Her Every Fear Read online

  Kate pressed her ear to the door to see if she could hear anything from the hallway. There were noises—the squawk of radios and the muddy tones of indiscernible voices. She looked through the peephole and saw the same detective knocking on the door of the third apartment on her hall. The door swung open, and the detective held up her badge to its resident; Kate couldn’t see into the apartment. While the other neighbor was being questioned, two more plainclothes officers entered the hall from the stairwell, both heavyset men in dark suits. One was clean-shaven and the other sported a gray goatee.

  A ripple of panic swept over Kate, not so much because of the murdered neighbor, but because her exit was blocked by all those police officers. Something about walking down a hallway filled with police and crime scene investigators seemed impossible. Kate backed her way into the apartment, breathing through her nostrils and blowing out through her mouth. She calmed herself and picked over the brief conversation with the detective. Was it standard practice after a murder to search the nearby residences? Kate didn’t think so. There must be a reason. She went to the computer and searched for Audrey Marshall. It was a common name, bringing up many genealogy sites and several Facebook profiles. She added Boston to the search and found a blocked LinkedIn profile but with an image attached. She clicked on it. It wasn’t a large image, and it was in black and white, but showed a woman with intensely large eyes and a boy’s short haircut, almost like Jean Seberg’s hair in that movie Breathless. She worked for a publishing house in Boston, and all her previous employment had been in New York City. Kate knew she’d found the right Audrey Marshall. She stared into the pixelated eyes on the computer screen and they stared back at her. I’m dead now, those eyes said, but this is what I looked like when I was alive. Audrey Marshall had been pretty, and Kate wondered if Corbin Dell and she had been involved in any way. They must have known each other, or seen each other frequently when they were coming and going.

  Kate stood, knowing what she needed to do. Well, knowing what she wanted to do. She’d search the apartment herself. If the police were going to look around, maybe she’d look around first, and be able to find what they were looking for. It would give her something to do, a purpose. She started her search in the bedroom, going through every drawer, looking for hiding places, lifting the mattress. She was struck, as she had been when she first looked around the place, by the lack of personal items. She did find an old battered bureau in the corner of the walk-in closet that was filled with photographs, most still in their envelopes from the developing place. She quickly flipped through several of them; they were obviously photographs that had belonged to Corbin’s father. Old family vacations. Christmas Day celebrations. A whole roll dedicated to what looked like a vintage Porsche speedster. Where were Corbin’s photographs? On his computer, and his phone, of course, like Kate’s own pictures.

  She searched the bathroom, then the main living area, and then the kitchen. It was in the kitchen that she found something that might be relevant. In one of the drawers, behind the cutlery tray, there were several loose keys. Some were unmarked, but a few were affixed with a white circular tag, block letters saying what they were for. One said storage, and one said n.e. house, and one had the initials am. Did Corbin have a key to Audrey Marshall’s apartment? If so, why? It could mean so many things. Maybe they had been in a romantic relationship, close enough that they’d exchanged keys. Or it could simply be a key he kept so that he could water her plants when she was away.

  She continued to search the rest of the apartment. She found more remnants from Corbin’s father’s life than she found from Corbin’s. In the den, in a closet, she found a cardboard box of videotapes with labels like clarissa’s wedding and chatham rental, august ’95. There was an old leather football in the box as well. Kate ran her finger over its dusty surface. This box with the videotapes and football was sitting on a larger plastic container that looked like a recent addition to the closet. Kate moved the box of videotapes and pulled out the container. Inside was a stack of college textbooks, economics related. There were two framed degrees, one for an M.B.A. from Andrus College in New York City and one for a B.A. from Mather College in Connecticut. Both were made out to Corbin Harriman Dell. She pulled the whole container out into the better light of the den. Was it odd that Corbin would bury his own things underneath the boxes that had belonged to his father? She went through the container’s contents. In the midst of the textbooks, there were a bundle of papers, a few photographs, and a small notebook all tied up with a piece of kitchen twine. She ruffled the edges of the papers and the photographs to see what they were. Several seemed to be grade sheets from college or business school, but she was able to dislodge one of the photographs, a glossy image of a dark-haired woman, about college age, sitting on a cold, windy-looking beach. She was in jeans and an oversized turtleneck sweater. She was looking away from the camera, her mouth open as though she was speaking. She flipped the photograph over and read the writing on the back: rachael at annisquam beach. There was no date. Kate thought: Where is Rachael now? And her mind imagined tragedies and murdered girls. She shivered, tapped her fingertips together. Just because I think something doesn’t make it true, she told herself. Another one of her internal mantras.

