The Perfect Stranger (30 page)

An online search revealed that plenty of people have reported sighting her since her acquittal—mainly in New York City and Los Angeles, as you’d expect. Most seem legitimate. Other sightings, as you’d expect, are clearly bogus.

One nut job believes that she was an alien queen who has since shape-shifted herself into the secretary of state. Another—some loser on a porn message board—claims that Jenna Coeur has resurfaced in a film called
Schlong Island Getaway.

Naturally, Frank volunteered to check out that one, just to be sure.

“It’s not her,” he reported, “but you wouldn’t believe what she does in the final scene. She—”

“I don’t want to hear it, thank you very much. And I can’t believe you watched the whole thing.”

“I fast-forwarded most of it.”

“Terrific, Frank.”

Now, on a sunny Saturday morning, Frank is busy attending his youngest’s kindergarten graduation ceremony, with Crystal’s wholehearted blessing.

And here she sits, sifting and resifting her way through the mountain of information she’s collected about Jenna Coeur and Jaycee the blogger—one and the same person, as far as she’s concerned.

That theory was cemented by the fact that Jaycee is clearly no ordinary blogger. The cyber crimes unit is involved in the investigation now, backtracking through every trace she left online, but so far they’ve turned up no hard evidence. A lot of people are careful, trying to preserve their online anonymity, but she’s taken great pains to cover her tracks on the Internet.

Crystal checked out of the Los Angeles hotel where Jaycee placed last Wednesday’s call to Landry Wells. No one recalls having seen Jenna Coeur there; the room connected to the outgoing call to Landry’s number was occupied by a walk-in guest who registered as Jane Johnson and paid in cash. Naturally, in Hollywood, that kind of thing doesn’t raise an eyebrow. The hotel’s lobby security camera footage shows a slender woman in a large hat and sunglasses who seemed to keep her face deliberately turned away from the cameras. She could very well be Jenna Coeur—or any white-hot starlet seeking to be incognito.

Then there’s Wasabi Express on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The fact that Jaycee rattled off the number, according to Landry Wells, would seem to indicate that it’s one she knows by heart. But no one who works at the restaurant recalls ever having seen, let alone ever even having heard of, Jenna Coeur. Not surprising. It’s a busy counter place; all of their business is either takeout or delivery to various high rises. She could have used any alias and left the money for her order with her doorman; chances are the delivery kid never had any contact with her, not unusual in that well-heeled neighborhood.

There are hundreds, thousands, of residential buildings on the Upper East Side. Canvassing all those doormen is a daunting task that looms high on Crystal’s agenda, along with countless others. It’s conceivable that Jenna Coeur has been living in one of them, safely tucked away in a tower and unnoticed, for years now. After all, she had money. Tens of millions, even after paying for her legal defense team.

And there you have it: the core difference between Jenna Coeur and Diaphanous Jones, now serving life in prison for the murder of her own child.

Money.

It can’t buy everything, but the acquitted actress seems to have proven that it can sure as hell buy freedom—and a safe place to hide, where no one would ever find you.

No one but me.

Staring at the frozen image on her computer screen, showing a beautiful woman with huge, haunted eyes, Crystal shakes her head.

Look out, because I swear to God that I will track you down before you hurt anyone else. This time, you’ll get away with murder over my dead body.

“And what would you like to order, sir?” Beck asks her nephew Jordan, seated at the kitchen table with his legs dangling from the chair.

“I’ll have the bugs with a side order of . . . um . . . more bugs!”

“Yes, sir.” She scribbles on the pad in her hand, the same one her mother used when she pretended to be a waitress. She located it in a kitchen drawer after Jordan asked her if they were going to play restaurant like Grammy always did.

“Of course we are,” she assured him, and found the pad, along with a box of pancake mix and half a bag of mini chocolate chips in the cupboard.

She gladly said yes last night when her brother Teddy called to ask if she’d keep an eye on Jordan for a while this morning. He was driving down to help Dad deal with some insurance paperwork, and wanted to leave his pregnant wife alone at home to get some rest.

