The Stranger Inside, page 7
part #4 of Stranger Series
Besides, he’d see her again soon.
CHAPTER 11
FIVE NIGHTS LATER, Diane pulled into the parking lot at Brookmart and parked.
She’d just left the crisis center, where she’d been intercepted by two pleasant, plainclothed police detectives, Chavez and Johnson, who were working Katie Worth’s murder case. They’d spent thirty minutes in the back office with her, asking her questions: “We understand the caller’s voice was altered, but do your best to tell us what it sounded like . . . Any idea of the gender of the caller? Did the person state one way or the other? How long did the call last? Can you confirm what time it came in? As accurately as you can, tell us what this person told you. Start at the beginning if you can. What were you doing before the call came in? What did you do when the call ended?”
She’d answered as best she could but was afraid she hadn’t been able to give them much more than what she’d provided in the statement she’d given Mary Kate the evening of the call.
After the detectives left, she’d asked Mary Kate if the caller had phoned again, but she’d said he hadn’t. She also asked if the lines had been tapped, but Mary Kate was unable to say. Crisis center policy was to insulate volunteers from that type of information. It was for their protection.
Diane had answered phones for the next three hours and had been relieved when Lance hadn’t shown for his shift. His attempted kiss on Thanksgiving evening had been awkward, to say the least. Maybe he wasn’t as troubled by it as she was. Or . . . maybe it was the reason he hadn’t shown up at the crisis center. Doubtful, yes, but entirely possible.
Just as she was switching off the ignition, she heard two local deejays talking about the murder. She sat in the car and listened intently for a few minutes, waiting to see if there were new developments.
She’d read every article that had been written about the girl and had visited her social media accounts many times in the last several days, so she was fairly up-to-date with what was going on with the investigation. At least the information that was being shared with the public. Once she realized the deejays were just rehashing the same information again, she flipped the radio off. She would stick with her rule. No thinking about murder tonight. Real or fictitious.
Inside Brookmart, she maneuvered her cart through the aisles, quickly finding what she needed. Luckily, Wayne wasn’t anywhere in sight. The store was also pretty empty. Probably why the Top 40 music from the PA system seemed a bit louder than normal. It was so loud she almost didn’t hear her phone ring.
She tried to pull it from her coat pocket to catch it in time, but as she did, the phone slipped from her hand and landed on the tiled floor with a sickening thud.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
She picked it up and turned it over. The glass was shattered. She pressed the phone’s home button but nothing happened. Just a blank screen.
It was ruined.
Sighing, she tossed the damaged phone in her purse and grabbed the remaining items on her list.
It was sprinkling out when she left Brookmart. She hurried to her car, realizing she’d never noticed before how poorly lit the parking lot was at night. Probably because she was almost always chaperoned by Wayne. By the time she loaded the groceries into her backseat, the rain had started coming down in sheets.
She fell into the driver’s seat and pulled her hair from her face. Her wet clothes clung to her chilled skin. She turned the heat up as high as it would go.
The wipers couldn’t keep up with the torrent of rain, and Diane drove slowly, squinting to see the road in front of her. She was reaching to change the radio station when suddenly she heard a loud bang! and the car began to slide across the road. She gripped the steering wheel tightly and eased on the brake, managing to gain control and get her car over to the shoulder.
Just great. A flat.
It was dark, pouring, she had a flat . . . and her phone was broken, so there was no way to reach anyone.
A sideways rain drummed against the window as she squinted into the storm, trying to get her bearings, then a pair of headlights in her rearview mirror caught her attention. They sat higher, like they belonged to a truck.
As the vehicle eased up behind her, she pressed the master lock button on the driver’s door, and all the locks clicked into place. She kept her eyes glued to the truck behind her. The headlights were so bright she couldn’t make out much else. She squinted to see if she could see any movement in the dark, but she couldn’t.
