag, too, back home. There’s one somewhere in the basement.
The basement . . .
Ten years ago, when the Realtor showed him and Carmen the house, the basement was a major selling point.
“The family that lived here in the sixties added over seven hundred square feet of living space when they turned this into a rec room,” she said, flicking a light switch and leading the way downstairs into a large open area.
Once, years earlier, Alex had forgotten to roll up the car windows at night. It rained, and the carpet and upholstery got wet. Forever after that, the interior was permeated by a strong mildew odor. The basement smelled the same way.
The walls were paneled in brown wood and the floors covered in green indoor-outdoor carpeting that gave way to linoleum in one corner where an old olive-green washer and dryer sat alongside a slop sink. There were windows scattered high on three walls. On the fourth there was just a door.
The Realtor had opened it, and an even stronger dank smell greeted their nostrils. “Wait until you see this,” she said, as if she were about to reveal something utterly dazzling: a stocked wine cellar or fully equipped home gym . . .
“What is it?” Carmen asked, nose wrinkled, peering into the dank—apparently vacant—interior.
“It’s a bomb shelter!”
Alex and Carmen had exchanged a glance.
“The house was built back in the Cold War era. People were afraid Russia was going to drop a nuclear bomb.”
Alex had seen the black and yellow Fallout Shelter signs on sturdy public buildings all over the city, but . . . “Here?”
The Realtor shrugged. “New York was considered a major target, and we’re right in the suburbs. The assumption was that the radiation contamination would spread if the city were hit. People wanted to protect their famili
es. Back in the day, this room was filled with canned goods, bottled water, lamps, cots, a space heater, even a toilet.”
“That explains the smell,” Carmen murmured.
“It’s a piece of history,” the Realtor crowed. “Isn’t it fabulous?”
Fabulous wasn’t quite the right word. Not back then.
Not now, either.
Alex never imagined, when they bought the house, that the underground bunker would ever be used for anything more than extra storage . . . and perhaps a conversation piece.
But then, there were a lot of things he had never imagined back then.
Online, you can be anyone you want to be.
That’s the beauty of these Internet dating sites. You can call yourself by another name, make up an exciting background and glamorous career, even use a photo-shopped head shot—within reason, of course. You don’t go and shave fifty pounds off your body or twenty-five years off your age, and you don’t claim to be a celebrity or a billionaire, because those are things you obviously can’t pull off once you meet someone in person.
But early on, when you’re trying to bait the trap, so to speak, you really have to offer something that will tempt anyone who comes across your profile.
The picture he just uploaded to his new page on the InTune Web site hasn’t been digitally altered, but it is a few years old. In it, he’s wearing a red sweater. He read someplace that a splash of red attracts the opposite sex when it comes to online photos.
The snapshot was taken a couple of Christmases ago. He was thinner and more handsome then, still hitting the gym every day and getting a good night’s sleep every night, back before all the trouble started. He had more hair and fewer wrinkles—issues that can be easily remedied with the right imaging software.
Expensive software—which he can no longer afford, thanks to her.
And thanks to her, he didn’t even consider taking new pictures for his new online dating profile. When he looks in the mirror lately, he doesn’t like what he sees. When he looks at old pictures, he does. Case closed.
He leans back in his chair and surveys his latest profile.
Any eligible female who stumbles across Nick Butler’s tall, dark, and handsome picture will most likely click through to read his questionnaire.
First, she’ll check out his age, thirty-one; his location, Upper West Side; his occupation, architect.
She’ll see that he’s never been married and has no children. That will most likely be met with approval because, really, who wants that kind of baggage?
Not me. Not most single people in their right mind.
With Nick Butler, a woman seeking an unencumbered man won’t even have to worry about pets. He lied that he’s allergic, to keep the crazy cat ladies away.
He couldn’t believe how many of those he found when he first entered the realm of online dating. It seemed like such a cliché until he started noticing all the single women who posted photos of themselves cradling kittens or managing to work feline-centric answers into their questionnaires.
Nick Butler’s questionnaire just covers the basic favorites in every category.
Favorite Food: Italian. Who doesn’t love Italian food?
Favorite Movie: The Last of The Mohicans. An oldie but not ancient; suitably rugged, with both historic and literary appeal, plus a romance.
Favorite Music—
Someone clears her throat behind him, and he jumps, startled. Turning around, he sees Ivy Sacks, one of the project managers, standing in the doorway of his cubicle.
“How’s it coming along?”
Ivy is referring to the spreadsheet that has, with a quick click of the mouse, replaced the dating questionnaire on his desktop screen.
“It’s . . . you know. Coming along.”
“When do you think it’ll be finished?”
“Soon. Very soon.”
“Good.”
For a moment she just stands there looking at him. Her expression is impossible to read.
“Anything else?” he asks, hands poised on the keyboard as though eager to get back to work on the spreadsheet.
“I was just wondering . . .”
When she trails off, he doesn’t prompt her to continue, afraid that she might be on the verge of asking him out. This wouldn’t be the first time, since the divorce, that he’s gotten that vibe.
Ivy is the only woman at the firm who happens to be roughly his age and single. But her facial features and build are far too angular for his taste, and her no-nonsense personality makes it impossible to imagine her ever kicking back and having the slightest bit of fun.
“Never mind,” Ivy says. “Just shoot that spreadsheet over to me when you’re done, okay?”
“Sure, no problem.”
He waits for her to leave.
The moment she does, he clicks away from the spreadsheet, back to his online profile.
Favorite Music?
Perhaps the easiest question of all.
Smiling to himself, he writes Classic Rock.
About the Author
USA Today and New York Times bestseller Wendy Corsi Staub is the award-winning author of more than seventy novels and has twice been nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She lives in the New York City suburbs with her husband and their two children.
Learn more about Wendy at www.wendycorsistaub.com.
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By Wendy Corsi Staub
THE PERFECT STRANGER
THE GOOD SISTER
SHADOWKILLER
SLEEPWALKER
NIGHTWATCHER
HELL TO PAY
SCARED TO DEATH
LIVE TO TELL
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from The Black Widow copyright © 2015 by Wendy Corsi Staub
THE PERFECT STRANGER. Copyright © 2014 by Wendy Corsi Staub. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition AUGUST 2014 ISBN: 9780062222411
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062222404
FIRST EDITION
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The Perfect Stranger Page 36