The Perfect Stranger (31 page)

Funny, too . . . She’d initially resisted when Steven tried to talk her into terminating.

Years later, when the screaming, bloody human mess she’d delivered into this world left it in the same state, she wished she’d listened to him in the first place.

“Go ahead!” Olivia shrieked. “Do it! I dare you! I dare you!”

Jaycee squeezes her eyes shut for a moment to block out the memory.

Then she assures Cory, “I’m not backing out. Don’t worry.”

“Good. This is all in your best interest. You know that, right?”

“I’m not so sure I agree, but it’s too late to back out now anyway.”

“Call me when you get there so that I can give you a pep talk if you feel—”

“I said I’ll do it.”

“Good,” he says. “Because a big, bold move is your only way out of this. You know that, right?”

Of course she does. She’s known it for a while now. Eighteen months, to be exact. That was when he first approached her with this crazy idea.

Since then, the idea has morphed into an actual plan. Laying the groundwork has been a painstaking two-steps-forward, three-steps-back endeavor. But at last it’s time for full-blown execution.

It’s now or never, as they say.

“I’ve got to go,” she tells Cory. “I’m desperate for coffee.”

She glances again toward the Starbucks and locks eyes with a stranger at the end of the line. He doesn’t look away. Casual interest? Or did he somehow, despite her sunglasses and wig—this time an auburn one—recognize her?

Not taking any chances, she walks away, phone still pressed to her ear as Cory signs off with a benign—considering what she’s facing, “Good luck.”

“Good luck?” she echoes. “Gee, thanks.” She hangs up, shaking her head.

Good luck . . .

Hasn’t luck always been on her side? Ever since she left Minnesota and Johanna Hart behind, anyway. Even after she became Jenna Coeur . . . especially after she became Jenna Coeur.

By a stroke of luck, she became one of the biggest movie stars in the world; by a stroke of luck . . .

You basically got away with murder.

There’s no reason to think her luck is going to change now.

It’s going to be okay
, Jaycee tells herself, turning off her phone and tucking it back into her pocket.
You’ve got this. You can do it. Whatever it takes.

Sheri Lorton is jerked to consciousness by something wet swiping at her face. Startled, she opens her eyes to see that the puppy, Maggie, is licking her cheek.

She starts to laugh and call out to Roger, then remembers, and the laugh ends in a sob.

He’s gone.

She’s alone.

Alone, except for this crazy dog.

“I’m sorry, girl. You need to go out, don’t you? And I slept late.”

Ironic that she went from not sleeping at all last week, in the immediate aftermath of her husband’s death, to feeling as though all she’s wanted to do this week is sleep.

Probably because she forced herself to go back to work on Monday morning. It’s not as though they can’t get along without her at the campus admissions office where she works. They told her to take as much time off as she needed.

But what else was there for her to do? Sit around the house and cry?

It was the right decision. Back on campus, she was busy when she wanted to be, and when emotions overwhelmed her—which they did, frequently—she could cry on the shoulders of colleagues who had known Roger. It got a little easier later in the week, until she went on an errand that took her past the Academic quadrangle where his office was located. She lost it, and vowed to take the long way around from now on. Probably forever.

Every day after work she came home, walked and fed the dog, and then fell into bed and into a deep, dreamless sleep until the alarm went off at six.

Today, of course, it didn’t go off.

Poor Maggie.

Sheri pets the dog, then hurriedly follows her down the stairs and opens the back door to let her out into the sun-dappled yard.

If only Roger had done that on the fateful morning that shouldn’t have been his last. But he didn’t think it was fair for a puppy to be limited to the confines of a small fenced yard.

“She needs the exercise,” he’d told her, “and so do I. You’re always telling me I need to get into shape, build up some muscle . . .”

She didn’t point out that walking wasn’t going to turn her scrawny husband into a he-man anytime soon. Any physical activity at all was probably a good thing, she thought at the time. Even strolling while smoking.

Standing at the sink, filling the glass coffeepot with water, Sheri finds herself thinking, again, of the tortoiseshell guitar pick found among her husband’s belongings.

It’s been in the back of her mind ever since she decided it would probably be a good idea to at least mention it to the police. But the week got away from her; she’s been too caught up in mourning, working, and sleeping to do anything about it.

Today
, she decides, turning off the tap and dumping the water into the coffeemaker.
I’ll do it today.

Thanksgiving Gratitude

Today most of us will gather around tables with loved ones, stuff ourselves with heaps of home-cooked food, and give thanks for our blessings.

