Текст книги "The Perfect Stranger"

Автор книги: Wendy Corsi Staub

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

It was an important lesson learned, early on: monsters really can cross the threshold of your safe haven and jump out at you when you least expect it, so you’d better keep your guard up and develop some coping mechanisms.

I was lucky that day.

Lucky I didn’t lose a finger . . .

Lucky for a lot of reasons.

Turtles, as it turned out, are viewed in many cultures as harbingers of good fortune.

The incident spurred a lifelong fascination with the fabled creatures, which led, eventually, to Terrapin Times.

That was the name of the first blog, the one launched years ago, before many people even knew what a blog was.

Terrapin Terry was the perfect screen name to use for that one. Terry—or T2, as online followers like to say—is an expert on all things turtle-related, comfortably ensconced in a world populated by people who are equally fascinated by the creatures, some to the point of being addicts.

It was positively intoxicating to find so many kindred spirits. But the best was yet to come.

Other blogs.

Other screen names.

Other identities, really, if one chooses to look at it that way. Each a fully formed character with a separate circle of friends.

Online, you can be anyone you want to be.

I have been so many different people . . .

Eventually, it became too exhausting, too complicated, to keep up with them all. Now, the only blogs that are still active are the turtle one and the breast cancer one . . .

And never the twain shall meet.

It’s safe to imagine that the circle of breast cancer bloggers have never heard of Terrapin Terry, and that the turtle fans have never heard of—

Then again, you never know.

Maybe somewhere out there a fellow cancer blogger is following the turtle blog, posting comments under another screen name, with no idea that Terrapin Terry is really—

Probably not. But anything is possible on the Internet. That’s the beauty of it.

The beauty . . . and the danger.

I Get By with a Little Help . . .

After I was diagnosed, my oncologist’s nurse told me that it wasn’t a good idea to keep my feelings bottled up inside. She said it might help to talk to others who were going through the same thing, and that she could put me in touch with a local network through the cancer center.

I said thanks, but no thanks. I was sure I’d be just fine dealing with it on my own.

But I wasn’t. As my treatment progressed—surgery, radiation, medication, reconstruction—I felt more and more isolated.

My family was there for me, of course. They were willing to listen, and I tried, in the beginning, to express my fears and frustrations. But I couldn’t bear seeing uncertainty and dread reflected back at me on their faces.

My father was still alive then. I’m an only child, and I was always Daddy’s girl. Now he was so worried about me that I usually wound up trying to reassure him instead of the other way around. The same was true with my mother, and with my husband. It was hard enough to be strong enough for myself, let alone for everyone else.

Plus, I felt guilty dwelling on my cancer as a constant and depressing conversational topic—not that I had the heart or the energy to discuss anything else.

Finally, I gave in and attended a support group meeting up in Mobile. The other women in the room were in various stages of breast cancer treatment—some, it was obvious, in the final stages. At the first meeting, I listened in silence as the others talked about their own situations, and ranted, and cried.

At last I was surrounded by people who understood what I was going through because they had dealt with—or were dealing with—the same thing. Or worse.

For some, much worse.

At the third meeting, a particularly vocal woman I’d met at the first group session and noticed was conspicuously missing at the second announced that she’d just been given months, maybe just weeks, to live. She was a perfect stranger, but there I was sobbing along with her and the group members who took turns comforting her and each other.

I decided I was never going back there. It was too sad. I couldn’t take it. It made me feel worse, not better.

And so I returned to shouldering the burden in solitary silence. I told myself that I could get through on inner strength, a positive attitude, and faith alone, as my grandmother had forty years ago. Again, I thought I was going to be just fine on my own.

Again, I was wrong. I needed someone. I needed all of you. This is my virtual support group, blessedly free of eye contact and tears. I can show up on my own time and I don’t have to speak if I’m not in the mood, or make excuses if I feel like fleeing abruptly. This is my haven, my home. I thank God every day that I eventually found my way here, and I thank you for being my friends.

—Excerpt from Landry’s blog, The Breast Cancer Diaries

Chapter 9

Riding the elevator down two floors to the hotel lobby, Landry smooths the skirt of her black dress. It wrinkled pretty badly in her suitcase, and she didn’t dare use the iron in the room. As soon as she plugged it in, she smelled something burning and noticed scorched fabric stuck to the bottom.