She almost jumped out of her skin when she heard tapping on her driver’s-side window. But when she saw who it was, she let out a sigh of relief. It was the man she’d met at the grocery store the night she’d been doing her Thanksgiving shopping.
She lowered her window—just a little. He leaned forward. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said, his teeth gleaming white against the dark night.
Diane groaned. “I think I have a flat.”
The man looked back at it. “Yeah, it certainly looks that way. And a pretty bad one. You have a jack?”
Diane nodded. “In the back.”
“A spare?”
“Also in the back.”
“Pop it open and I’ll fix it for you.”
“Are you sure? You’ll get soaked.”
He took a step back to display his already-soaked clothes and boots. “It’s a little late to be worried about that. Don’t you think?”
As he worked, she found herself worrying about Josh. Maybe he’d been the one who had called earlier when she’d dropped her phone. Maybe he’d needed something. She always answered immediately when her kids called or texted, so it was likely he was getting worried now.
A loud slam made her jump. She looked in the rearview mirror to see he had shut the back hatch and was walking back to the driver’s-side door. She lowered the window . . . again just a little.
“You should be good now. But you’re riding on the spare, so I’d take her into a garage tomorrow to get a proper tire.”
“Thank you so much . . . um . . .”
He stared at her, a smile playing on his lips. “You don’t remember my name, do you?”
“I’m not good with names. Sorry.”
“It’s Rick.” He smiled at her. That smile. Despite not wanting it to, it gave her butterflies.
“I can’t thank you enough, Rick.”
“You’re very welcome. Glad I could help.”
Lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating his handsome face. “I think that’s my cue to get out of this weather,” he said. He brought his hand to the window and slipped a folded piece of paper through. “My bill. Whenever you get a chance.”
He grinned again and jogged back to his truck.
Diane raised her window and unfolded the paper. His name and phone number were written in clear, crisp letters and numbers.
Meticulous handwriting.
She felt herself blush.
AN HOUR LATER, after ordering a new phone, cleaning a little, and getting ready for bed, Diane lay on the couch at home and tried not to think of Rick. Instead, she watched Josh as he channel surfed (something he could do for hours), remembering back to when he was little.
“Would you stop looking at me like that?” Josh said, smirking, his eyes still on the screen.
“How’d you know?” she asked.
“Sixth sense.”
She glanced at the television. Something caught her eye on channel four as he whizzed by it. “Hey, go back. And turn it up,” she said. It was the local news. The caption BOYFRIEND CLEARED IN MURDER INVESTIGATION was splashed across the bottom of the screen in large red letters.
A female anchor was reporting from a news desk, and they were showing the college campus in the background. “Police have cleared Caleb Donaldson, the boyfriend of murdered University of New Cambridge student Katie Worth. He had been the lead suspect in the case,” the anchor was saying.
Diane’s gut twisted at the realization the killer was still at large.
“I knew he didn’t do it,” Josh muttered.
“Why do you say that?”
“He just . . . I don’t know. He just doesn’t look like the type who would kill someone.”
In Diane’s line of work, she had learned that public faces rarely reflected private misdeeds. And she was surprised she hadn’t done a good job of teaching Josh that. “You know better than that. Don’t you?” she said, staring at him. “You know that murderers come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. And most of them look completely normal, just like this guy,” she said, pointing at Caleb Donaldson’s image, which was now filling the screen. “That’s why you need to always be careful. With everyone.”
“Tell that to Alexa, not me. I’m a dude. Stuff like that only happens to girls.”
“You never know,” she said.
Josh rolled his eyes. “Thanks for being a ray of sunshine, Mom. You sound like your cop friend from Thanksgiving.”
“Good,” Diane said. “Because what he said was spot-on.”
A few minutes later, Diane crawled into bed with her iPad. She powered it on and pulled up Katie Worth’s Facebook profile for the third or fourth time. She enlarged the girl’s profile photo again and studied it. The girl had been a beauty. Gleaming, long dark hair. Serious blue eyes framed by thick lashes. And dead at nineteen.
