The Pretty Woman Who Lived Next Door

by Preston Pairo

  The Pretty Woman Who Lived Next Door

  a novel

  by Preston Pairo

  .

  Also by Preston Pairo

  The Ocean City Mysteries

  The Captain Drowns

  Beach Money

  One Dead Judge*

  Big Blow*

  Contemporary Romance

  The Builder*

  Crime/Suspense Thrillers

  Her Honor*

  Razor Moon, Antigua*

  City Lies*

  Winner's Cut

  Midnight Razz

  Breach of Trust

  Bright Eyes

  The Angel's Crime

  *Available as eBooks at Amazon.com

  For more information about books by Preston Pairo, please visit http://www.prestonpairo.com or www.facebook.com/prestonpairo/

  .

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, copied, performed, or otherwise duplicated without the express written consent of the publisher.

  A Preston Pairo™ Book

  Copyright © 2018 by Preston Pairo III

  All rights reserved. Published by Maryland Locale, Ltd.

  Preston Pairo is a trademark of Maryland Locale, Ltd.

  .

  .

  Author's Note

  A great benefit of digital publishing is the opportunity to keep making books better based upon reader comments. From minor errors that may have slipped by the copy editor to descriptions that could be more clear (or creative), there is always room for improvement. I welcome your comments by email at pres@prestonpairo.com

  Prologue

  The doorbell rings early Saturday morning—too early—and Jennifer Gaines comes awake disoriented, brought out of the same unsettling dreams she’s experienced since those last nights in Mexico on spring break.

  Downstairs, whoever has chosen this ungodly hour to show up on their brick doorstep is greeted by Jennifer’s mother with her usual mint-julep charm.

  This colonial tract house may be in the Maryland suburbs of D.C., but Lissa Gaines still conducts herself as though residing in that magnificent Charleston home where she was raised.

  From bed, Jennifer expects to overhear her mother endure a sales pitch. She recalls her own early mornings ringing doorbells for school fund raisers—overpriced wrapping paper, “gourmet” popcorn, pizza kits—and assumes her mother will smile and nod and buy something, which will end up with this same kid ringing their doorbell again a month from now to deliver what they will never use or eat. Make that whatever Jennifer’s mother, father, and little brother won’t use or eat, because she will be back at college.

  But words from the conversation that rise to Jennifer’s dark bedroom near the top of the stairs sound muted and serious, and the word she makes out most clearly is, “Police.”

  When she hears her mother come up the stairs, Jennifer hopes she will continue by her room and end up down the hall—that this has to do with her 14-year-old brother, who gets good grades but a tendency to be influenced by who her mother refers to as “those skateboard kids,” not realizing—as her father does—that Tyler is a skateboard kid.

  But the light knock is on her door, which her mother opens without waiting for a response, and enters. “Jennifer…?” She speaks in a half whisper, as if coaxing her awake—the way she pronounces her name sounding more like, Gin-a-fer.

  Lissa Gaines is dressed as if going out for brunch, even though she does not have plans to go anywhere. But plans change. One of her decorator friends might call and suggest a new restaurant or checking out an open house or both. Her plain white blouse and black knit trousers have Eileen Fisher labels and were on hangers in Nordstrom last week.

  Lissa partially closes the door behind her. “Jennifer?” She leans over her daughter, the always neat cut of her not-so-natural-blond bob falling around her pretty face. “Honey, are you awake?” She doesn’t sound alarmed, but Jennifer imagines she is, and that if the shutters were open or lights were on she’d see the crows’ feet at the corners of her mother’s eyes more deeply furrowed with concern.

  Jennifer smiles and stretches as if casually coming awake.

  “Honey…” Her mother touches Jennifer’s bare arm, always one to try to soothe unsettling situations. “…there’s a policewoman downstairs.” Lissa turns on the nightstand lamp and shows Jennifer a business card embossed with the recognizable logo of their county’s police force and a name: Sgt. Debra Vance.

  “Police?” Jennifer acts as if two steps behind what’s happening, not trying to get two steps ahead.

  “She wants to talk to you about Miles Peterson…?” The way Lissa says the name makes it sound as if she considers it highly unlikely Jennifer could possibly know anything about this former classmate, who she hasn’t heard her daughter mention since high school.

  Jennifer sits up, rubbing her eyes. “Miles Peterson…?” As if he is someone from her distant past—or however distant your past can be when you’re 20.

  “Should I call your father?”

  “Dad’s not here?” Jennifer asks, getting out of bed.

  “He’s gone fishing with Arthur and Bo. But they’re probably not on the water yet.”

  “No—don’t call dad.” As if that would be a silly inconvenience. Jennifer grabs a hooded sweatshirt off the back of her ergonomic desk chair and pulls it on over the baggy t-shirt and pajama bottoms she slept in.

  “Honey, put on some clothes.”

  But Jennifer is already at the door. “Come on…Mom…how long can this take?”

  “Brush your hair?”

  “Mom. No.” Jennifer is practiced at gentle denial. Disobedience doesn’t require disrespect.

  At the top of the stairs, she looks down into the open foyer for a clue as to who she’s dealing with, but all she can see from that angle are two small feet wearing black dress shoes made more for comfort than style.