She called down for another iron, but it didn’t arrive by the time she had to leave for the funeral, so here she is, rumpled and running a few minutes late to meet Kay and Elena. She feels better, though, every time she looks down at the onyx bracelet Addison made for her. And no matter what happens today—this weekend—she’ll be back home tomorrow night, and everything will be back to blessed normal.

With a ding, the elevator arrives in the lobby and she takes a deep breath as the doors slide open. She’s jittery—in a good way—about the prospect of coming face-to-face at last with friends who’ve been lifesavers in the most literal sense of the word, if positive energy really does have healing powers, as Meredith believed.

Stepping into the lobby, she glances around. It’s not a true budget hotel, but not fancy, either. This is the kind of place frequented by traveling salespeople, families with kids, senior citizens . . .

Bloggers coming face-to-face for the first time . . .

Landry passes the front desk, manned by a young woman reading a paperback romance, and the computer station occupied by a teenage boy, and the darkened dining alcove blocked off by a sign advertising the hours for the free breakfast. Just beyond is a large seating area where she, Elena, and Kay agreed to find each other.

Well, she and Kay agreed, anyway, in text messages exchanged after she checked into the hotel. Elena hasn’t been in touch since before she left Boston, saying her phone battery was almost dead but she would check in with them when she got to the hotel and could plug it into her charger.

The seating area is empty, other than a frazzled-looking young mom sitting on a couch. She’s trying to feed a fussy baby a bottle and scolding a toddler for noisily pushing a luggage cart across the tile floor. In the far corner, a man—probably her husband—has a cell phone clasped against one ear and a palm covering the other ear, as if to tune out the commotion behind him.

Realizing she’s the first to arrive in the lobby, even though she’s late, Landry perches on the arm of a chair perpendicular to the couch and exchanges curious glances with the young mother, wondering if it’s possible . . .

No. No way. The woman is a blonde, and anyway, neither Elena nor Kay has children.

Unless one of them does and didn’t mention it.

But if this woman happens to be one of the bloggers, wouldn’t she be expecting Landry? Wouldn’t she speak up and introduce herself?

What if she doesn’t recognize me? After all, I was younger in my picture, and not nearly as weary, or frumpy, as I am now . . .

And what if . . .

Suddenly, Landry’s situation seems to have gone from promising to precarious. Rob’s warnings—months, years of warnings—fill her head.

You never know who you’re dealing with online. It could be anyone . . . People can make up whatever they want . . . Men can pass themselves off as teenage girls—predators do it all the time . . .

Elena and Kay are her friends, just as Meredith was her friend, and yet . . .

There’s no getting around the fact that they’re strangers. All of them. Strangers, lifesavers . . .

They know her deepest, darkest secrets. They know where she is, and that she’s all alone in a strange city, and what if . . .

What if none of it was real?

She nervously toys with the bracelet, rolling the two silver beads etched with Meredith’s initials between her thumb and forefingers.

What if none of her friends even exists in real life? What if all those personalities were made up; figments of some twisted imagination? Even Meredith?

No—Meredith was real. She has to be real. She was in the newspaper.

But what if—

Behind her the elevator doors ding open.

A woman steps out.

Middle-aged, tall and heavyset, she has plain features and graying shoulder-length hair parted on the side. She’s wearing a black pantsuit that’s a little on the dowdy side for a woman who’s at least a decade shy of her retirement years. With a tentative expression, she looks toward the seating area.

Kay.

It’s her; it has to be her.

Paranoia evaporating, Landry utters the name impulsively, punctuated by an exclamation rather than a question mark.

The woman breaks into a relieved smile and walks toward her in sensible shoes most likely bought on sale at Kohl’s, plus an additional thirty percent off with a coupon, knowing Kay, Landry thinks affectionately.

Getting to her feet, she realizes belatedly she doesn’t know how to greet her friend for the first time.

Handshake? Hug?

Hug, she decides in the last moment.

Kay’s stocky frame seems to stiffen for a moment, and Landry thinks she’s made the wrong choice.

Kay has intimacy issues. Anyone who’s read her blog knows about that. All those years spent with a cold, unfeeling parent, and working in a federal prison, hardly a cozy environment . . .

But then Kay relaxes and she hugs back. Hard. And when they pull away to regard each other at arm’s length, Landry sees tears in Kay’s eyes and can feel them in her own.

She hastily wipes them away with her sleeve, as does Kay.