  Kate was about to slide the photograph back into its bundle, then decided, on impulse, to also look at the notebook. She unpicked the knotted string and pulled the notebook out. It was leather bound, embossed with the seal from Andrus College. She flipped it open, feeling guilty, but it was just a regular engagement diary, segmented into days. It was from six years ago, and was filled with a spiky, minuscule handwriting. She read a few entries—mostly class times and due dates, but sprinkled throughout were social engagements, such as “drinks with H,” or “dinner party at the Esterhouses.” She closed the diary, rebundled it, and returned it to its container.

  She was walking back across the apartment, wondering whether she should write Corbin back in London, when there was another knock on the door. It was Detective Roberta James again, this time accompanied by two uniformed officers.

  “We’d like to look around your place, if you’d give us permission to do so.” The detective’s jaw seemed tight, her voice controlled.

  “Sure, I guess,” Kate said. She wondered if she was making a mistake letting them just march into Corbin’s apartment. Should she have asked for a warrant?

  “It won’t take long,” the detective said, as the two officers, each wearing light blue latex gloves, made their way into the apartment. Kate watched them turn left toward the bedroom. As was always the case with American police, she found herself fixated on the guns on their belts. She wondered what would happen if she reached out and touched one of them. Would she be thrown to the ground and handcuffed immediately? “I have a couple more questions,” Detective James continued. “We could sit.”

  Kate led the detective to the two couches that faced one another and they both sat. “This is a beautiful apartment,” Detective James said.

  “I know, isn’t it? My place in London isn’t like this at all. Just an ordinary flat.”

  “So, in your conversations leading up to this apartment swap, did you two talk about neighbors at all? Did Corbin ever mention Audrey Marshall?”

  “No, nothing. He didn’t talk about anyone. Can I ask you what you’re hoping to find by looking in here?”

  The detective pressed her lips together, then said: “I’m not hoping to find anything, but we need to look. We have no reason to suspect that Corbin was involved in anything, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “No, no, I know.”

  “What can you tell me about your cousin’s flight from here to London?”

  “All I know is that he took a night flight that got into London on Friday morning, so he would have left on Thursday night.”

  Detective James wrote in her notebook, while one of the police officers came through the living room heading to the other side of the apartment. They seemed to be searc
hing quickly.

  “And you didn’t meet up with him in London before you left to come here?”

  “No. Like I said, I’ve never actually met him.”

  “Okay.” The detective slid her notebook back into the inside pocket of her jacket. She pressed the palms of her hands against her knees and stood. “I’m going to see how the search is going. Should be almost done. Have you found any locked doors here, or were there any rooms or closets that you were told were off-limits?”

  “No.”

  Kate stayed seated as Detective James slowly walked toward the west side of the apartment, pausing to look out a window. It had stopped raining, and the clouds were breaking up. The detective moved a curtain with a finger, stared outside, then moved on. She was tall, with perfect posture, and Kate automatically hitched back her own shoulders. One of the police officers with the latex gloves came back into the living room. The detective looked questioningly at him, and he said, “Nothing.” It sounded as though he had a cold. The other policeman emerged from the kitchen. Kate hadn’t heard the sound of drawers being opened. Should she mention the key she’d seen with the initials on it? Was that the type of thing they were looking for?