Beck had been planning to drive home this morning to deal with her life and was glad for an excuse to put that off until tomorrow. When she called Keith to tell him she wouldn’t be back until Sunday, he, too, seemed relieved. Their daily conversations have been perfunctory, cementing her realization that the marriage has run its course.

“All right, sir,” she looks at her nephew over the pad of paper, pencil poised, “you say you’d like the bugs with a side of bugs. Would you like the bug sauce on that?”

Jordan screams with laughter. “Yes, please!”

Smiling, Beck puts the pad aside and hands over a coloring book and crayons to keep him busy while she cooks.

At the stove, she drops a few pats of butter onto the hot griddle.

Watching it ooze to liquid, she thinks about Keith.

The thought of ending their marriage—and the inevitable mess that will entail—is overwhelming right now.

Maybe they can keep going through the motions for another couple of months—or even just weeks—until she finds the strength to do what has to be done.

She pours pancake batter onto the griddle and carefully dots each pool with chocolate chips to create eyes, a nose, a smiling mouth.

There. Just like Mom used to do.

So many happy memories . . .

So many difficult moments over the past two weeks, and many more ahead.

For all she knows, Keith is going to hit her with separation papers when she walks in the door. Well, at least she won’t be doing that today.

She still hasn’t figured out how she’s supposed to leave her father here alone.

Both her brothers have offered to take turns staying here with him in the weeks ahead. But they both have kids at home, and Neal has to work, and Teddy has to look for work . . .

She also has a job to get back to. She told her boss she’d be back Monday morning. But she could ostensibly commute to Lexington for a while. Or . . . forever.

Sooner or later her father is going to have to learn to live alone.

So, for that matter, is she.

“I’ll be fine. Go home to your husband,” Dad told her last night, picking the carrots out of the stew she’d made him. She’d forgotten that Mom always left them out; Dad can’t stand cooked carrots.

Does Louise know that?

The errant thought popped into Beck’s head out of nowhere. She hated herself for it. All week, she’d been trying to banish the idea that her father might have had an affair, an affair that might have led him to—

It’s preposterous.

But . . .

I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to Mom.
I don’t want her to worry. You know how she is.

At the time, it hadn’t even occurred to Beck that there might have been reasons other than the one he gave.

Even now, knowing that Mom was sick again, that her cancer had spread . . .

It makes even more sense that Dad would be trying to protect Mom from any kind of stress.

And it would be right in character for him to meet with a financial advisor without her knowledge.

Their marriage was always kind of old-fashioned in that way. Dad handled money matters, driving, lawn care, household repairs. Mom covered the cooking and laundry and decorating, the kids and school  . . .

“Aunt Beck?”

“Hmm?” She looks up to see Jordan watching her.

“I miss Grammy.”

Sodden grief crashes in, barely allowing her to push out the words, “Me too.”

“I wish she didn’t get sick and die.”

That’s what Teddy and Sue opted to tell him, wanting to shield their innocent child from the terrible truth.

Keith disapproved of the lie, but who is he to judge? He’s not Jordan’s parent. Not a parent at all.

To think that she had assumed he’d be the father of her children one day . . .

Mom had assumed the same thing, having told her, on Mother’s Day, as Keith gave a long, scientific answer to some question Jordan had asked, “He’s going to be a good daddy someday.”

No, he isn’t
, Beck wanted to say.
All Jordan needed to hear was a simple yes or a no, not this complicated lecture.

Now, as her nephew watches her with big, sad eyes, she blinks back tears, hoping he doesn’t start asking her questions that can’t be answered with a simple yes or no.

“Aunt Beck?”

“Hmm?”

“I think the bugs are burning.”

“What?”

He points at the skillet behind her, and she turns to see it smoking.

With a silent curse, she scrapes the charred pancakes into the garbage and starts over as Jordan goes back to his coloring book.

This time she watches the griddle carefully, keeping thoughts of Keith and her mother and her father—and Louise—from distracting her.

A few minutes later she’s delivering a plate of perfectly cooked smiley-faced pancakes, doused in maple syrup, to the table. “Your bugs, sir, with a side of more bugs and bug sauce on the top.”