“Sorry—I didn’t mean to jump on you with a big ol’ hug like a long lost friend without even introducing myself.”

“It’s all right.” Kay smiles, shyly, but warmly. “Landry, right? BamaBelle?”

“That’s me. I was beginning to think no one was going to show up!”

“I thought the same thing! I had to force myself to come down here. I’ve been up there in my room for hours, pacing and trying to convince myself not to turn around and drive back home.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Me too.”

They smile at each other, and Landry is suddenly conscious of the young mother watching them, listening with interest, oblivious to her toddler rolling the luggage cart away again, this time toward a corridor lined with first floor rooms.

“Have you seen Elena?”

Kay shakes her head. “I just saw the texts she sent before she took off, saying that her phone was dying.”

“Hopefully she made it here.”

“Hopefully she did.”

There’s a crash down the hall. “Mommy!”

The woman on the couch jumps up, thrusts the baby and its bottle on the man with the cell phone and heads in the direction of the noise.

A split second later a woman in a black dress—Elena, is it Elena?—appears in the hallway, shaking her head as she strides toward the lobby.

Spotting Landry and Kay, she breaks into a smile and calls out, “Is that you, guys?” Without waiting for a reply, she adds, “I just had a close call! I nearly just got run over by a luggage cart.”

Cart is pronounced “caht,” New England style. Landry grins. Definitely Elena.

This time a hug feels right from the start.

As she and Elena embrace, Landry catches a whiff of alcohol on her breath. She must have had a drink on the plane, or maybe after she landed. Probably nerves. Who can blame her?

Elena steps back to take a better look at them. “You’re both just the way I pictured you.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Landry agrees. “I’d know y’all anywhere.”

“Me too. I just wish . . .” Kay trails off, shaking her head.

Remembering Meredith, Landry touches Kay’s hand. Her fingers are icy. “I know. It’s hard.”

Kay moves her hand away to look at her watch. “We should go. It’s late. Can one of you drive? I . . . I forgot to fill up the gas tank after we got here.”

“I will,” Elena offers, but Landry is already pulling her own rental car keys out of her pocket.

“That’s okay. I’ll drive.”

“I don’t mind. I’m parked right out front.”

“I’ve already got the address plugged into the GPS,” Landry tells Elena firmly. “Really. I want to drive.”

“That’s fine if you’re sure you really want to. Just so you know you don’t need to,” Elena says, and for a moment Landry is taken aback.

Then she sees Elena’s smile.

“Remember that blog Meredith wrote?” Elena asks them. “The one about the difference between wanting something and needing something?”

“I remember it,” Kay says as Landry nods. “It was one of her better blogs. But there were so many good ones. A lot of the things she wrote keep coming back to me now. It’s kind of comforting. Almost like she’s still talking to me, you know?”

“Sometimes I feel the same way,” Landry says, and Elena agrees that she does as well.

As they head out into the bright June sunshine and across the parking lot, Landry can’t help but think that she really doesn’t just want to drive—she needs to. After all she’s been through—and all the lectures she’s given her teenagers—there’s absolutely no way she’s getting into a car with a driver she suspects has been drinking. Elena doesn’t seem the least bit inebriated—for all Landry knows, that was just mouthwash she sniffed on her breath—but there’s no need to take chances.

As the rental car comes into view, Landry aims the electronic key and presses the button to unlock the doors. If she were back home with her kids, this is the point where they’d both yell, “I call shotgun!” and race each other for the front passenger seat.

She turns to Kay and Elena to joke about it, but quickly changes her mind. Elena has stopped in her tracks behind them, frowning as she looks at her cell phone. Her energy is completely different now, Landry notices; not a hint of the bubbly, upbeat woman who burst into the lobby a few minutes ago.

“Everything okay?” Landry asks her.

“Hmmm? Oh . . . yes. It’s fine. I was just getting a call from a friend back home that I’d rather not answer right now. Some people will drive you crazy if you let them, you know?”

Landry thinks of Barbie June. “I know.”

“I’m just going to turn off the phone.” Elena holds down the power button. “I didn’t have time to fully charge it back up anyway, so I might as well conserve battery power for now.” She shoves it back into her purse and looks up.

“Okay—I’m good to go,” she says brightly, and resumes walking toward the car at a jaunty pace.

Noticing that Elena seems to have bounced back just as quickly as she’d faltered, Landry can’t help but wonder about the friend who’d tried to call her just now.

