Her Every Fear Page 19

  There was a knock on the door, and the detective jumped up to answer it. An Asian woman wearing a black leather jacket over a white top entered. She didn’t look a whole lot older than Kate. The detective introduced her to Kate as Abigail Tan, then asked, “Kate, can you come with us to the storage unit, show us what you found?”

  Chapter 22

  When Alan woke to find Kate gone he knew that something was wrong. She’d obviously had a change of heart, otherwise she’d have at least said goodbye. Alan went to his phone to text her before realizing that he didn’t have her number. He got out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, then walked through the quiet apartment building to her side and knocked on her door. She was there, he knew it, on the other side. He couldn’t hear her, but he sensed her. The dark peephole stared at him, and he was suddenly angry at himself for chasing her down. He returned to his apartment, shucked off his shoes, and tried to decide what to do next. He was up hours earlier than he usually was, but he was far too wired to consider going back to bed. His stomach had a queasy hollowness, and there was a dull thudding somewhere in his head. He drank two glasses of water and swallowed some aspirin.

  If he was slightly hungover, Kate was probably hungover as well, maybe worse than he was. Maybe she’d woken up, felt sick, and returned to her own place. Or maybe she’d woken up and felt ashamed of what they’d done. She’d told him that she had baggage, and that she hadn’t been with anyone for a long time. He’d been sensitive to that fact, going slow, even though he’d been overcome with not just intense physical longing, but something emotional as well. Afterward, with their chests pressed together, their breathing synced, he felt healed of an injury he hadn’t known he had.

  And now she’d run away.

  For something to do, he made a pot of coffee, then nuked some instant oatmeal even though he wasn’t hungry. He went to his computer, opened his work e-mail account, and sent a message to his boss that he’d woken up with some sort of stomach ailment and planned on staying home. He drank a cup of coffee, sitting by the window, with its view of the courtyard. It was strange to sit there and not be fixated by Audrey Marshall’s window. She’d been dead less than a week, and her importance in Alan’s life was already diminishing.

  The day was bright but windy. A plastic bag spun in circles around the apartment building’s courtyard. At just after seven the lobby’s doors swung open and a man in a business suit emerged, a newspaper tucked under one of his arms. Alan recognized him but couldn’t remember his name. A financial analyst, he thought, who lived on the first floor with a wife who never appeared. The plastic bag snagged on the man’s right shoe as he traversed the courtyard. He bent and pulled it off, holding it at a distance as though it were toxic. He hesitated in that pose for a moment, and Alan knew he was weighing his options. Should I drop it back into the courtyard for someone else to deal with, or should I throw it out myself? He dropped it, wiped his fingers on his suit pants, and continued on his way.

  Alan kept watching. If Kate emerged from the apartment that day—and it was definitely an if, not a when—then Alan could race down and confront her. She’d have to talk with him. She’d have to tell him what had happened to make her run from his apartment. He knew how it would look, him tracking her down, but he didn’t care. Besides, it would be better than returning to knock at her apartment and knowing that she was on the other side, not answering the door. Was it just shame on her part? Or had he done something wrong? He scoured his memories from the night before, looking for clues, but finding nothing.

  He only left the window once during the morning, to quickly race to the bathroom, wash up a little, brush his teeth, and pull on clean clothes. On his way back he stopped in the kitchen, peered at the uneaten oatmeal congealing in a bowl, then rolled a piece of turkey up with a piece of Swiss cheese and brought it back to his post by the window. He watched the mailman arrive, trudging across the courtyard while pulling out a large parcel of mail from his saddlebag. Several other inhabitants from the building passed by, all on their way out into the brightness of Tuesday morning. He watched as Mrs. Anderby stepped into the courtyard with her pug, letting him off his leash to go sniff around the shrubbery for a place to urinate. There was a large burst of wind, and Mrs. Anderby stutter-stepped a little, so she wouldn’t fall over.