Me? I’ll be sitting alone in my kitchen eating a turkey sandwich, most likely, same as I do every year. But don’t feel sorry for me. I have plenty to be grateful for. My health, with continued remission, tops the list. All of you, my good friends, are right up there, too—along with the incredible, unexpected education I’ve gained late in life.

Since my diagnosis, it sometimes seems that I’ve learned everything there is to know about breast cancer—about the disease itself. But there have been other lessons along the way: lessons I learned once I started blogging, precious lessons you have taught me.

I learned how similar we all are, despite having different backgrounds. And how very different we all are, despite sharing similar postdiagnosis experiences.

Thanks to you, I’ve had my eyes opened to the shameful inequity in fund-raising.

I’ve come to know very little progress has been made in finding a cure for metastatic breast cancer, and that early detection is by no means a cure.

I’ve learned that although I live by myself, and spend most of my days and nights in solitude, I’m far from alone. I’ve learned that I can care deeply—and yes, even love—people I’ve never met. With that, I’ve gained not just friendship, but also something I never imagined: the return of a childlike wonder for the world around me, so foreign to my own midwestern city. Beyond my house in Indianapolis are places I now want to explore because someone in our cyber community has brought it to life.

I want to watch a marching band do formations on the football field at a huge southern college and peek inside the graceful old houses of sorority row.

I want to sit on a rocky beach beside a lighthouse and watch the sun rise over the Atlantic ocean, and I want to eat lobster pulled out of the sea just minutes ago.

I want to buy a hot dog from a street cart in New York City and check out the view of Central Park from the top of a skyscraper.

I want to cheer for the home team in the stands at the Great American Ballpark and taste Skyline chili.

I want to fly across the ocean to England and see a real castle and Big Ben and London Bridge.

And so today, and every day, I’m grateful for the blogging friends that have stopped along the way, read my words, shared their own and broadened my small world. Who would have thought writing about cancer could do that?

—Excerpt from Kay’s blog,
I’m A-Okay

Chapter 14

Something’s wrong
, Landry realizes, watching Kay and Elena walking out into the airport terminal, clearly in the midst of a weighty discussion.

Well—a one-sided discussion: Elena, pulling a wheeled carry-on bag, seems to be doing all the talking. And whatever she’s talking about has them both so absorbed that they don’t even remember to look around for her.

“Guys,” she calls, “over here.”

Distracted, they glance over, wave, and head toward her—Elena in such a hurry that she nearly bowls over several leisurely southerners on the way. Landry senses that her rush has nothing to do with being glad to see her again, and everything to do with whatever they were talking about.

“Kay just saw her in the airport,” Elena blurts, then catches herself and leans in for a hug. “Sorry. Hi. Thank you so much for coming to get us, for having us . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be—”

“What is going on?”

Still hugging her, Elena whispers in her ear, “Jenna Coeur. Kay saw her.”

“What?”
Landry’s heart skips a beat. “Where?”

“At the airport.”

She jerks back, looking around.

“Not this airport. In Atlanta.”

Catching up to them, Kay asks, “Did she tell you?”

Landry nods numbly. “You saw her at the airport?”

“I
thought
I saw her. I’m not a hundred percent sure.”

Of course not. Nothing, according to Bruce, is a hundred percent certain. But . . .

“What was she doing? Was she on your flight?”

“No!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. That, I’m sure about. The woman I saw—if it was her—she was still sitting in the gate area when I got on the plane, and I was the last one to board.”

“They closed the door right after Kay,” Elena confirms. “Did she see you see her?” she asks Kay.

“I don’t think so.”

“What made you think it was Jenna Coeur?” Landry asks.

“She looked like the woman in the picture Detective Burns showed me on Saturday.”

“But she didn’t get on this flight,” Landry can’t help saying—again—as her gaze flicks uneasily at the other passengers coming from the gate area.

“No, she didn’t,” Kay assures her. “Don’t worry about that.”

“Every seat was taken,” Elena tells Landry. “I’m thinking she must have been on standby. She’s probably on the next flight from Atlanta.”

“There are a few more, this afternoon and tonight.” Landry knows the schedule. She took one of those flights herself, on Sunday. With Bruce Mangione.

I have to call Bruce.

Right now.

I have to tell him—

“Kay, I think you should let Detective Burns know.” Elena says interrupting Landry’s thoughts. “She gave me her personal cell phone number. I plugged it into my phone.”

“I have it, too,” Kay says, “but I’m not even positive it
was
Jenna Coeur, so—”

“You’re trying to talk yourself out of it.”

“Maybe I am,” Kay tells Elena, “but . . . I mean, I
thought
it was her. It probably wasn’t.”

But if it was . . .

If Jenna Coeur is on her way to Alabama . . .

Then what? Do you honestly believe she’s coming here to kill you all?