The drive to McGraw’s Funeral Home takes less than five minutes, though there’s more traffic now than when Kay did her morning drive-by.

She’s glad to see that although the bowling alley parking lot looks busy, no one is using the swimming pool at the duplex next door, as she’d feared. It would be disrespectful to Meredith if people were splashing around and having a good old time in their bathing suits just a stone’s throw from her remains.

“Oh my goodness, the parking lot is completely full,” Landry murmurs, slowly driving past rows of occupied spots. “Do y’all see anything?”

“I think you’d better follow those signs for the overflow lot,” Elena advises, pointing.

“Wait—is that a space?” Landry hits the brakes.

It isn’t.

“Let’s just go to the overflow,” Elena urges again, checking her watch.

There’s no denying she’s a bit of a backseat driver. If she were at the wheel, Kay thought, she’d be intimidated by Elena’s control freak tendencies, but she notices they don’t seem to bother Landry. The two of them have kept up a steady stream of conversation on the way over. Kay couldn’t get a word in edgewise—not that she’s tried.

Most of the chatter was about kids—Landry’s two teenagers and Elena’s first grade students.

Having never had children—or, really, even known them in the course of her adult life—Kay has nothing to contribute in that regard. But lack of conversational connection isn’t her sole reason for keeping quiet. Mostly, she’s preoccupied with what lies ahead.

In her opinion, Landry and Elena aren’t quite mindful enough of the reason they’re all here: to say good-bye to Meredith.

The solemn nature of the occasion does seem to sink in as they walk toward the funeral home, though, as the other women fall silent at last.

That Meredith left behind dozens—no, hundreds—of people who loved her is obvious the moment they cross the threshold into the large chapel adjacent to the foyer. An endless line snakes through the hushed room, weaving up and down rows of folding chairs.

She, Elena, and Landry join the mourners gradually making their way up to the bereaved family standing beside the large urn that holds Meredith’s remains.

As they await their turn, Kay studies the Heywoods.

She’s heard so much about them over the years that it’s easy for her to tell them apart. Gray-haired Hank, of course, is obviously Meredith’s husband. But Kay can easily see which of the three young women is her daughter—Beck looks a lot like her mother.

She can tell the two daughters-in-law apart, too: Teddy’s wife, Sue, is pregnant; Neal’s wife, Kelly, is the redhead.

As for the brothers, they look quite a bit like each other and their father, but Kay remembers that Neal, the middle son, is the tallest one in the family, much to his older brother’s frustration when they were growing up. Meredith blogged about that once.

By default, the fourth man in the family—the serious-looking bearded fellow—would have to be Meredith’s son-in-law, Keith.

Only the grandchildren—her beloved “stinkerdoodles”—are missing.

So these are the people Meredith lived for, the people she couldn’t bear the thought of “abandoning,” as she put it.

It’s not that I don’t think they’ll survive without me, Meredith wrote to her on the day they both confessed that their illnesses had progressed. In fact, financially, they’ll be better off, that’s for sure. I’m like George Bailey.

Kay didn’t understand that reference, not even after she quickly Googled the name and found that George Bailey was a character in the old movie It’s a Wonderful Life. She’s never seen it. She isn’t big on movies; hasn’t caught a film or even turned on the television in years.

When she asked Meredith what she meant by the comment, Meredith explained that the plot revolves around a character, George Bailey, who winds up destitute, other than a life insurance policy.

“But he’s the richest man in town in the end, of course,” Meredith said, “because he had friends, so many friends who loved him.”

As did Meredith.

The room is warm and crowded, the air thickly scented with the perfume of hundreds of women and all those funeral flowers. They’re everywhere, in vases and baskets and wreaths surrounding the urn and spilling over into the seating area—further testimony to just how much Meredith meant to so many.

Kay thinks of her own solitary life.

Mother’s raspy voice echoes in her head: It’s not better to have loved and lost . . . If you don’t love, you can’t lose.

No. That isn’t the case at all, Kay thinks, inching forward with the line of mourners waiting to connect with the Heywood family.

You were wrong, Mother. As wrong about that as you were about everything else.

When it’s her turn to meet the Heywoods, she moves robotically down the line with Landry and Elena, introducing herself as one of Meredith’s blogger friends.

“You all meant so much to Mom.” Meredith’s daughter clasps her hand. “She was always telling us about you.”