  At around eleven, Alan watched as two gray sedans pulled up on Bury Street, parking side by side at an angle, both cars jutting into the street. He knew it was police, even before he watched a tall woman in a dark suit emerge from one of the vehicles and two uniformed cops from the other. The three conferred briefly, then crossed the courtyard and entered the lobby. Alan recognized the female detective from before. He assumed that they were returning to Audrey Marshall’s apartment for whatever reason. His eyes went to her windows, the interiors dark. Even so, he caught a flutter of movement, as though someone had just let go of the curtain in the bedroom window. He sat up straighter and stared hard at where he thought he’d seen the curtain move. He could make out a reflection of the enormous rustling maple that loomed behind the apartment building. Was that what he had seen? The movement of a reflected tree?

  He shifted his eyes back to the living room window that was directly across from him, the curtains partway pulled. He waited for the police to enter. If there was already someone in there, then they’d find him or her. Most likely, if there was someone in there, then it was probably another police officer. Alan told himself to be rational, even though he wasn’t feeling particularly rational.

  After a few minutes, it became clear that the police had not arrived to re-search Audrey’s apartment. So where were they? Were they back at Kate’s place, maybe searching it again?

  Alan was so fixated on Audrey’s windows that he almost missed the man coming out from the lobby and walking briskly across the courtyard. Alan didn’t recognize him as someone who lived in the building. His hair was red, and he was wiry and small. He fit the description of Jack something-or-other that Kate had given him. The man who claimed he’d been Audrey’s ex-boyfriend. Had he been the one in the apartment? Still, he’d been moving too fast for Alan to catch up with him, even if he’d wanted to. He turned his attention back to Audrey’s windows. Still no activity. Alan looked out toward the street, where the police vehicles had left just barely enough space for a passing car. Near the vehicles was the man he’d just seen coming out of the apartment building. He was standing on the sidewalk and staring up at the building, staring up at exactly where one of Kate’s windows would be.

  Alan pulled his shoes on, grabbed his keys and his leather messenger bag, and went out the door. Even though he hadn’t decided yet exactly what he planned on saying to this guy, it felt better than just sitting by a window waiting for something to happen. He bolted down the steps but walked casually through the lobby and courtyard, not wanting to look insane. On Bury Street he turned right, but Jack had disappeared. He looked toward Charles Street and spotted him loping along the sidewalk. Alan followed.

  Jack—if it was Jack—turned left onto Brimmer Street instead of continuing all the way down to Charles. Alan sped up a little so as not to lose him, but when he turned left on Brimmer there was no sign of anybody. Alan continued to walk, looking left and right in case he’d ducked between one of the buildings, but Brimmer was almost entirely lined by redbrick apartment buildings. There was nowhere to hide.

  “Are you looking for me?”

  Alan turned at the sound of the voice. Jack was behind him, and Alan scanned the street to see where he might have been hiding. There was one large tree—a ginkgo—and maybe Jack had been behind it.

  “I am,” Alan said, and was embarrassed to hear that his voice quavered a little. “Can I ask your name?”

  “You can ask me, but I don’t know if I’ll tell you.” He smiled, showing off prominent canines. His short messy hair moved in the wind.

  “It’s Jack, right?” Alan asked. “You were Audrey Marshall’s friend.”

  “How
did you know that?” Jack asked, still smiling, but now with a perplexed look in his eyes.

  “I guessed. I saw you leaving the apartment building. I live there, too, and I’d heard about you. You’ve come to the building before, right?”

  He hesitated a fraction. “Yeah. A couple times.”

  “Right. I’m Alan.”

  Jack held out his hand, and Alan took it.

  “Did you know Audrey, then? I don’t remember her mentioning you.”

  “I didn’t, no. I know Corbin a little bit, and I’m friends with Kate, Corbin’s cousin, who’s now living in his place. She told me she’d met you. How long did you know Audrey?”

  “Since college, but we fell out of touch. We reconnected when she moved here. When she moved to Boston.” Jack blinked several times, as though the wind had blown something into one of his eyes.