How tragic when she had so many more promising years ahead of her. The girl’s parents had to be beside themselves with grief.
She couldn’t even imagine . . . didn’t want to imagine.
After a few minutes she powered off the iPad and set it on her bedside table, then turned on her side. As she waited for her sleeping pill to kick in and for sleep to claim her, she stared vacantly at the shadows dancing across the walls of her bedroom but could see nothing but images of the dead girl.
CHAPTER 12
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, after finishing her writing for the day, Diane checked her reviews on Amazon and was surprised to see fifteen new ones. All were pretty good, all four or five stars, except one. It was a rare one-star review. She pulled it up and groaned as she recognized the handle of the longtime reviewer, writewellorquit777—a troll who had reviewed every single one of her books over the last six years. While she’d grown numb to most bad reviews—it came with the job—this troll got under her skin because it almost seemed personal.
She read less than half of the review, then shut down her browser and went to her office window. The sun had begun its downward slide below the horizon, and the boats had already begun their return for the night.
Her best friend would be arriving soon for a weekend stay. She tried to get excited about the visit. She’d missed Ellie and was happy to see her again. But she’d woken up with the now-familiar foreboding sensation in her stomach.
Something’s very wrong.
The feeling this morning had been especially strong and had haunted her all day.
Josh was driving back from the airport with Ellie right now. His driving alone to the airport had made her nervous, but he was only going to Hyannis. It wasn’t like he would be dealing with Boston traffic.
Diane went back to her computer and searched for any new developments on the Katie Worth murder investigation. Any new leads. It still bothered her that the boyfriend had been cleared. She hadn’t wanted to think there was a predator somewhere around the college. She wondered what was going on behind the scenes. What information, if any, the police weren’t yet sharing . . . or if they had found any new leads.
Hearing the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway, she closed her laptop and headed out into the hallway. Just as she hit the bottom of the staircase, the front door opened and the whirlwind that was Ellie burst into the house, the scent of her perfume blowing in with her.
The scent immediately took Diane back to her college days. Studying for exams in the wee hours of the night with lots of potato chips, soda, and NoDoz. Blasting Prince songs as they got ready for long nights out at college bars. The only care she’d had in the world back then was passing her nursing clinicals—and she’d always done so with flying colors.
Diane hugged her old friend and noticed her hair already smelled of the salty sea air. Knowing Ellie, she’d probably had Josh ride in the wintry Massachusetts weather with the windows down.
“Oh my God, it’s so good to see you!” Ellie said, holding Diane tight. Ellie pulled away and studied her. “You are such a sight for jet-lagged eyes.”
Diane smiled. It was good to see Ellie, too. When she looked at Ellie, she saw home . . . whatever that was. It was the same way she felt when she looked at her kids.
Ellie was an attractive woman; solid, strong . . . but right now her face looked drawn. She also looked much thinner, and not in a good way. “Are you okay? You look terrible,” Diane said.
Ellie laughed. “I was wondering why I missed you so much. It’s that way with words you have.”
Although she looked exhausted, Ellie was as stylish as always. A powder-blue winter vest, tight designer jeans, and a form-fitting T-shirt clearly showed off her well-toned figure. She pushed her long, wavy blonde hair off her shoulders and smiled at Diane.
Josh dragged in what was clearly a very heavy overstuffed suitcase. Ellie looked back at him and laughed. “Oh, you sweet thing. I would have got that. You shouldn’t have to pay the price for my inability to pack light.”
“It’s no problem,” Josh groaned. “I’ll take it upstairs.”
Ellie turned to Diane. “So are all the men in this town as dashing as this one?”
“If that’s what you came here for, you may be sorely disappointed,” Diane said.
“I bet you haven’t even looked. Where are the bars around here?”
Josh laughed. “Uh, you’re asking the wrong person.”