“Aunt Beck! That’s not how it goes! You’re s’posed to call it the stinkerdoodle special!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she says with a grin. “Enjoy your . . .”

Stinkerdoodle.

That’s it!

“Aunt Beck! Where are you going?” he protests as she sets the plate in front of him and bolts from the room.

“I’ll be right back, sweetie. I just have to grab my laptop.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re expecting a few bumps on the ascent and there’s some stormy weather along the panhandle, but we’ll do our best to find as smooth a ride as possible. We’re next for takeoff. Flight attendants, please be seated.”

As the plane hurtles down the runway, Kay grips the arms of her seat and squeezes her eyes closed.

She should have driven. Highway driving—once she got used to it again during all those hours on the road last weekend—had turned out to be soothing.

Flying is the opposite.

Her heart is pounding; her head is pounding, too. Her entire body aches, further evidence that stress—sheer terror—can take a drastic physical toll on a person.

The plane lifts into the air, and she holds her breath.

A bell dings in the cabin.

Kay’s eyes fly open.

Does it mean they’re going down?

No one else seems to be agitated—except Elena, who is jumping to her feet a few rows ahead. The man in the outer seat doesn’t look pleased as he rises to let her out into the aisle, but Elena doesn’t seem to care. She hurries back toward Key, gesturing for her, too, to stand up.

Kay glances up at the
FASTEN SEAT BELT
sign, still lit on the panel above the seats.

“It’s okay,” Elena tells her.

The woman seated to Kay’s left, blocking her access to the aisle, stays put, shaking her head in disapproval.

“She has to go to the bathroom,” Elena tells the woman.

“How would you know?”

Elena rolls her eyes impatiently. “Would you mind letting her up, please?”

“It’s okay,” Kay tries to tell her. “I don’t need to—”

“Yes, you do. Come on, Kay.”

A flight attendant steps out of the galley behind them just as Kay’s seatmate stands to let her out. “Ladies,” he says, “the seat belt light is still on. It’s not safe for you to move around the cabin right now. Please be seated.”

Kay expects Elena to argue, but to her credit, she doesn’t.

“I’m sorry,” Kay tells the woman beside her as they settle back into their seats.

No reply.

Jaw set, Kay leans back stiffly to endure the flight, hands clenched in her lap in an effort to stop the trembling.

The woman in the window seat to her right—young, wearing an engagement ring and reading a bridal magazine, a whole rosy future ahead of her—glances at her. “Nervous flier?” she asks sympathetically.

Kay nods. “Afraid so.”

“Me too.”

“You don’t seem nervous.”

“I took a Xanax. You want one?”

“Oh . . . no, thanks.”

“I’m going to visit my fiancé. He’s in the Coast Guard down there, and as much as I hate flying, I’d do anything for him. How about you?”

“I’m going to spend the weekend with friends, and actually . . . I’d do anything for them, too.”

They smile at each other. Then the bride-to-be goes back to her magazine, and Kay breathes a little easier. Just a little.

Cory picks up on the first ring. “Where are you?”

“Where do you think?”

“Airport, I hope.”

“Yes. Where else would I be?” Jaycee keeps her voice low and her back turned to the other passengers milling around near the Starbucks. As soon as she finishes this call, she’s going to get a strong cup of coffee. Between her sleepless night, the flight, and what lies ahead, she’s going to need it.

“Just making sure you made it. I was afraid you were going to back out.”

So was I
, she thinks, but she doesn’t tell Cory that. No reason to get him all worried for nothing. She’s going ahead with it, like she promised. She’s been resigned to doing what she has to do—well, to what Cory’s been telling her she has to do—for a while now.

Funny—the lyrics to the old “Going on a Lion Hunt” role play game she learned years ago in Girl Scouts are going through her head again lately.

Can’t go over it . . . can’t go under it . . . can’t go around it . . . gotta go through it.

The same refrain was endlessly on her mind when she was pregnant twenty-odd years ago, knowing there was no escaping the looming horror of childbirth, the trauma of adoption.

Gotta go through it.

She was going to have to deliver that baby, and she was going to have to give it up.