Chapter 23
To Do:
- Buy another first aid kit
- Blog post on nontraditional engagement rings
“I don’t knowhow you do it,” Nicole said, carrying four tote bags over the threshold of Claire’s apartment.
“Do what?” Claire took the bags from her and set them on the bar. One tipped over, and a ream of coral-colored origami paper fell out.
She yawned so wide that it hurt. After her altercation with Jack the previous day, she had barely slept. Something about the abduction had left her untethered and uninhibited. She was yelling at authority figures, confronting someone who had been dead to her for twenty years. Lying to her ex-boyfriend. She barely recognized herself when she looked in the mirror.
“Deal with the freakin’ press all day,” Nicole said. “One of the reporters outside recognized me from the courthouse and asked how I knew you.”
Claire rolled her neck from side to side. She had tweaked it earlier when Sawyer had shown her how to climb into the driver’s seat from the passenger side to avoid suspicious vehicles. “I know. Things have gotten so much worse since word leaked about the copycat.”
“I’m going to find the bastard who told them and punch him right in the nuts.” Nicole began organizing the origami paper into neat stacks.
“I will gladly help you. I hope you plugged your studio when they talked to you, at least. This bullshit attention should do someone some good.” It seemed like every time Claire got a note, the press knew about it a day later. But who was telling them? She popped the cork on a bottle of cab sauv and poured a generous amount into two glasses. She handed one to Coli.
“I didn’t speak to them. I don’t even need the extra business. I can’t keep up with the requests that are coming in now.”
“Really? That’s amazing.” Claire took a sip. She was going to need it if she was going to help fold one thousand paper cranes before Nicole’s wedding in the spring.
“I guess. I might need to hire another photographer, or at least a receptionist to manage the appointments.”
“Look at you. The soon-to-be Mrs. Nicole Collins, small business owner, photographer extraordinaire, and totally killing it. I’m so proud,” Claire said and reached over to hug her best friend.
“Enough about me. Who the hell was that guy at your car on field day? Don’t think I forgot about it. I’ve been sensitive to your needs since Luke drop-kicked your heart, but I expect you to be honest with me.”
Shit. Another honesty lecture. Claire had forgotten she hadn’t told Coli what was going on. She really didn’t want to get into the specifics of Barney’s potential network of serial killer friends when she had a mountain of maid of honor duties. Maybe an abbreviated version of the truth would be best.
“That was Jack. My biological father. He wants to have dinner.”
Rosie trotted over, and Claire bent down to pet her.
Nicole’s eyes bulged. “Dinner? Why? And why now?”
“His wife has been bugging him about it.”
“The Whole Foods home-wrecker,” Nicole muttered and took a large sip of wine.
“Apparently, her name is Tanya.” The name was like an ice chip on Claire’s tongue.
“Are you going to do it?”
Claire shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve done just fine without him all these years. I’m not particularly inclined to let him in now just because he broke into my apartment claiming to be in the FBI.”
Nicole rolled her eyes. “FBI. I bet. He’s probably dead broke and coming after your money. Or maybe he needs a kidney. And when are people going to stop breaking into your apartment?”
“You know, I ask myself that every day. Maybe I should move. Anyway, should we get started? I don’t think my fine motor skills are going to improve if I keep drinking.”
Nicole waved one hand and drained what was left in her glass. “Who cares? They don’t have to be perfect.”
Claire raised her eyebrows. Nicole stared back. There was silence.
“It’s for your wedding day. They’re going to be perfect.” Claire crossed to her drunk drawer and pulled out a ruler and protractor.
Nicole opened her mouth to speak, but someone knocked on the front door.
Excellent, another visit from an uninvited guest. Claire sighed and pulled a kitchen knife from the butcher block. Who would it be this time? She pressed a button on her security console, and a man she didn’t recognize flickered into view.
Her heart leapt in her chest, and she nearly dropped the knife. Was this the copycat? Would he really be so bold as to ring her doorbell?
She pressed the intercom button. “Who is it?”
“Ma’am, I’m Tom from Chucky’s Custard. I’m here to deliver an order for Claire.”
She and Nicole looked at each other. Chucky’s Custard was Claire’s favorite ice cream place. The only problem was the store was located in Delaware, easily five hours away.
“I didn’t order anything.”
“Order came from a Luke Islestorm and is to be delivered with this note,” the man onscreen said, pushing his glasses down the bridge of his nose to stare at the front of an envelope. He held it up to the camera. “He must have messed up real good.”
And indeed he had. Claire opened the door despite Nicole’s protests. “He paid you to drive ten hours round-trip to deliver me ice cream?”