He was right. She didn’t go out much. And “not much” meant “not ever.”
Josh reached the top step with the luggage. “There’s a bar on Main Street.”
Diane shot him a puzzled look.
Josh shrugged. “What? It’s called The Bar. It wasn’t too tough to figure out what the place was.”
Ellie clapped her hands. “The Bar! It sounds divine. So why are we standing here? Let’s get this party started, sister.”
“Now?”
Ellie shrugged. “Why not? It’s after five.”
“You’re serious?”
“Dead serious.”
Diane smiled. Some things never changed . . . and she found that comforting right now. “You’ve been traveling for five hours. Don’t you want to rest? Freshen up?”
Ellie waved her hands over her body. “Sorry, babe. But this is about as fresh as it gets. And I’ll rest when I’m dead. Right now I need a drink.”
“I have wine in the kitchen. We could sit—”
“Not the same,” Ellie interrupted. “It goes down better when some hot bartender serves it to me.”
Ellie climbed the stairs and gave Josh a hug. “What about you, kid? Got any plans tonight?”
Josh shook his head. “So you’re available to be our driver. Drop us off and then pick us up when we are ready to turn in?”
“Sure. I can do that,” Josh said.
Ellie smiled. When Ellie smiled, Diane couldn’t help but think of the cat that swallowed the canary. She always seemed to be up to something—and she often was. “Because your mom and I . . . are going to get hammered tonight.”
Josh snorted. His eyes went from Ellie to Diane, back to Ellie again. “Mom? Hammered? Yeah. Good luck with that.”
THE BAR HAD an old tavern feel with dark wood floors and Early American decor. Two TVs, one on either side of the long bar, were broadcasting a college basketball game while classic rock played just loud enough that you could still talk over it. There was a Christmas tree in the corner by the hall that led to the bathrooms, and Christmas lights and garlands strung across the back wall of the bar.
A small group of college boys crowded around one end of the bar, cheering on the game. Diane and Ellie grabbed two bar stools at the other end of the bar. Ellie got the robust bartender’s attention and ordered two Sam Adamses and two bowls of clam chowder. She winked at Diane. “When in Rome . . .”
Diane situated her purse on her lap, feeling completely out of her element, which she found to be a combination of uncomfortable and exciting. It had been forever since she’d done the bar scene. The bartender brought over the bottles of beer, and Ellie handed one to Diane.
“To new beginnings again,” said Ellie.
They clinked the bottles in a toast. Diane took a sip of the brown ale, enjoying the smooth, malty taste as it slid down her throat.
She noticed some of the college kids studying her and Ellie. She knew what they must have been thinking: two desperate cougars hoping to snag some young guys. Ellie glanced at them and then back at Diane with that trademark mischievous smile of hers, and Diane realized that the kids were probably half right.
“Still enjoying it out here?” Ellie asked.
“Yeah. It’s been a really great move for Josh.”
“I’m talking about you,” Ellie said. “Are you enjoying it? You matter, too, you know.”
Ellie didn’t have kids. She didn’t know what it was like. If her kids weren’t happy, she couldn’t be. Not wholly. “Yeah, I do. I love my new home. Being so close to the ocean.”
Ellie raised her eyebrows. “And . . .”
Diane laughed. “No. I haven’t met anyone.”
“Don’t wait too long. In this market, we have an expiration date, you know.”
“Spending time with the kids and writing are the only things I’m concerned about. If another man never appeared in my life again, it would be too soon.”
“Jesus, you don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
Ellie shook her head. “You just need to get out more. You’ll see what you’re missing.”
“Hey, I have fun. I have everything I need.”
“Sure you do.”
A waitress came by with their food, and Ellie asked to be seated at a table. Once there, Ellie ordered two more beers. When the waitress left, Ellie asked, “Dare I ask about Queen Alexa?” Ellie had been calling Alexa that since she was eight.