  Barefooted, Jennifer descends the steps not exactly with a bounce, but what she thinks will convey the impression of someone with nothing to hide.

  The policewoman, who appears to be alone, is surprisingly short, and probably needs those shoes to be five feet tall. And she looks young—is she even thirty? Isn’t there a height and age requirement to be a cop?

  Jennifer does not recognize the woman despite having seen her before. She finds herself distracted by the woman’s small stature, and briefly panics that may be part of the cop’s approach. Maybe the reason this woman made sergeant is by looking so unlike the part that suspects and witnesses fall unknowingly under some sort of spell.

  “Jennifer Gaines?” the policewoman asks.

  “Yeah.” Jennifer’s hands have been in the pockets of her hoodie since coming down the stairs because she wants them to feel warm if the policewoman offers to shake.

  She doesn’t. “My name’s Debra Vance.” Her small oval face is framed by tortured mousy-brown hair that hangs like worn drapes to the shoulders of her plain and inexpensive suit jacket. Her expression is serious—thin lips without the hint of a smile, eyes squinting slightly, not to compensate for morning sun streaming into the foyer, but as if concentrating on a small detail which, in this case, appears to be Jennifer. “I’m with the Kensington County Police.”

  “Yeah—my mom said.”

  Lissa Gaines comes down the stairs at a slightly cautious pace, as if to give the lady sergeant opportunity to tell her to go back upstairs if that’s what she’s supposed to do. Not that she will. Lissa gives the appearance of being mindful of rules and procedures, but is k
eenly protective.

  “You know Miles Peterson.” Vance states this to Jennifer as fact, not inquiry.

  Maintaining eye contact, Jennifer responds, “Yeah…?” She considered responding that she used to know him back when they went to high school together, but this small policewoman might interpret that as a lie—depending on how much she knows.

  “When did you last see him?”

  “Gosh…” Jennifer pretends to think, but remains distracted by Vance’s appearance—wondering if the diminutive woman chose those pants instead of a skirt thinking it made her appear taller. But the pants are ill-fitting—or maybe not meant to be worn with that blouse tucked in. “…it’s been a while… Is he okay?” Jennifer thinks that’s the right thing to say—that it would be natural to wonder about a person from your past.

  “I’m trying to locate him,” the sergeant answers, neither confrontational nor disbelieving, but stressing a sense of importance.

  Jennifer acts as if puzzled by the woman not answering her question whether Miles is okay, when, in fact, she has just learned what she needs to know: that she is looking for Miles, not that she’s found him.

  “If you hear from him,” Vance requests with a tone of instruction, “or hear anything about him… “ She reaches inside her jacket, takes another of her cards from an inside pocket, and hands it to Jennifer. “…please call me.”

  Jennifer accepts the card and shakes Vance’s hand, which is small, but strong, her skin warm on this cool spring morning—as is Jennifer’s.

  It isn’t until Sgt. Vance leaves and her mother is closing the door that Jennifer realizes the card the policewoman handed her is thicker than a single business card. Perhaps two cards stuck together.

  “That was strange,” Lissa says, watching Vance return to the unmarked car in their driveway. “I wonder what that was about?”

  “I don’t know, mom.” Jennifer starts up the stairs.

  “You haven’t seen that Peterson boy, have you?” Her mother asks this to the window, still watching Sgt. Vance, who remains in her car, not going anywhere.

  Jennifer says, “No.”

  “Are you sure?” Lissa’s southern accent comes out in her question: Ahhre you shu-ar?

  So Jennifer responds, “Yes, Ah’m shu-ar. And I’m going back to bed.”

  Once in her bedroom, Jennifer closes the door and examines the card Vance gave her. Something has been folded and taped to the back. It is a small photograph, taken four years ago in the house of the woman who used to live next door to Miles: it shows Jennifer and Miles on the woman’s sofa, kissing rather passionately. How the picture was taken Jennifer doesn’t know, because whenever she and Miles used to go inside the woman’s house, it was just the two of them—and she’d never seen any camera.

  1.

  Four years earlier.

  Days before the start of Jennifer Gaines’ senior year of high school, the name Miles Peterson blew up the social media accounts of Jennifer and her fellow classmates.

  Two years ago and 800 miles away, Miles Peterson had murdered a man. He’d been 16 at the time. Now, Miles Peterson was coming to Kensington High, their top-rated public school, as an 18-year old senior.

  Miles had been front page news when the killing happened in Stuart, Florida, a one-time fishing town turned coastal suburb an hour’s drive north of West Palm Beach. But what caused headlines for months in south and central Florida had been lost among all the other worldwide sensationalism where Jennifer lived in Kensington County, Maryland—one of the nation’s more prosperous, educated, and diverse addresses, with residents who commuted to high-profile high-paying jobs in and around D.C.: NIH, the Pentagon, the CIA, NSA.

  A Florida murder wasn’t news when the White House was practically in your backyard, no matter how young the killer. But when that murderer was coming not just to their backyard, but their children’s school, parents reacted with predictable panic. Ingrained memories of mass-shootings spurred frightened and angry calls to the local school board, which was caught—not for the first time—pants down, assuming it was some wild rumor and assuring that no killer had been enrolled in high school.

