Do I Know You?, page 29
In the wee hours of that morning, while Kit slept off the near overdose, Bella, Chet, and Arthur Whitaker plotted the best course of action. Chet insisted Bob be arrested immediately; Arthur noted it wasn’t that easy. Kit was a confirmed addict with a criminal history. Bob was a decorated cop. No one witnessed Bob shooting up Kit with heroin, so it would be her word against his. All Bob had to say was that Kit was a rebellious teenager who resented the strict curfews and house rules he’d imposed. With no credible witnesses or evidence, Arthur was certain no charges would be filed.
And then where would we be? Because that was Kit’s concern—my mother and me. Having barely survived Bob’s attempt to take her life, Kit was convinced he would do the same to anyone else who dared expose him. She refused to return home and live under the same roof as her would-be murderer. There had to be another solution. Chet suggested our father.
Initially, Kit’s stay in New Zealand was to be temporary. Having used his impressive connections to secure her a passport, Chet arranged for a private plane to take her to Christchurch, where there was no doubt she’d be safe from Bob’s revenge. After three years there, homesick and missing her mother, on a whim Kit called Mom and told her everything.
We’re still not entirely sure about the order of events that followed this earth-shattering phone call. According to Kit, Mom was at first overjoyed, then shocked, and then homicidal herself. Ignoring Kit’s frantic protests, she vowed to have it out with her boyfriend then and there.
Unfortunately, along the way to the police station, Mom slipped “by accident” on a sheet of ice, hit her head, and died. The autopsy was performed by a medical examiner who was not only a fishing buddy of Bob’s, but also, rumor has it, a frequent customer. Did he cover up a murder? We might never know since the ME died of an overdose a few months later. Whether his death was a homicide, too, is also part of the DA’s investigation.
After that, Kit refused to take any chances. If Bob murdered Mom, then I was next on the list. I’d face the same consequences if Kit told me she was alive. As long as Bob was a threat, I must never know what happened that night on the beach of Camp Pequabuck, Kit insisted, despite agonizing over my subsequent mental breakdown due, in large part, to losing her and our mother.
And then I recognized Bella Valencia in Logan and everyone tried to keep me away from the truth. Stan told me not to go to Shoreham. Arthur sent threatening letters. Bella refused to answer my inquiries. Bob claimed he’d already investigated Bella and found she had an alibi. When I rented the cottage anyway, he sent me weird texts about flowers on my mother’s grave, having watched me visit the cemetery that night from his own office window, on the hope the mysterious messages would scare me away.
Still, I persisted.
Realizing I was determined to have a showdown, Dani and Serena, Bella’s only confidantes, came up with the idea of setting a trap, which I sashayed into readily. The plan was straight from the playbook Chet had used with Kit—get me on a private flight and out of the country. Bella offered her place in Bogotá as a short-term solution I could use while she and Will were on their month-long honeymoon in Greece.
But no one counted on Cobb. After our conversation at Indigo, in which he fabricated the story about Kit being pressured to buy drugs for Jake or Will Pease, he sensed, rightly, my skepticism. He called Bob, who had me picked up by his two detectives and brought to the police station the following morning. According to Cobb’s confession, after our meeting over bad coffee, Bob concluded I was a “liability” and needed to be “removed.”
On the evening of the wedding, Cobb’s assignment was to serve as lookout. When he saw Dani and me on the bluff, he called Bob, who told him to get over to Heron’s Neck ASAP and not let me leave the beach until he arrived. Theoretically, Cobb could have played my savior by offering to take me off Dani’s hands. Except Cobb got there after I was already on Rick’s boat and Dani, being Dani, couldn’t resist making a crack to Cobb about how she looked forward to the day when his white male privilege wouldn’t be enough to keep him out of prison.
Cobb flipped out and shot her. Fortunately, he’s a crappy shot and the bullet to her knee, while excruciating, was not life-threatening, not that she was about to let him know that. She collapsed into the surf and he, panicked by what he’d done, took off. Cecily was hysterical when she found her wife bleeding on the beach, moaning in agony. So that was pretty much that for the night’s festivities.