“She talked about all of you, too,” Kay tells her. “She was so proud of you. She told me all about the beautiful Mother’s Day party you all had a few weeks ago. She even e-mailed me pictures, and she said you made her favorite cheesecake . . .”

“Actually, I wound up buying it,” Rebecca Heywood replies with a sad smile. “I wish I’d had a chance to make it for her that day.”

“I’m sure it didn’t matter. What mattered to her was that you were all there with her. That’s what she remembered.”

And then the person behind her is reaching for Rebecca’s hand and it’s time for Kay to move on.

The rest of it—everything else she’d wanted to tell Meredith’s family—will have to be left unsaid.

Jaycee’s cell phone buzzes in her oversized bag on the passenger’s seat of the rental car as she pulls into the parking lot behind McGraw’s Funeral Home. She reaches inside without looking at it and turns it off. Whoever it is—probably Cory—can wait. The service was scheduled to start ten minutes ago. She wanted to be late—but not any later than this.

Clearly, Meredith was as popular with her real-life friends as she was with the online group. Every spot in the lot is taken.

Jaycee can’t help but flash back to another funeral in another time, another place. Empty parking lot, with only herself and the pastor to stand beside her grandmother’s simple pinewood casket.

She sobbed through that ceremony. Not because her grandmother was dead—she’d hated her. Not because she was pregnant, either. But because Steven Petersen—her one true friend, the love of her life—hadn’t had the decency to show up. He could have come for her sake, not for her grandmother’s; Steve had hated her, too.

That was the last time she allowed herself to shed tears in public. It was the last time she ever lost someone who truly mattered.

Steve.

After all they’d been through together . . .

No. Don’t think about that now.

Thoughts of Steve always lead to thoughts of her . . .

Pushing the blood-drenched memories from her mind, Jaycee follows the signs and drives around the ugly yellow brick building to the overflow lot. The gravel patch there is nearly full of cars. On the far end, across from the last couple of empty spaces, she spots the sedan Landry rented at the airport.

Obviously, she, too, arrived late—despite her flight having landed with plenty of time to spare. Did Landry also dawdle in her hotel room, having second thoughts about showing her face here today?

In the end, Jaycee opted to come. The funeral, after all, is why she flew to Ohio in the first place this morning—aside from needing a convenient escape hatch.

She wasn’t going to allow herself to come all this way without paying her last respects to one of the few friends she had left in this world.

She pulls into a spot across from Landry’s rental, turns off the engine, and glances into the rearview mirror. Between her broad-brimmed black hat and oversized sunglasses, only her mouth, nose, and jaw are visible. No one is going to recognize her if she slips quietly into the back and then leaves early.

Her heels poke into the gravel as she steps out of the car. It’s slow going until she reaches the pavement. Now her pace is steadier, heels tapping along briskly. As she makes her way toward the entrance, she spots a black Crown Victoria—an unmarked cop car?

Of course.

Meredith was murdered. It would make sense that there would be a police presence at the service today. They’ll be watching the crowd carefully, looking for suspicious behavior, perhaps pulling people aside for questioning—a thought that’s almost enough to send Jaycee straight back to her car.

Before she can turn around, the door opens and a man in a dark suit beckons to her. The funeral director, she realizes. He’s been watching her approach through the glass panel. There’s nothing she can do but walk up the steps and cross the threshold.

“In there,” the man whispers, gesturing at a pair of closed doors.

She nods her thanks and crosses the foyer, conscious of his eyes on her. Reaching for the knob on the right, she gives it a gentle tug. Both doors swing open, but the one on the left quickly closes again with a loud sound before she can catch it.

Jaycee keeps her head down. There’s a rustling commotion; several people in the crowded room turn to look at her as she carefully closes the other door.

A robed reverend is speaking beside the gleaming urn—no plain pine box for Meredith Heywood’s remains—and every folding chair and inch of perimeter wall is occupied. No one else is wearing a hat or sunglasses. Realizing this getup makes her even more conspicuous, Jaycee removes both and wedges herself into a narrow slot beside the door, staring at the carpet, reminding herself why she’s here.

Not just because she wanted to escape New York on what would have been a difficult day, thanks to Cory’s early delivery of the morning paper with its disturbing news item.

No, she’s here for Meredith.

