The Prettiest One: A Thriller (42 page)

He traced the outlines of her Wild Thing with one finger. Caitlin didn’t truly think he was trying to start something intimate with her—after all that she had been through the last few days, on the night before she’d be confessing to killing someone—but still, it felt wrong. She pulled away.

“Josh, I’m not . . . I mean, I hope you don’t think I could—”

He took a step back, looking both surprised and hurt. “Oh my God, Caitlin. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to . . . I would never . . .” He shook his head. “After everything you’ve been through lately . . . you think I’m a monster?” He looked wounded, then shook it off and smiled.

The temperature in the room dropped forty degrees. Caitlin couldn’t speak. She took a step away from her husband, then another.

Dark, wide-set eyes in a fish-pale face. Long fingers reaching for her.
You think I’m a monster?

A wineglass in shards on the floor, dark red wine pooled around it like blood. Caitlin rushing past Josh, his hands reaching toward her.
You think I’m a monster?

White fingers digging into her arms, pulling her down
. . .

Josh’s hands holding her upper arms, trying to pull her down, to make her sit beside him, trying to calm her.
You think I’m a monster?

Caitlin breaking free, rushing from the house, driving away, driving without thinking, wanting not to think at all.

Mike Bookerman—not the Bogeyman from Caitlin’s nightmares and not Darryl Bookerman the pedophile who had abducted her twenty-two years ago, but Mike Bookerman, his son—walking up to her car in a dark parking lot, grabbing her, choking her
. . .
then Caitlin waking up in the passenger seat of a car that wasn’t her own as it rumbled along
. . .
and hearing a clink of something metal, something heavy, and it bumping against her foot and her reaching down and closing her fingers around the cool, smooth metal
. . .
and when he pulled the car over, her swinging the tire iron with all her strength, aiming for his head
. . .
and there was blood and
. . .
that’s it.

Caitlin remembered nothing after that. But she now remembered everything before it. Everything. She remembered the argument with Josh the night she disappeared, the one that had made her storm out of their house, where Mike Bookerman must have been waiting nearby, waiting and watching. He must have been so pleasantly surprised when she left her house alone, got into her car alone, and drove off down the street alone.

Caitlin took another step back, then another, until she bumped into the wall behind her. She remembered so much . . . too much.

“Caitlin?” Josh asked, clearly alarmed.

A ringing phone, an unexpected voice on the line. Accusations. Denials. Words of anger. Words of protestation and of love.

“Caitlin, what’s going on? You’re scaring me. Are you okay?”

She shook her head. She wasn’t okay. Not at all.

Because she remembered. Not what happened the other night at the warehouse. Nothing that happened during the seven lost months in Smithfield. But Caitlin remembered everything that happened before she lost her memory, her identity. She remembered Mike Bookerman’s botched abduction attempt and, before that, the fight she had with Josh, the one that occurred after Caitlin answered the phone and was told by Gretchen Sorrento, the personal assistant to Josh’s boss’s boss, that she and Josh had been having an affair and Gretchen was tired of sneaking around. At first he denied it.

“I love you, Caitlin,” he had said. “I couldn’t do that to you. God, you think I’m a monster?”

But she hadn’t believed him, and she’d pressed him and he’d finally admitted the truth. He claimed it was a onetime thing, that Gretchen was lying about it being an ongoing affair; it was just the one time and she was calling now to hurt Josh because he had told her that it could never happen again. Then he told Caitlin that he had wanted to die he was so sad about what he had done, that he loved her too much to hurt her. Caitlin had told him how miserably he had failed in that regard, and after more words, and more tears, and pain that felt like a poison in her stomach, she’d pushed past Josh, grabbed her keys from a hook by the door, and left the house. She had driven and driven, circling the town, until she’d needed to pull over and just cry for a while, so she’d parked in the empty lot of a strip mall and begun to let it out . . . and then her door had been pulled open and she’d been yanked from the car and—

“The night I went missing, we didn’t just fight about some small thing,” Caitlin said. “You lied to me.”