“He sure did,” the man said, handing her a Styrofoam cooler and an envelope. “There’s dry ice in there, so you be careful. There’s some other feller behind me too.” He jutted a hitchhiker’s thumb over his shoulder.
Claire handed the cooler and envelope to Nicole, who moved it to the bar.
“Thank you, sir,” she called to the man as he disappeared down the hallway. “And you are?” She addressed a second man who wore a bright red shirt with Donatelli’s Pizzeria written on it.
“Bayani, Donatelli’s Pizzeria in Los Angeles.” He glanced uneasily at the butcher knife that still dangled from her right hand. He handed over another large, square cooler. “Cook it for four twenty-five for eighteen minutes on the dot. I wrote it down for you,” he said, gesturing to a sticky note.
“I’m guessing this is pizza?”
Bayani scoffed. “It’s not just pizza. We have the best pies in the entire country. Google us. And while you’re at it, go easy on Luke. He’s a good guy. He wanted me to give you this too.” He handed over an unmarked DVD.
“Not creepy at all,” she muttered, transferring the cooler to the already-crowded bar. When she turned back, both men were gone. She shut and locked the door behind her.
“Well,” she said, “should we get to folding?”
Nicole stared blankly at her. “Are you kidding me? Luke sends a pizza delivery boy two thousand miles one way and you’re not even going to look at it?”
Claire sighed and walked over to the oven. She stabbed the preheat button and set it to Bayani’s instructed temperature. But only because she was going to order a pizza anyway. She flipped the lid on the pizza box. “I apologize” was spelled out in half-moons of pepperoni.
“Well, at least he’s becoming more self-aware,” Nicole commented behind her.
Claire grunted and took another sip of wine.
“And the ice cream?” Nicole prompted.
Claire sighed and cut the tape on the cooler. Fog rolled out of the box. Inside, nestled in a confusing apparatus of carefully arranged toothpicks were two perfect vanilla soft serves in cones. Why would he send two? If he was outside her door ready to beg for forgiveness, she was heading for the fire escape.
“It’s…beautiful,” Nicole said, plucking one from the box.
“No sense in wasting it,” Claire admitted and pulled the other cone out. It was exactly as she had remembered. Creamy, cold, perfect. She was usually a chocolate girl, but there was something about Chucky’s vanilla custard. If she closed her eyes, she could practically smell the salt spray in the air and feel the rough wood of the boardwalk beneath her feet.
“You almost have to forgive him after this,” Nicole said in a reverent tone. She had a small ice cream mustache.
Claire straightened up. “Food can’t make up for the fifty thousand lies he told me. Can we talk about something else?”
“The awards are in two days,” Nicole said over a mouthful of cone. “Are you nervous?”
“Why would I be? You’ve seen her proposals. They’re super dull and generic. And she only had five this year—the restaurant one, a football game, amusement park, Santa’s lap, and that one where she staged the groom getting arrested. None of them compare to your proposal. Even with the sabotage.”
It hadn’t been officially proven, but there was a ninety-five percent chance that Wendy had been responsible for loosening a carriage wheel during Nicole’s proposal, causing the bride-to-be to spill out onto the roadway.
Nicole shuddered. “Why is she even still in this business?”
“To beat me. To try to take everything I have. That’s the only thing I can think of. She might have gotten Jason, but she won’t take anything else from me.”
Nicole fiddled with the blank DVD. She held it up to the light as though that would tell her what was on it. “Kyle said your first mediation meeting is next week.”
The oven beeped, and Claire tossed the pizza in harder than was necessary. “Yes. Trapped in a room with two lawyers, a mediator, and my ex-fiancé’s new girlfriend. It’s going to be another fun week.”
Nicole reached across the island and squeezed Claire’s hand. “It’ll be ok. She’s going to lose, and things will go back to normal. She flipped a table on live television and openly admitted to stalking you. Anyone with a pair of functioning eyes can see that she’s unhinged.”
Claire sighed and picked up their wine glasses. She walked them into the living room and set them on the coffee table. “I hope so. Maybe I’ll put the award in a glass case and bring it with me to the meeting. Really rile her up.”
Nicole followed her and sat cross-legged on the rug. “You should absolutely do that. What’s this? Another proposal?”
“Oh,” Claire said, quickly snatching a binder off the table. “Yeah, just some notes for the escape room proposal. It’s going to take a lot of planning.”
But it wasn’t the Escape Room binder. Early that morning, she had done a couple of hours of fruitless Googling. She tried searching for the symbol on her neck, antifeminist groups in the United States, anything that could be relevant. Nothing but some scary forums had come up, but there were countless empty sleeve protectors in the Murder Binder 2.0 waiting to be filled with information on Barney’s secret group.