From a remote feed in the hospital, Dani and Cecily watched Bella and Will exchange vows as scheduled, Eve adamant that not Queenie’s apparently natural death nor my near murder nor Dani’s surgery would stand in the way of her latest Love & Pease campaign.
Whether Bella and Will stay married is up to them. I do know they’ve returned to Bogotá and, according to what I’ve read on Twitter, Eve’s daughter, Megan, and one of Will’s ushers, a guy who goes by “Dingo,” are officially an item. The same article noted Megan had inherited the massive fortune belonging to her godmother, Queenie, so there’s that.
Erik and I are no longer. He did as I asked and cleaned out the apartment. So he wasn’t there when I got out of the hospital, having spent the night at Bella’s insistence. Every once in a while he texts me about getting together for coffee, but I don’t have the time. I’m too busy packing and making arrangements for my big move.
Epilogue
Please power down all electronic devices, the flight attendant informs us as we taxi toward the runway. Put up your tray tables and seatbacks in preparation for takeoff.
This is it. Finally. My pulse dances as the jet pulls away from the gate. In eighteen hours, give or take, we will be touching down in Christchurch. Waiting for me there will be Stan and my sister and her husband, Dylan, and their daughter, Lily, the little minx who frequently appears in our father’s endless sheep photos.
I haven’t quite acclimated to the news that Kit is married and a mother, though I mean, she’s in her thirties, so that makes sense. Or that she has a house and raises chickens, teaches high school algebra, and has learned to both knit and ride a motorcycle. I can’t believe I have a whole family waiting for me a half a world away, that they’ve been there all along. If only I’d accepted my father’s numerous invitations to visit sooner . . .
No. No regrets. The fact of the matter is, we’re meeting now and this wouldn’t be happening if I hadn’t stuck by my guns that Bella Valencia was the girl I recognized on the beach with Kit.
Turning off my phone because we’re taking off, I text her, my thumbs shaking as I tap out the letters. If I crash, just know I love you!
There is the pause of three dots and then an image emerges. It’s an old picture of Kit and me, arms around each other, standing on the shoreline of a deserted Nauset Light Beach, the brisk autumn wind whipping our hair in crazy directions.
We’re in sweatshirts and jeans rolled up past our ankles. I vaguely remember Mom taking this while we went for a Sunday stroll, just the three of us. It was the last photo taken before Kit broke her leg on the uneven bars and everything went downhill.
I remember, I text.
Natch, Kit replies. It’s impossible for you to forget.
Acknowledgments
A big thank you goes out to my editor, Emily Griffin, whose early enthusiasm, intelligence, keen insight, and gentle recommendations turned an umpteenth draft into a polished product fit for public consumption. I have had many wonderful editors over the years, but your detailed attention—from acquisition to acknowledgments–is unprecedented. I am so fortunate to have you guiding the way.
Along the same lines, I am deeply grateful for my agent, Zoe Sandler at ICM, another bright, enthusiastic light to illuminate the murky world of publishing. Thank you, Zoe, for being such a positive force and for being brilliant. This book never would have had a chance had it not been for your smart recommendations.
As for the idea behind Do I Know You?, I must thank the unfailingly polite security detail at Heathrow Airport who introduced me to the concept of super recognizers during my brief detention as a “flagged” passenger in 2003. There are some advantages to being on the terrorist watch list after all, apparently. Patrick Radden Keefe’s article on London’s use of super recognizers in the August 22, 2016 issue of The New Yorker was a font of information, as was Caroline Williams’s September 12, 2012 article in New Scientist and Alex Moshakis’s piece in the November 11, 2018 issue of The Guardian. All were so helpful.
Unfortunately, the fictionalized account of Kit Ellison’s descent into drug addiction is all too real for so many suffering families. New England has been particularly hard hit by the opioid crisis, with Massachusetts reporting a staggering number of deaths. Though prescriptions for pharmaceutical opioids have decreased in recent years, back when Kit was a teenager, doctors routinely prescribed these highly addictive drugs as postsurgical painkillers. Once the prescriptions expired, accidental addicts, like Kit, were forced to alleviate their withdrawal symptoms with illegal fentanyl, thereby perpetuating a cruel cycle.