  A car pulled around the corner, moving slowly, as though the driver were looking for a specific address. Jack watched the car as it departed down the street, then turned his dark, questioning eyes back to Alan. “So are you going to tell me what you want? You did follow me from the building, didn’t you?”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “Doing where? At Audrey’s apartment? That’s not really any of your business.”

  “So you were in Audrey’s apartment?”

  “Again, that’s not really your business.” Jack’s words were aggressive, but his manner really wasn’t. He still had that frozen, wolflike grin on his face. Alan felt himself struggling to remember his reasons for following Jack.

  “Fine,” Alan said eventually. “Then you won’t mind if I report that I saw you to the police.”

  “Please, go right ahead. I’ll tell them myself, if you want. I have nothing to hide.”

  Alan, his embarrassment growing, said, “Look, I’m not accusing you of anything. But there’s been a murder in my building, and then I saw you lurking around . . .”

  “No, I understand. Sorry to give you a hard time. Feel free to tell the police you saw me there. I was just going, because . . .” He trailed off, and Alan watched as his eyes turned glassy and wet.

  “Sorry, man,” Alan said.

  Jack turned his head away, into the wind, and rubbed at one eye with a knuckle. They stood quietly for a moment, Alan trying to conjure up something to say that would end the conversation.

  Jack finally said, “Have you heard anything from the police? Are they bringing Corbin back from England?”

  “No, I haven’t heard anything. You think Corbin had something to do with this?”

  The puzzled expression returned to Jack’s face, as though Alan had just asked a simplistic, obvious question. “Yeah, he did it. Audrey told me all about their relationship, how he wouldn’t let them go out in public, how he was always lying.”

  “You told the police this?”

  “Yeah, I told the police this, and I told that girl living in his apartment now. She better get out of there before he comes back, because when he does . . .”

  “You think he’ll come back.”

  “I guess not,” Jack said. “I mean, yes, he’ll be back because the police will bring him back, but I doubt he’ll come back on his own. I wouldn’t. If he does, I’ll be waiting for him. I don’t really care who knows, but if he comes back I’m going to kill him myself. I’m not even joking.”

  The odd, humorless grin was back, and Alan thought that Jack looked more like a young suburban dad telling a mildly dirty joke at a cookout than someone in a murderous rage.

  Chapter 23

  It was late afternoon by the time Kate was alone again in the apartment. After she’d shown Detective James and the FBI agent the storage unit, and the slashed poster she’d found, they’d sent her back up to the apartment. She’d waited in the living room, looking at her laptop while the two officers upstairs had thoroughly searched each and every room.

  “Is it okay if I continue to stay here?” Kate had asked Detective James before she left.

  The detective looked Kate directly in the eyes and said, “Like I said before, Corbin Dell is a serious person of interest. According to Audrey’s diary they had a relationship that didn’t end particularly well. When we spoke with Corbin he told us that he barely knew her. Obviously, that’s rung some bells around here, and since we don’t have another suspect, he moved up on the list. That said, Kate, there is nothing else—no real evidence—to link your cousin to what happened next door. If Corbin were on his way back here, and he’s not, then I would be the first to let you know. He can’t use his passport without us knowing it. So I would say it’s okay for you to stay here, as long as you don’t mind staying in the apartment of a murder suspect.” Detective James smiled, just enough to show a small portion of her very white teeth.

  “Why do you think he’s claiming he didn’t know Audrey?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. It makes him look guilty, so, if he is guilty, why would he lie? He’d just be caught out.”

  “Welcome to my world,” the detective said, then added, “Look. I won’t leave you in the dark. If anything happens with Corbin you’ll be the first to know, or one of the first, I promise.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you have a phone number for the woman who lives in your apartment building, Martha . . .”

  “Martha Lambert, yes.”

  Kate got her cell phone and gave the detective Martha’s number.