“What are you doing?” Claire asked. Nicole had crawled over to her gaming console and put something in the disc tray.
“Come on, you can’t tell me you don’t want to know what’s on the DVD.”
“We have pizza to eat and literally one thousand paper cranes to fold.” And, frankly, Claire wasn’t sure she was ready to confront these feelings. There was enough going on.
“Sweetie, I’m going to need you to put on your big girl panties and read this.” Nicole paused, slapping Luke’s letter into Claire’s hand. “And watch the damn DVD. Because I’m not going to be able to focus on origami until you do.”
The letter fell from Claire’s hand. “You knew he was going to do this, didn’t you? That’s why he sent two ice creams.”
Nicole bit her lip. “He knew I was going to be here tonight. I didn’t know what he was going to do. I haven’t spoken to him. It’s all been through Kyle.”
Claire frowned. She couldn’t stay mad at Nicole. “Kyle and I are going to have to have a serious discussion on boundaries. This is exactly what I was afraid of, and why I didn’t want to get involved with Luke. He and his stupid lying tongue have compromised the sanctity of our entire friend group.”
“He did a really shitty thing,” Nicole agreed. “He clearly regrets it and is trying to make up for it, but that doesn’t excuse what he did.”
“Thank you,” Claire said. She ripped the envelope open. The oven timer went off. “Will you get that?”
Nicole nodded and left the room, leaving Claire to confront the contents of the envelope. She wasn’t in the mood to read more apologies from the career-driven-to-the-point-of-insanity Luke. Words meant nothing coming from him.
She pulled out a single sheet of Luke’s stationery. His cramped handwriting barely covered a single line.
I’m just trying to give them a voice. Watch it and you’ll see.
“Holy crap,” Nicole said from directly over her shoulder.
Claire shrieked and dropped the paper.
“He must have sent you part of the documentary. He’s never done that for anyone, ever. Kyle’s mentioned it a million times. He’s so secretive about his work.”
“He must really trust that pizza guy.” Claire tucked the paper back in the envelope and slid it under the box of origami paper where she wouldn’t have to look at it. “I guess we’re having some true crime with dinner.”
“Hell yes.” Nicole set two plates on the coffee table and rejoined Claire on the floor.
Claire took a bite of the steaming slice. “Oh my god.”
Nicole took a bite too. “Holy shit.”
It was the best pizza she had ever tasted. The sauce was perfectly flavored—not too sweet, not overly tomato-pasty. The crust was thin and crunchy, not soggy or doughy. The blend of cheese was elegant. And it had traveled two thousand miles to get here. How good would a fresh one be?
Claire flopped the slice back onto the paper plate like it had personally offended her. How dare Luke exploit her love of carbs? She glanced at her phone with half a mind to send him a video of the pizza frisbeeing out the window. But wasting this pizza would have been a borderline criminal act.
Nicole reached across the table and pressed the play button, startling Claire out of her introspection. The documentary rolled.
Forty minutes later, Claire and Nicole sat side by side on the couch, stack of origami paper untouched.
Nicole blew her nose loudly into a tissue. “And she just—she—the garden. And her dogs. And all the little babies she watched over.”
Claire hugged Rosie to her chest and drew her softest blanket around them like a cocoon. The documentary had wiped all of her energy. “I remember Kayley from freshman biology. She partnered with me during a lab. She handled the micropipettes when I was ready to throw them across the room.”
“And her wife loved her so much,” Nicole choked out, wracked with sobs.
Claire reached over and pulled her into the blanket cocoon. The three of them sat in silence, staring at the blank TV screen. Even though it was a rough cut, every frame had something beautiful in it. The family and friends Luke interviewed had gushed over Kayley’s hobbies and interests. She had watched over two hundred NICU babies in her short career as a nurse. Her lovingly tended flower garden had been featured in West Haven’s Parade of Homes three times. She had left behind a wife, two dogs, two cats, and a ferret. The entire episode had been more a beautiful memorial for Kayley than a true crime documentary. Barney was barely mentioned until the last ten minutes, when Luke had recreated the timeline of the day she had gone missing.
The documentary had sucked the fight right out of Claire. Luke had asked her something incredibly insensitive—there was no denying that. But the documentary wasn’t about making money. It was telling a story, reclaiming the identities of the women as individuals, not just victims. In its own dark way, it was beautiful.
“I think I need to make a call.” Claire extricated herself from the cocoon. She handed Nicole the box of tissues and walked back down the hall to the bedroom.
She held her breath as the phone rang.
“Hey. Thanks for the pizza.”