Josh’s mouth slipped open, just a little, but he said nothing.

“You were having an affair with Gretchen,” she said.

Josh suddenly looked tired and sad. He sighed.

“That’s right,” Caitlin said. “I remember now. We were drinking wine and the phone rang. It was Gretchen. She said she was sorry to call so late but she didn’t sound it. I asked if she wanted to speak with you but she said no, she was calling me. Right then I wondered. I remember in that moment being surprised that I wondered. Didn’t I trust you more than that? But the second she said she was calling for me, I had a feeling. And I was right.”

Josh was looking at the carpet. “Caitlin . . .”

“Yes, Josh? What are you going to say? What
can
you say? That it was a mistake? That you still love me? That you never meant to hurt me?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said softly.

“Here’s a tip, Josh. You don’t want to hurt someone, then don’t marry her, swearing before God and everyone you know that you’ll love her forever and be faithful to her forever, and then cheat on her.”

Her voice had risen. She felt like a complete fool. She was afraid Bix could hear them next door, though she wasn’t sure why that should matter to her.

Bix had given up staring at the ceiling several minutes ago and rolled onto his side so he could stare at the wall for a while. He had also given up any hope of sleep coming tonight. His thoughts swam lazy circles in his head, each drifting slowly by, teasing him as it passed, tormenting him, telling him that Caitlin was as good as gone and Bix would never see her again, never find a woman like her again. And Caitlin, the woman he loved, was probably going to jail. He knew she felt remorse for what she had done—though Bix thought she deserved a medal—and because she was in pain, and must have been scared about what lay ahead of her, Bix was in pain, too. He hurt for her. He hurt for himself. He wished he
could
sleep right now, but it was tough when he could still hear Caitlin and Josh talking next door in loud voices.

Loud voices?

Were they arguing?

Chops wiped the blood from the blade of his knife on Betsy’s shirt, then stuffed her body beneath the desk in the office behind the registration counter. He closed the door and handwrote a sign reading:
Back in 15 minutes,
which he taped to the door.

Outside, he started for the stairs to the second level.

There was nothing Josh could say as Caitlin brushed past him. It
had
been a mistake. He
was
sorry. He
hadn’t
meant to hurt her. He wanted to tell her all those things and more, but she didn’t want to listen. He couldn’t blame her. He could only blame himself. How could he have done what he did? He should never have told Gretchen that she had a nice smile. He should have stopped her flirting as soon as it started. He never should have flirted back. And as much as he would have liked to deny it, he must have known deep down that their first lunch together was something more than two colleagues having a casual midday meal. And then . . . he never should have stopped at that motel after lunch.

Caitlin was his world. How could he have forgotten that? How could he have been so stupid and thoughtless and shortsighted and cruel? How could he do what so many others had done, people whom Josh used to look upon with nothing but scorn?

And how could he say anything now that wouldn’t sound like the same thing everyone else says when they get caught cheating? How could he say anything to make this situation even remotely better?

He couldn’t. So he watched Caitlin step into her jeans, then into her shoes, then out the door.

She’s going next door to Bix,
he thought. And he couldn’t blame her.

Their voices had quieted. Bix heard nothing for a moment, then the door to room 206 opened and closed a moment later . . . closed rather hard, he thought. He wondered if they had indeed had a fight. He wondered if she would knock on his door again.

He sat up.

He waited.

Seconds passed.

She should have knocked by now if she were going to.

He rolled onto his side again and stared at the wall.

Caitlin felt a powerful, painful sense of déjà vu. She now clearly recalled fighting with Josh about his infidelity seven months ago and walking out on him to get some distance to begin to process what she had learned. And here she was now, doing the same thing. That last time, she had run into Mike Bookerman, who had almost certainly been waiting for her. This time . . .