Chapter 3
To Do:
- Get quote for bar service
- Grocery shopping
- Burn Wendy’s apartment to the ground
Just outside the warehouse,Jason stood in a circle of reporters. Half a dozen microphones were thrust into his face. There was an audible gasp from the crowd, followed by an immediate frantic shuffling as the press rushed past him. An anchorman from Channel Six News shoved Jason and knocked him to the ground as if Claire was a big screen TV on Black Friday. Jason moaned, cheek resting on a faded white parking line as reporters and cameramen descended from everywhere, stepping over and occasionally on him to block Claire’s path to her Audi convertible.
“Miss Hartley, what can you tell us about the ongoing investigation?” A toothy woman with bulging eyes bearing a striking resemblance to a beaver demanded. A lily that Claire had painstakingly planted in the bed around the warehouse was crushed under her Jimmy Choos. She clenched her fists.
Rosie barked fiercely. Her ears went back, and her teeth were bared. Claire reached down to pick her up as she sidestepped a reporter. If they trampled her dog, they would get way more on camera than they had bargained for.
“No comment,” she muttered, not as forcefully as she intended.
“Claire, how does it feel to be the only survivor of the West Haven Widowmaker?” A reporter with a handlebar mustache shoved a microphone in her face.
“Is it true that Mr. Windsor dressed you in your wedding dress and tied you to a pillar in the parking garage? The wedding dress you were supposed to wear today?”
That stopped her dead in her tracks, and she stared at a weaselly looking gentleman with an old-school press hat.
The police had never revealed that piece of information to the public. Her eyes swung to Jason, who had gotten to his feet and seemed to be struggling to open his car door. The back of his neck was bright red. That son of a bitch.
The reporters crushed around her, jostling her.Rosie continued to bark, trying to wiggle out of her grasp.
“How do you respond to the allegations that you assaulted your ex-fiancé’s girlfriend at an event last week?”
Claire edged around another reporter. Her purse dug into her shoulder blade, twice as heavy as usual because of the thick packet of legal papers stuffed inside. Had Jason told them about the lawsuit? Every face before her was desperate for a story. And they were everywhere lately—outside her business, her apartment, waiting for her as she left Luke’s.
Her throat closed, and her insides twisted like she had just swallowed a bag of jacks. She needed to get away, to find air. The stink of their desperation nearly drowned her.
The midday sun was warm and the dreamy blue sky was dotted with cottony clouds, giving her something to focus on for a moment. She took a deep breath and pressed the panic button on her key fob.
Her Audi set off a shrill, piercing alarm. The startled reporters backed away long enough for Claire to break through their masses.
They rushed after her, expensive shoes smacking against the asphalt. She fumbled her keys and almost dropped them, then wrenched the driver’s seat forward and deposited Rosie in the back seat. The dog seatbelt was twisted. Flashbulbs popped over her shoulder as she struggled to buckle Rosie in. Desperate shouts surrounded her. Maybe it was time to buy a four-door car. She climbed into the driver’s seat and buckled her seatbelt, hands shaking as she tried to jam the key into the ignition. Angry metal music blasted out of her speakers.
Rosie barked from the back seat as Claire threw her car into reverse. A news anchor dove out of the way as she squeezed out of her parking spot.
She floored it, tires squealing on the asphalt. As she lurched onto Market Street, the vice grip on her chest loosened. The warehouse grew smaller in her rearview mirror before disappearing entirely. She drove three more blocks with no one behind her. Maybe she had lost them.
As she braked for an elderly woman at a crosswalk, Claire glanced behind her. A news van with a satellite dish idled behind her.
“Shit.” She smacked her steering wheel. Could this old lady cross the street any slower? She must have been weighed down by the metric ton of cat food in her shopping bag. Maybe Claire should offer her a piggyback ride.
She took a deep breath and pressed a button on her console.
“Call Luke,” she ordered. He picked up almost immediately.
“Hey, you. How was your meeting?”
“Fine. Aaron liked the ideas.” The old woman inched her way onto the sidewalk, and Claire stomped on her gas pedal. The car shot forward and away from the news van. She was normally a painfully safe driver, but this was no day to dawdle.
“Are you still sold on the whole having-him-sketch-the-proposal-thing, because instead you could?—”
“Not now.” She turned without signaling at the next intersection. The news van blew past her. Success! Suck it, Channel Eight News.