  Before she could decide, all three were headed toward the exit, the detective thanking Kate and asking her to call if anything came up. Kate stood, but they were through the door before she could even respond. She was alone again in the apartment.

  Chapter 5

  Kate made bread and cheese again for dinner, and opened a bottle of wine. She ate in the den, flipping through cable channels, then settling on an American reality show about crab fishermen in Alaska. When that was through, she found a channel that was showing a thriller called Midnight Lace, with Doris Day and Rex Harrison. She started watching; it wasn’t very good, but it had just enough of a plot to distract her from thinking exclusively about what was happening down the hallway.

  Halfway through the film, Kate discovered a lever on the leather sofa that caused the end seat to recline separately from the rest of the sofa. She maneuvered it all the way back so that she was practically prone and continued to watch the film. She was suddenly exhausted, her limbs like dead appendages. And then, almost instantly, the film was different, something in black and white, although it also starred Rex Harrison. He was bearded and in a black turtleneck. The movie was familiar, and Kate thought she’d seen it before. She’d fallen asleep—she must have—without even knowing it. She felt disoriented and alarmed. The clock on the cable box said it was 5:45 in the morning. Kate’s mouth was gluey, and she had a sliver of a headache from the wine she’d drunk. She felt that the past day had been many days, punctuated by naps as deep and troubling as full nights of sleep. It was only Sunday, but it felt like she’d been in Boston for a week.

  She flipped the television off, returned the reclining sofa to its normal position, and stood. Her nose was running and she slid a hand in her dress pocket to look for tissues. She didn’t find any, but her fingers touched a single key. She pulled it out of her pocket. It was the key she’d seen earlier, in the cutlery drawer, the one with am written on its label in block letters. Kate didn’t remember putting it in her pocket. When had she done it? Earlier, when she first looked in the drawer, or since then? She rapidly shook her head, trying to wake herself, trying to force herself to remember.

  She walked to the kitchen, the air around her seeming to part at a slower rate than it normally did. God, she was knackered. It had been years since she’d traveled to a different time zone and experienced jet lag. She placed the key on the counter and began to make coffee. When it started to brew, she picked up the key again, and knew, suddenly, that she needed to find out if this key opened Audrey Marshall’s apartment. I’ll just turn it, and find out, and then I can let the police know, she told herself. It probably wasn’t the right key. AM could mean many things.

  Not even putting shoes on, Kate left her apartment and went to Audrey Marshall’s door. Crime scene tape had been plastered in an X pattern from side to side. She slid the key into the lock, turned it, and pushed. The room yawned open before her. Knowing she shouldn’t do it, but knowing that she had to, Kate ducked under the tape and entered the apartment. The tiredness and the fear made her feel as though she was watching herself, observing, not doing. She shut the door behind her, using her elbow, then stood still, her arms down by her sides, allowing her eyes to adjust. She was looking from a short foyer into a living room, much smaller than the living room in her end apartment, but just as elegant. Kate scanned the floor for any sign of where the body of Audrey Marshall had been found, but saw nothing. Was she in the right place? She took three careful steps into the interior of the apartment. There was an almost chemical smell in the air. It was dark, but the curtains were open, and the faint glow from the dawn sky allowed her to see the outlines of furniture, a coffee table cluttered with books and wine bottles.

  There hasn’t been a murder here, she thought. Where’s the blood, the overturned chair, the smell of death? Was she dreaming now, or had she been dreaming before?

  Even with these thoughts, she was strangely calm. One of the paradoxes of her anxious life was that in the midst of doing something slightly reckless, Kate often felt the most normal. It was as though her anxiety, always with her, was given a reason for existing. Standing in a murdered woman’s apartment the morning after the body had been found, she thought the quickness of her heart and the coldness of her limbs made sense. She was about to turn back, but instead took a few more steps forward so that she could get a better look out of the large picture window. The window faced the courtyard, and Kate could make out pale orange light over the flat roof of the opposite wing. The windows on the other wing of the building were all dark, but Kate sensed motion in the window directly across from where she was looking. She instinctively took a step backward into the deeper shadows of the apartment.