The thought is preposterous.

Still . . .

“Detective Burns needs to know anyway,” Landry says. “Do you want
me
to call her?” She, too, has the detective’s personal cell phone number.

“No. I can make the call.”

“Then I’m going to go to the ladies’ room,” Elena announces. “I’ve had to go since we left Atlanta, but they left the seat belt sign on the whole way and the flight attendant wouldn’t let me get up.”

“I thought you just wanted to talk to me,” Kay tells her.

“I did, but I also had to pee. I drank a couple of . . . cups of coffee during the layover. I’ll meet you guys by the baggage claim. Kay checked a bag,” she adds, to Landry.

“Sorry.” Kay shakes her head. “I should have done carry-on like Elena said, but I haven’t flown in a long time and there are so many rules now . . . I was a little intimidated.”

“I just hope your bag made the connection,” Elena tells her, “and I’m really glad Jenna Coeur didn’t.”

Apparently overhearing the familiar name, a nearby middle-aged couple turns their heads as they walk past, shooting Elena a curious look.

At Landry’s belated “Shhh!” Elena whispers, “Sorry. I’m used to speaking loudly and enunciating for my first graders. I’ll be down at baggage in a few minutes.”

She disappears into the ladies’ room, leaving Landry and Kay to regard each other anxiously.

“What do you think is going on?” Kay asks.

“You’re the one who saw her. I don’t know what to think.”

“I thought it was her, in that moment. I really did. But now I keep wondering if I was just imagining things.”

“Deep down . . . do you think that’s all it was? Just your imagination?”

Kay hesitates, then shakes her head, eyes wide. “She’s coming here, isn’t she?”

“I hope not. I really do. Call Detective Burns. I’m going to call my husband.”

“To tell him about this?”

“What? No! I just want to . . . make sure he landed. I’ll meet you over at the baggage claim in a few minutes.”

“Okay. Where is it?”

Landry points in the right direction, then hurries away, already reaching for her own cell phone.

She doesn’t dial until she’s slipped into a distant, shadowy, relatively private corner of the terminal.

He picks up on the first ring.

Not Rob. Rob can’t help her right now; he’s seven hundred miles away.

“Bruce Mangione.”

She takes a deep breath. “I think I’m in trouble. Big trouble. I need your help.”

Use a made-up word you wouldn’t find in the dictionary, not a name or initials . . .

When Beck remembers the advice she gave to her mother—and realizes Mom took it—she wonders how she possibly could have missed the password until now.

Then again, when the worst tragedy imaginable has struck the person you love more than almost anyone—no, more than
anyone
—in the world, is it any wonder that your mind is too grief-clouded for logic?

But now all that matters is that she’s guessed it correctly at last.

It took her a while, even after she figured out that
stinkerdoodle
was the password, because the word was only part of it. She had to remember the rest of the advice she’d given her mother.

Substitute a digit for a letter—a zero for an O—or replace it with a symbol, like the
at
symbol for an A, or a dollar sign for an S . . .

If you use the phone number, put the digits in reverse . . .

Mom had done all of the above. The password is
$tinkerd00dle5697.

Open Sesame . . .

At last granted access to her mother’s e-mail account, she begins scrolling through the mail folders, hoping to find everything intact: old mail, sent mail . . .

“Aunt Beck?”

“Mmm-hmm?” She looks up to see Jordan tearing a page out of his coloring book.

“I made this for you.”

“Oh, Jordan . . .” She swallows hard and gathers him close, examining the picture and complimenting him on the beautiful colors and the way he’d tried to stay inside the lines. “Great job, sweetie.”

“You can hang it on the fridge like Grammy used to.”

“I will.” She stands and crosses over to the refrigerator, looking for a magnet that isn’t already holding up a grandchild’s artwork.

“No, I meant your fridge at your house.”

“Oh. I will. I’ll do that.”
Just as soon as I figure out where my house is going to be.

“Aunt Beck? Can I watch TV now? Please?”

Well aware that his parents limit his screen time, Beck is pretty sure she should say no. Instead she says “Absolutely,” her thoughts consumed by her mother’s e-mail account—and what she might find there.

Standing at the baggage claim with Kay and the other passengers from their flight, Elena looks at her watch. “Why is this taking so long?”

“You’re in the South now. Everything probably takes a little longer,” Kay tells her. “Just be patient.”

“Patience isn’t exactly my thing.”

“Really?” Kay asks dryly, watching Elena pace until at last there’s a buzzing noise and the conveyer jerks into motion.

Bags—none belonging to Kay—begin to topple down the chute.

“I think the connection was too tight,” Elena tells her as one passenger after another grabs luggage and rolls it away. “I bet your bag didn’t make it.”