“Geeze, okay. Are you on your way home?” Luke’s voice, as sweet and hot as molasses in July, poured out of the speaker.
“To your house, yes,” Claire said, noting the distinction. With the exception of the previous evening, she had barely been in her apartment since she was abducted. But that didn’t mean Luke’s sprawling country estate had earned the title of “home.” He didn’t even have a laminator.
“You’ve been there almost every night since the incident. What’s the harm in calling it?—”
“Luke, they’re chasing me again,” she interrupted. She swung into the left lane and glanced in her rearview mirror. Another news van was hot on her tail.
He swore. “Which street are you on?”
“Astor, by the park.”
“Try losing them in the underground parking garage beneath the Wilmington. Then you can take Fourth Street to Susquehanna Ave. If that doesn’t work, let me know and I’ll call Detective Smith to escort you. Do you still have your gate opener?”
Claire glanced at the button that was clipped to her visor. “I do.”
“Good. I’m on my way back from Harrisburg now, but it’ll be at least an hour till I’m there. I’ll bring dinner.”
“Thank you,” she said, feeling slightly better. “Chinese?” Surely the sweet sting of General Tso’s could erase the tide of horrific memories that had been dredged up today.
“Of course. Did you change your bandage today?”
“No, Luke. You insist that I keep doing it wrong, so I didn’t bother.” She rolled her eyes as she swung back into the right lane. The Wilmington Hotel—thankfully not a business owned by the hotel tycoon who had stabbed her—loomed large on the next block.
“That’s probably for the better.”
“Shut up. How was your day? Did Mrs. Rathfon agree to the interview?” Carly Rathfon, the mother of Widowmaker victim Shawna DeLong, had been ignoring Luke’s phone calls for a week.
“We don’t have to talk about it. Your day sounds shitty enough already.”
Claire bit her lip. The hotel was half a block away. “I’m still interested. It’s not your fault that the subject of your next documentary tried to kill me.” It was, however, Luke’s fault that he suspected Claire was the next intended victim of the West Haven Widowmaker and neglected to tell her about it, but she was over that. Well, almost.
She swerved into the underground parking lot without signaling. A jolt of fear struck as the sky disappeared, replaced by concrete pillars. Fluorescent lights glowed ominously overhead. The marks on her wrists burned.
Taillights lit up red in her mirror, but she was free. She tore through the parking lot as fast as she dared and out into the afternoon sun. Freedom!
“She did,” Luke said calmly, as if Claire wasn’t breaking ten traffic rules at once. “I could tell she was ready to slam the door in my face at first. She said the press has been relentless, especially since he got caught. But I explained the premise and gave her Ariel and Kayley’s mothers’ phone numbers so she could talk to them first. I’m confident that she’ll call me back.”
“That’s great. I’m sure she will.” It was hard to be a good (maybe) girlfriend in the middle of a sensationally crappy day and medium-speed car chase.
“Something else is bothering you. Your angry music is playing. Are you nervous about dinner with my mom tomorrow? I don’t blame you. She’s basically an irritable dragon in a pantsuit. We could pretend you’re sick.”
It was a tempting offer. A dragon-like mother of her maybe boyfriend was not likely to improve Claire’s week. “No, that’s not it. We’ll talk about it when you get home. I mean, to your house.”
He chuckled. “Okay. Are they still following you?”
She flicked her gaze to her rearview mirror. Surely the press weren’t hiding in the Amish buggy cantering along behind her. “I think I lost them. I’m leaving town now. Should be there soon.”
“Good. I’ll see you soon.”
She smiled as she hung up. Claire had given up on men after Jason had slept with Wendy in a bathroom at the Chamber of Commerce awards ceremony the previous year. Everything changed when Luke stormed into her apartment eight months later demanding a meeting for their joint project. Despite her best efforts, she was actually developing real feelings for the grumpy filmmaker who disparaged her career path at every turn. But they weren’t really together. Were they? There had been some very steamy kisses that ended in a trip to the hospital, but they hadn’t defined the relationship.
The apartment buildings and corner convenience stores of West Haven fell away behind her. As much as she loved her little apartment in the city, she couldn’t deny the appeal of the wide-open spaces of the country. At Luke’s house, no overly sensitive neighbors smacked the ceiling with a broomstick when she dared to watch TV past ten p.m.
She turned onto a state highway and drove past an expansive dairy farm. The cows lay in the field, staring judgmentally at her as she passed. She searched the sky, but there weren’t any storm clouds on the horizon.