  She watched as a light came on and a figure passed in front of the window, then stopped and looked across. There was just enough light for Kate to know for sure that the figure was Alan Cherney, the man she’d met in the courtyard. The hair was right, and the angularity of the features, the slope of the shoulders. Kate stopped breathing, worried that any movement would mean that he could see her. They stood like that for a long, terrible moment, Kate unable to move. He kept staring across the way. At one point, he raised a hand and rubbed at one of his eyes. Then the dawn light that had been building in the western sky edged over the roof, and Kate suddenly realized that Alan might be able to see her. She moved backward, tracing her steps, like someone trying not to make tracks in the snow.

  He kept watching, and Kate pressed her back to the door, frightened of being seen and frightened to take her eyes off him.

  Chapter 6

  Alan stared through his window into Audrey Marshall’s dark apartment. For one moment, he could have sworn there was someone there, staring back at him. He’d barely slept in twenty-four hours, though, and the gray shadows across the way blurred and shimmered in his vision. Still, he watched—legs trembling with exhaustion, queasy with hunger—like a cat that watches the crack between the molding and the floor for the mouse that appeared there once upon a time.

  Police cars had clogged the street all afternoon. An ambulance had arrived, and uniformed officers were in and out of the building.

  Why was he still watching Audrey’s apartment? Out of habit, he supposed. He’d known her intimately, having watched her in the privacy of her home for so long. He knew how she walked across a room, what she wore to bed, how long she brushed her teeth. Everything—almost everything—he’d known about Audrey he learned by watching out his window.

  It had begun over a year ago, a few months after Alan and Quinn had moved in together. It had been a Saturday in December, a typical Saturday with Quinn. They’d had brunch with friends, then been shopping, then gone to the gym, then bought a Christmas tree that was almost too big to get up into the apartment and that had shed pine needles along the s
tairs and down the hall. The plan that night had been to stay in, decorate the tree (their first as a couple), drink eggnog, and watch a movie. But Quinn’s best friend Viv had texted that everyone was going over to some new hotel bar that had just opened.

  “Let’s go,” Quinn said, finishing off the eggnog that she’d been sipping at for over half an hour.

  “Really?”

  “It’ll be fun. The bartender there is the same guy who used to bartend over at Beehive. You remember that drink he used to make, with the sherry in it, that you used to go on about . . .”

  “The Aston Martin.”

  “That’s right. The Aston Martin. Let’s go drink one.”

  Alan was all set to agree, drank down his own eggnog, then surprised himself by saying, “Maybe I’ll just stay here tonight.”

  “Seriously?” Quinn said. She was standing now, stripping off the Lululemon yoga pants she’d been wearing since they returned home.

  “I’m tired,” Alan said. It was a lie. He wanted to stay home in order to spend some time alone. His head was pleasantly fuzzy from the brandy in the eggnog, and the idea of a Saturday night alone suddenly felt heavenly. He could keep drinking, find a horror film to watch, something gory that Quinn would never agree to.

  “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Quinn said.

  “You go. I don’t have a problem with it. It’s a relationship milestone. You going out and me staying in, and neither of us minding.”

  “Oh, you’re just assuming I don’t mind,” she said, but she was smiling. In the end, after changing, and having another drink, and putting on makeup, Quinn went out.

  Alan had been alone in the apartment before, of course, but it felt different on a Saturday night with Quinn off with friends. Before looking for a film to watch, he put Chet Baker Sings on the old record player he had been dragging from apartment to apartment his whole life, made himself another drink, then wandered from lamp to lamp, adjusting the lighting to the way he liked it. It had just begun to snow earlier that evening, when he and Quinn had returned with the tree, so Alan went to the large picture window in the living room, parted the curtains, and looked out to see what the weather was doing. It had stopped coming down, but everything was covered with a thin scrim of pure white snow. He studied the footsteps in the courtyard, trying to identify Quinn’s, but there were too many.