Meredith, who lived her life in such a way that her funeral is standing room only. When all is said and done, that’s all that really matters, although . . .

When her time comes, she thinks, her own funeral might be just as crowded—or more so. But not with friends and relatives who loved her for who she was and will truly miss her when she’s gone.

No—they’d be drawn to her funeral for very different reasons . . .

Unless something changes very drastically.

You can do that. You can change, even now. It’s not too late.

Meredith’s voice seems to fill her head.

Of course, even when she gave that little pep talk, Meredith never knew the truth about her . . .

But she does now, Jaycee realizes. Wherever she is.

Maybe her spirit really is here, offering support, and . . . forgiveness.

Jaycee closes her eyes, head bowed.

If you’re here, Meredith, I’m so sorry. I hope you know that I only did what I had to do.

What I thought I had to do.

As she reflects on the choices she made, a feeling creeps over her—not peaceful comfort, but a familiar wariness that has become second nature after all these years: the distinct sensation that she’s being watched.

She lifts her head slightly, half expecting to see Meredith’s ghost—or perhaps one of the bloggers, having somehow spotted her and figured out who she is.

That’s impossible, though. Even if they’re here, they can’t possibly know that you’re . . . you. Her. Whoever—whoever you’ve convinced them you are. Jaycee.

When she looks up, she finds herself making immediate eye contact with a woman who’s standing along the wall toward the front of the room, staring right at her.

She’s African-American, so she can’t be Landry, Kay, or Elena. She’s just some random person who for some reason seems to be paying more attention to the mourners than to the service itself.

She’s the cop, Jaycee realizes. God knows she’s had more than her share of contact with them. She can sniff out law enforcement even from this distance.

Now, as the woman gets a good look at her face, her eyes narrow with recognition.

Jaycee quickly looks down again, heart pounding. So much for blessed anonymity. The lady cop’s gaze remains as palpable as the searing glare of a heat lamp.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

She shouldn’t have come. She should have fought the familiar old instinct to run away. Anniversary or not, newspaper article or not, she should have spent the weekend locked safely into her apartment in the sky, away from prying eyes.

As the service draws to a close with Meredith Heywood’s daughter reading a poem, there isn’t a dry eye in the house—except, perhaps, for Crystal’s and Frank’s.

It isn’t that they’re immune to emotion in a tragic case such as this, but when you’re a homicide detective, you have to compartmentalize.

Crystal sweeps yet another shrewd gaze over the crowd of mourners. Most of them are surreptitiously dabbing their eyes with tissues or sobbing openly.

Hank Heywood sits on the aisle seat in the front row with his head buried in his hands. Across the space vacated by Rebecca, her duplicitous husband Keith seems detached from her brothers, who sit beside him with their wives between them, all four of them clasping hands.

Keith is fixated on his wife as she reads the poem, not daring to sneak a peek at his secret boyfriend.

Jonathan Randall slipped into the service right after it started, standing in the back.

Crystal noticed him immediately—and noticed Keith turning his head to look for him moments later, as if sensing his presence. He offered a glassy smile when he spotted Jonathan, and Jonathan returned it.

Crystal watched them closely as the service progressed. They barely glanced at each other, but she could feel the vibe between them and knew they were as aware of each other as middle schoolers deliberately not noticing members of the opposite sex at a dance.

She also kept a steady eye on Hank Heywood. The man appears utterly shattered. His daughter kept her arm around him throughout the service, letting go only to walk shakily to the podium to read her poem.

Her voice wavers as she speaks, and she stops several times, too choked up to go on. Now the poem is winding down.

“And afterward, remember, do not grieve . . .”

As Rebecca reads the line, Crystal sees, out of the corner of her eye, movement near the exit at the back of the room.

She looks up just in time to see Jenna Coeur disappear through the double doors.

Crystal hadn’t immediately recognized her when she first arrived—late, and wearing an oversized black hat and sunglasses in a room almost entirely populated by sturdy, well-scrubbed midwesterners in department store suits and dresses.

She must have realized she stuck out like a cupcake on a plate of toast, because she skittishly removed the hat and glasses, further attracting Crystal’s attention. There was something furtive about her movements, the way she kept her head down . . .

Crystal’s instincts told her that she was looking at a woman who had something to hide.

The moment they made eye contact, Crystal realized that her instincts were dead on. She had something to hide, all right: she’d been at the center of one of the most notorious murder cases in recent years.