Rain was supposed to be good luck on your wedding day. And today had nearly been hers. The clock on the dashboard read 1:37. As hard as she tried to put it out of her mind, she had memorized every second of the wedding day schedule. She should have been taking first look photos with Jason right now. Instead, he was headed home to a scheming shrew, and Claire was recovering from a stab wound at the home of a hunky, if grumpy, filmmaker. And her beautiful, one-of-a-kind wedding dress was covered in blood, hanging in an evidence locker.
If she was being honest with herself, she had dodged a bullet by breaking off her engagement. Jason was lazy, unmotivated, and utterly trapped in the past. A football star in high school and college, he had regressed to a chronically underemployed art history major who couldn’t even manage to set down the video game controller long enough to order takeout. But apparently Wendy didn’t mind.
Claire glanced repeatedly in her rearview mirror as she cruised down the empty stretch of state highway, but the press didn’t reappear. Her heart rate had returned to normal by the time she pressed a button and watched the newly installed gate across Luke’s driveway swing open.
Guilt settled on her like a stifling flannel blanket. Because of her, a serial killer had broken into Luke’s house and stamped Rosie’s paw on a threatening note. She had endangered everyone she cared about.
At the end of the winding driveway stood a remarkable country home. Natural wood and stone covered the facade. Turquoise Adirondack chairs sat on the front porch. Flower beds with knockout roses and lilies were in full bloom.
The humid air hung on her as she crawled out of the car. She swatted at a gnat and flinched when a hummingbird buzzed past her ear, aiming for one of the half dozen feeders Luke had stationed around the property.
Rosie leapt out beside her and shook, releasing a cloud of warehouse dust.
“Gross, Roro. I’m going to have to vacuum the car like six times. Do you want to go swimming?”
The dog’s ears perked up. Claire lugged her oversized purse on one arm and a tote bag on the other as Rosie bolted for the backyard.
Claire opened the gate, and Rosie darted inside. She pranced excitedly on the concrete edge, barking at an inflatable unicorn that listed lazily in the pool. Claire had purchased it online a few days earlier after indulging in half a bottle of merlot, and Luke had graciously blown it up for her.
“Okay, okay. Hold your horses.” She reached into her tote bag and pulled out a corgi-sized life vest. She stuffed Rosie’s tiny legs into it and dodged her sloppy tongue as she strapped her into the vest. Rosie immediately flopped on her back and rolled around on the concrete.
Satisfied with her handiwork, Claire walked into Luke’s pool house. She pulled down the blind on the small, square window and scanned the tree line. There weren’t any reporters dangling from the trees, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone had snuck onto Luke’s property through the woods. She quickly changed into a bathing suit. The last thing she needed was her bare bottom on the cover of a tabloid. Widowmaker Survivor Bares All. Not today, Satan.
After tucking herself carefully into the triangles of her bikini, she dragged the float to the edge of the pool. Rosie gave a stubby-legged leap and landed squarely in the middle. She rolled over on the unicorn to sun her belly, her tongue flopped out in pure doggie happiness.
Claire snapped a picture before turning her phone on silent and tossing it in her bag. Her clients weren’t likely to need her, and she could do with some peace before Luke came home.
She dragged another float out of the pool house and tossed it into the water. It bobbed gently while she carefully lowered herself onto it, frowning at the thick bandage on her chest. Her stab wound was like a new pet with specific rules: keep it dry, change the dressing every twenty-four hours, cover it with petroleum jelly. The alternative, as her self-proclaimed psychic mother advised, was to present a large potato and a penny to an Amish healer.
Claire closed her eyes and slid on her sunglasses, determined to push all thoughts of Wendy and the lawsuit from her mind. She wouldn’t get away with this. Sure, Claire had technically beat the crap out of her at Nicole’s engagement party. But if sleeping with Claire’s fiancé, sabotaging her biggest proposal ever, and insulting the bride-to-be at her own party weren’t punchable offenses, what were? What was she supposed to do, rob a bank for five million dollars so she didn’t lose her business in case Wendy won? Kyle would figure something out. Wouldn’t he?
She released the top tie of her bikini and tucked the strings underneath her, leaving the triangles to cover her bits. There was nothing she could do about the weird tan line she’d have from her massive bandage, but at least she could avoid the strings. She floated her arms out to her side and relaxed in the warmth of the summer sun.