“Don’t say that! I need it!”

“You should have carried on, like I told—”

“There it is!”

Looking triumphant, Kay hurries forward to grab a small black carry-on that could have easily been stowed above—or even beneath—an airplane seat.

Elena fights the urge to chide her again. The bag made it. That’s all that matters, right?

“Now all we need is Landry,” she mutters. Then, seeing the look on Kay’s face, she adds, “Patience. I know, I know. I need patience.”

That, and a nice big, strong drink to relax my nerves.

She paces again.

At last Landry hurries around the corner, phone in hand. “Oh, good! You got your bag, Kay! Are y’all set to go?”

“More than set,” Elena can’t help saying pointedly.

“Sorry my phone call took so long,” Landry tells her. “He’s at work, so it took a few minutes for them to track him down.”

“I thought he was in North Carolina.”

“No, my husband is in North Carolina.”

“Isn’t that who you went to call?”

“Is that what I said? I meant my son.” Landry gives a flustered little laugh.

“I bet it’s easy to get them mixed up, now that Tucker is growing up,” Kay tells her.

Elena says nothing at all, regarding Landry through narrowed eyes.

What if something strange is going on here?

What if I just walked into some kind of trap?

Landry is the one who, last weekend, had so much to say about the potential for Internet imposters. What if she, herself, is one of them?

Elena studies her now as they walk out to the parking lot. She’s fiddling with her car keys, checking her cell phone every couple of seconds.

“Are you waiting for a call back or something?” she asks.

“What? Oh, no . . . just checking the time.”

Right. She’s wearing a wristwatch.

An expensive one, Elena noticed earlier. She certainly looks like the wife of a fancy lawyer.

But what if she’s not?

“Do you want to try to reach Detective Burns again?” Landry asks Kay.

“We should probably just wait for her to get back to us.”

“I can’t believe it’s taking this long. Are you sure you called the right number? She said she always picks up.”

“I know, but she didn’t. I left a message for her to call as soon as she can. I’m sure she will.”

Landry nods, clearly on edge.

They exit the airport into the glare of heat so humid that Elena feels as though she’s trying to breathe through a sopping towel pressed against her mouth and nose.

“Wow. It’s hot here,” Kay observes, and the needless comment gets on Elena’s nerves. Everything is getting on her nerves right now. Her friends’ languid pace as they cross the blacktop, the trickling tickle of sweat on her hairline, the weight of the bag she’s pulling along, the fact that she’s here at all.

At last they reach a black BMW. Landry aims the key chain to unlock the doors, then opens all four of them and starts the engine with the air-conditioning blasting. She loads their bags into the trunk but tells them not to get into the car yet. “Let’s wait a minute for it to cool off. It’s an oven in there.”

It’s an oven out here, too. They wait in silence.

Then Elena asks, “Do you really think Jenna Coeur is planning to blindside us?”

She wants them both to say it’s ridiculous.

Neither does.

“Why else would she come down here?” Landry is grim.

“If it really was her . . . then maybe it’s a coincidence,” Kay says.

“You believe in coincidences?”

Kay hesitates. “No.”

“Me neither.” Landry bites her lip and shakes her head, looking down at her phone yet again.

“I do,” Elena tells them with a shrug. “I’m not saying this is one of them, but I believe in—”

She breaks off as Landry’s cell phone rings.

“There’s a coincidence now,” Kay says. “You were looking at your phone, and it rang.”

Not really a coincidence,
Elena thinks, since Landry has done nothing but look at her phone, clearly expecting a call.

“I’ve got to take this.” She hurriedly motions them to get into the car. “Go ahead. Get in. It’s cooled off.”

It hasn’t.

But Elena and Kay climb in and Landry closes their doors after them, sealing them into the oven. Still outside, she answers her phone as she closes the driver’s side door.

Elena hears her say, “Addie? Listen, I need you to do something for me . . .”

In the front seat, Elena turns to look at Kay in the back.

“Addie,” Kay observes. “That’s her daughter. Addison.”

Yeah. No kidding.

Biting back the sarcasm, swallowing her craving for a calming drink, Elena says only, “She’s really freaked out that you saw Jenna Coeur in the airport.”

“Maybe I just thought it was her.”

“What, are you thinking you’re delusional or something?”

“No! I just—I didn’t get a close enough look to be sure. Maybe . . .” Kay shrugs and rubs her forehead, as though it’s hurting her. “I don’t know. I could have been wrong.”

“I hope you were.”

A minute later Landry is back, climbing into the driver’s seat with a strained smile. “Ready to go?”

They paste on their own smiles and tell her that they are.