  But the Board had to backtrack when confronted with the name, Miles Peterson, and someone in the mired bureaucracy that governed the tax-payer-funded halls of public education did some checking and damned if there wasn’t a Miles Peterson coming in as a new student at Kensington High, and holy hell it was the same kid who’d killed a man in Florida, and how had that happened?

  Emergency meetings were held, jobs threatened, and elected officials promised action. But what could they do?

  Late afternoon on the Friday before the new school year was to begin, Arnold Baylor, the county attorney who represented the school board, rose to speak at a contentious meeting attended by far more government employees than could be expected to achieve even a modicum of efficiency. Arnold delivered the bad news: “The murder charges against Miles Peterson were dismissed because it was determined he acted in self-defense.”

  It had taken over three days for those facts to bubble to the surface through fear and overreaction. There was a moment of relief—then someone pointed out, “But he did kill someone?”

  “Yes,” Arnold Baylor confirmed. “But it was not a criminal act.”

  “But he did kill someone?” the questioner repeated.

  “Yes,” the county lawyer repeated. Having already spent far more time on the local government payroll than he’d ever anticipated, wanted, or dreaded, Arnold knew this meeting was no closer to ending now than it had been ten minutes ago, and he was going to have to phone his wife and tell her to go ahead and eat dinner without him, and no, he didn’t know how late he’d be. Because it was going to take the better part of the evening to try to get through the uncompromising heads of the educators it was his job to represent that there was nothing they could do to keep Miles Peterson from attending Kensington High.

  By this time, Jennifer Gaines and her friends had become fascinated by Miles, turning him into their latest viral celebrity before ever setting non-digital eyes on him. When all Miles wanted to do—the sole reason his parents had uprooted their lives and moved to Maryland—was to go back to school instead of being tutored, graduate with a diploma instead of getting a GED, and get into a college with an oceanography program.

  The following Monday, when the first day of school began under humid cloud cover, a fifth of Kensington High’s 1,200 students were kept home by anxious parents, some of whom had spent the weekend calling in favors and making desperate efforts to enroll their children in private schools.

  The bus that serviced the route that included where the Petersons had only recently moved into an older development of Tudor-style houses was all but empty when it arrived at school.

  Miles was among those not on the bus. He was driven to the modern suburban school by his father in a white Ford Fusion that had an insurance company logo on the driver’s side door.

  Twenty minutes before home room, Miles emerged from the car wearing faded jeans, sandals, and a t-shirt screen-printed with the logo of a Florida marina that included a sailfish drawn to look as if jumping from the sea at the end of an angler’s line.

  Miles was tall, lean, and suntanned, with brown hair trimmed short on the sides, longer and uncombed on top. But most notably, he was beautiful, almost pretty.

  Jennifer Gaines stood in the covered courtyard just outside the school’s front doors, where more than the normal number of kids lingered along with a few teachers and Principal Davies.

  To varying degrees of curiosity and apprehension, some did a better job than others not to stare as Miles Peterson calmly strode toward the entrance. If Kensington High’s newest student realized his hopes of returning to a normal life were not going to happen, he didn’t reveal it. Whatever he was feeling, Miles showed no emotion.

  Jennifer wondered what he made of them. The little freshmen who scurried back inside as if they’d seen a monster. The jocks who stood bravely
, chests puffed out.

  At least a dozen kids aimed cell phones at Miles, none-too-covertly videoing his arrival as if he might pull a fully-loaded automatic weapon from his knapsack and start firing.

  Miles appeared to look beyond them all, except Jennifer Gaines with her long blond hair, hippie-like hemp jumpsuit, retro cork sandals with wedge heels, and multiple long necklaces of tiny colorful plastic beads like the ones her grandmother used to make and sell on 9th Street in Ocean City back in the 60’s.

  When Miles met her eyes, Jennifer didn’t look away. Didn’t challenge him. Didn’t wonder what kind of freak he was. She smiled, walked up to him, and said, “Ignore these idiots.” Extending her slender arm, her wrist decorated with bangle bracelets, fingernails polished a matte sunset orange, she introduced herself. “Jennifer.” Hoping he liked her Issey Miyake perfume.

  “Hey.” He nodded and smiled, shaking her hand with a firm yet somehow delicate grip—the hands of a sculptor, she immediately decided, not a murderer.

  His beautiful brown eyes with flecks of green reflected what Jennifer detected as a bit of relief, as if she might be able to help him through whatever gauntlet of misconceptions his history were causing to be put down in front of him. An ally. A friend. Perhaps more.

  She said, “I like your t-shirt.”

  He said, “I like your beads.”

  “Cool.” She led him inside, passing Mr. Davies with his short salt-and-pepper hair and the summer wool suit Jennifer had seen him wear at least a hundred times over the last three years.

  “Welcome to day one,” Davies greeted. A serious man, Kensington High’s principal liked to number the school days and often referenced that sum when philosophizing about the passage of time—how it was fleeting and should be more highly valued as a commodity than gold, because while enough money could get you more gold, no fortune could buy more time.