  After the detective left, Kate wandered the apartment, looking to see what had been disturbed. But everything, except for maybe the looted den closet, looked the same. She stared through the window out onto Bury Street and caught the detective’s car pulling away toward the river. The day was darker, and the wind had picked up, buffeting and rattling the window. Kate stood frozen for what seemed like several minutes, unable to decide what to do next. The longer she stood, the more anxious she felt. She knew that she needed to do something, but still didn’t move. She could make herself lunch, or do the assignment she’d gotten from her class, or go sketch for a while. Maybe do a portrait of the detective—what was her full name, Roberta James?—while her face was fresh in her mind. And what about Alan? What was she going to do when he came back from work and tried to see her again? He would, wouldn’t he? She couldn’t just hide from him in her apartment. She couldn’t hide forever, could she?

  Finally, she willed her feet to move and went and got her laptop. Maybe Martha would be online, and she could ask her again if Corbin had made an appearance at her flat.

  She took her computer to the bedroom. She was cold, and got under a blanket on the bed.

  She opened her e-mail account, looked for Martha’s name on her list of contacts, but she wasn’t online. Instead, Kate sent her a short e-mail: Any sign of Corbin, or has he totally disappeared? She looked through some of her other e-mails, mostly junk, and considered sending another one to Corbin, when she noticed that his name, down the left bar, had a green dot next to it. That meant he used the same e-mail service as she did, and was currently online. She opened a chat box to him, wrote: Hello there.

  And waited. Minutes passed.

  She opened another browser page and googled woman cut down middle. Most of what came up had to do with middle-aged women’s haircuts, for some reason. She tried woman cut in half, and there were links to several videos—none that Kate watched—of train and elevator accidents. There were a few links to stories about magicians. Kate tried postmortem mutilation and looked through news stories. There were too many, but she kept scrolling, eventually finding a newspaper article from three years earlier titled “Mutilated Body Identified as Rachael Chess, Nursing Student from Portland, Maine.” Kate clicked on it. It was a local story, from a Gloucester newspaper. The body had been found on a New Essex beach by an early-morning shell collector. Police had not released all details, except to say that they had found postmortem wounds. Kate’s mind immediately flashed to the picture she’
d found in Corbin’s box when she’d first searched the apartment. A brunette woman on a beach. Her name, written on the back of the photograph, had been Rachael.

  Kate wrestled the blanket off her and got off the bed. She ran across the apartment to the closet in the den, pulling open the door. The boxes were gone, including the one with the photograph. She’d suspected this, having seen a bunch of boxes being toted off as evidence. If the woman in Corbin’s photograph was really the murdered Rachael Chess, then the police would figure that out, as well. She walked back through the living room, then remembered the other photographs she’d found, the ones in the copy of Ender’s Game. She found the book again, took the photos from it, and fanned them out in her hand, the pretty woman with the freckles staring into the camera as it got closer. She carried the photographs back past the kitchen, and heard a scratching sound that made her stop. She went to the kitchen door that led to the basement and listened. Another scratching sound, plus an audible meow. She opened the door about two inches, and Sanders squeezed through, making a beeline to toward the living room. Kate shut the door and locked it. She was happy that Sanders didn’t still have that dying mouse in his jaws.

  Back in the bedroom, she read more about the case of Rachael Chess. No one had ever been arrested, even though it had been discovered that she was having an affair with one of her married instructors at nursing college. But that instructor, Gregory Chapel, had a solid alibi for the night that Rachael had been murdered. There was no mention anywhere of a Corbin Dell. There was also a notable lack of good pictures of the murder victim. Most of the news stories used the same one, a highly pixelated black-and-white picture of a girl in a graduation gown and mortarboard, smiling widely into the camera. It was probably the picture that Rachael’s parents had provided. Kate studied it, comparing it to the pictures from the book. She didn’t think it was the same girl. Same dark hair, but the faces were different. She tried to remember the picture of the girl on the beach. All she could remember was wind-blown dark hair, jeans, and a sweater. The beach had been named on the back of the picture, as well, Kate thought, but she couldn’t remember it. But that picture must have been of Rachael Chess. It was the same unusual spelling of her first name. And the beach, a cold New England beach, connected them as well. Didn’t it?