As someone who personally has lost a brother to drug addiction, my heart goes out to parents, siblings, friends, and spouses who’ve spent sleepless nights and restless days wondering if their loved ones were clean, using, or . . . worse. Anyone can fall prey to addiction. Anyone. The good news is that as the stigma is lifted and research improves, the chances for full recovery are better than ever. You can find resources for those struggling with addiction and their loved ones on my website: sarahstrohmeyer.com.
A big shout out to the Select Board of Middlesex, Vermont, who proposed the four-day work schedule so I could keep writing. To Dorinda, Maryke, Amy, and fabulous photographer Dave Smith, thank you for putting up with my wacky schedule. Nothing better to keep the demons from gnawing at a writer’s confidence than a steady diet of land records, elections, taxes, and dog licenses.
Finally, a warm hug to my supportive family. Thank you, Anna, for reading the early drafts, making suggestions, and just basically feeding my true crime cravings. Thanks, Sam, for making me laugh (and being an awesome role model), and thank you, Charlie, for keeping the ship afloat while the first mate drifted off to the Land of Counterpane, yet again.
About the Author
SARAH STROHMEYER is the award-winning, nationally bestselling author of eighteen novels for adults and young adults, including the Bubbles Yablonsky mystery series and The Cinderella Pact, which became the Lifetime movie Lying to Be Perfect. A former newspaper reporter, she is the elected town clerk of Middlesex, Vermont.
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Praise for the Novels of Sarah Strohmeyer
DO I KNOW YOU?
“A fabulous read packed with suspense, unexpected twists, glamour, and humor. Prepare to be gripped from the first to the last page!”
—Liane Moriarty, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Little Lies
“This riveting story of class warfare, ambition, and family loyalty—with the highest of stakes—will have you reading as fast as you can. Do I Know You? is everything a suspense novel should be.”
—Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author of Her Perfect Life
KINDRED SPIRITS
“A compelling story about love, loss, martinis, and the power of friendship.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah
“Kindred Spirits is just what you need to toast to the power of female friendship. . . . Book clubs, rejoice.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult
“Another irresistible tale from Sarah Strohmeyer. Both funny and moving, Kindred Spirits captures the rich complexity of friendship and will ring true with women everywhere.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Giffin
SWEET LOVE
“What’s not to like?”
—People
“[A] tender look at lost loves and whether they were ever really lost.”
—Columbus Dispatch
THE SECRET LIVES OF FORTUNATE WIVES
“[Strohmeyer] uses her observations to sharp comic effect.”
—Boston Globe
“The mordantly observant Strohmeyer skewers the lifestyles of the rich and fatuous with spot-on irony, painting her pretentious socialites with broad, sarcastic strokes in an uproarious, upscale, tongue-in-cheek tour de force.”
—Booklist
Also by Sarah Strohmeyer
ADULT FICTION
The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives
The Cinderella Pact
The Sleeping Beauty Proposal
Sweet Love
The Penny Pinchers Club
Kindred Spirits
NONFICTION
Barbie Unbound
BUBBLES YABLONSKY MYSTERIES
Bubbles Unbound
Bubbles in Trouble
Bubbles Ablaze
Bubbles a Broad
Bubbles Betrothed
Bubbles All the Way
Bubbles Reboots
YOUNG ADULT FICTION
Smart Girls Get What They Want
How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True
The Secrets of Lily Graves
This Is My Brain on Boys
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.
DO I KNOW YOU? Copyright © 2021 by Sarah Strohmeyer. 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 hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Cover design by Caroline Johnson
Cover photograph © Milamai/Getty Images
Digital Edition NOVEMBER 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-309130-6
Version 10052021
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-309129-0 (pbk.)
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Sarah Strohmeyer, Do I Know You?
