You Are Not Alone (ARC)

by Greer Hendricks

  “What was the client’s name?” My throat is tight, making my voice sound a little strangled.

  “Uh, Deena…” Jody frowns. “I can’t remember her last name. She paid in cash. That part I do recall.”

  I never got the name of the woman I house-sat for. But I remember her address.

  When I recite it, Jody pulls out her phone. “That sounds kind of familiar.…” She scrolls through her calendar. “Hang on, I’ve got it, I just need to find the day.… It was a couple of weeks ago.”

  She looks at me, her expression startled.

  My legs give way and I collapse onto the edge of the futon.

  “How did you know?” Jody asks.

  I can’t sleep that night. I lie awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, going over everything in my head until I’m dizzy. I finally doze off around dawn, but my rest is fitful.

  I get up as quietly as possible since Sean and Jody’s door is still shut, then dress in Sean’s hoodie and my jeans again. I don’t want to carry the bag the Moore sisters gave me, so I tuck my cell phone and small folding wallet into the big front pocket of the hoodie. I also put my sunglasses on top of my head.

  I leave the apartment at around eight-thirty on Sunday morning—the same day of the week and time as I did when this all started, only a few months ago.

  Back then it was hot and muggy. Now it’s bright and chilly. But I’m so churned up inside I don’t even feel the bite of the wind against my face or my lack of a coat.

  New puzzle pieces keep spinning around in my head. Jody was in the apartment on East Twelfth Street less than a week before Cassandra and Jane asked me to stay there. Yesterday, I peppered Jody with questions about Deena, the client who needed her closet reorganized. But Jody didn’t know a lot; they’d only spent a couple of hours together. She did say the woman looked to be in her late thirties, was recently divorced, and had wanted to chat over a glass of wine.

  “I never drink on the job, but I didn’t want to offend a client,” Jody had explained.

  I finally got out of her that Deena had asked a lot of personal questions—some about Jody’s relationship with Sean, and even about Sean’s roommate. Me.

  Jody had shied away when I’d pressed her to explain specifically what they’d discussed.

  “I can’t really remember.” Jody avoided my eyes. “She might have asked what you were like … um, that was about it.”

  “What did you say?” I’d asked urgently. I didn’t care about Jody’s opinion of me, but I needed to know what information she’d put out there.

  “I said you were nice!” Jody replied somewhat indignantly.

  No matter how hard I tried, she wouldn’t reveal more.

  I round a corner, approaching my destination. I’m so agitated I’m walking at a much faster rate than usual. The city is awakening now. A bike messenger yells at a cabbie for cutting him off, and a mom urges along her lagging son, warning he’ll be late for soccer practice. A bus pulls up at a stop next me, exhaling loudly, and a weary-looking woman climbs aboard.

  I know this neighborhood pretty well: I’ve bought bananas and strawberries from the fruit vendor on the corner I just passed. Cassandra and Jane’s friend Anne met me on that same corner, too, before Anne helped me work through my subway phobia.

  I realize the data points don’t look good for me, even though no one arrested me and Detective Williams said I was free to go at any time. I need one more piece of information, and it might also help convince Detective Williams that I’ve unwittingly gotten wrapped up in something ominous.

  I finally reach my destination, the flower shop.

  I wait outside, shivering, until the shopkeeper unlocks the door.

  What I’m about to do feels risky. Maybe I should be staying put at Sean’s.

  But playing it safe feels like the most dangerous thing I could do. I can’t just wait for the next awful thing to happen.

  “Are you searching for anything special?” the florist asks.

  “Just a simple bouquet. It’s a gift.”

  “We’ve got several arrangements on display around the store, or I could put something together for you.”

  I try to figure out what would be the cheapest option.

  “Could I have a half dozen chrysanthemums?” I point to the yellow blooms in a bucket in a refrigerated case

  “Sure.” She opens the door and selects the stems. Then she wraps them in cellophane and ties it all up with a ribbon. “That’ll be twenty-four dollars.”

  I reach into my pocket and pull out my thin, folding wallet. I pay in cash.

  Then I walk to the East Twelfth Street apartment, yet another nexus between me and the Moore sisters.

  When I’m almost there, I stop and pull my hood over my hair and put on my sunglasses. Then I stride into the building.

  “Hey there,” I say to the doorman. “Delivery for…” I lay the flowers on the lobby counter and squint at my phone. “I can’t see her name, but it’s apartment 6C.”

  “Valerie Ricci. You can take it up in the service elevator.”

  But I’m already halfway to the door. “Sorry, gotta run.” I hurry out.

  I move at an angle behind a telephone pole and wait. I can’t believe my ploy worked and I got her name. I was hoping for that, but I would’ve settled for just getting a glimpse of her face.

  Who knows if the woman who lives in the apartment with the distinctive hand-shaped vase is even home? She could be traveling again. But the doorman told me to bring them up, so I’m optimistic.

  Her real name may not even be Valerie Ricci. But that seems unlikely. She’d have to show identification to sign a lease, and she’d need a bank account to pay her rent.

  I’m eager to confirm her name. But I want to see her even more urgently.

  I don’t have to wait long.

  A few minutes later, I see a woman walk from the back of the lobby toward the doorman’s desk. I can’t see her face, but she has brown hair down to her shoulders.

  He hands her the flowers and she looks at them, running her fingers through the stems. Probably looking for a card, but she won’t find one.

  She raises her head and I can see her mouth moving as she speaks to the doorman.

  Then she turns, and for the first time I glimpse her features.

  This time, the shock I should feel doesn’t even register. I’ve become inured to the unbelievable twists that seem to infiltrate everything the Moore sisters touch.

  I know this woman. She held my hand as she helped me down to the subway and made me laugh with her joke about a vibrator.

  But she—and the Moore sisters—told me her name was Anne.

  She’s still looking in my direction, but I’m hopeful she won’t recognize me with my hoodie up and sunglasses on.

  I must have known I’d need to be invisible.

  When she heads toward the elevator, I step out from behind the telephone pole and start walking back to Sean and Jody’s.

  I home in on the facts I need to add to my Data Book. I thought there were three different people: Anne, who took me on the subway; Deena, the client who hired Jody; and the mysterious woman I house-sat for.

  But they all must be the same woman.

  I was living in Valerie Ricci’s apartment when she pretended to be someone else and met me to help me through my subway fear. It’s so strange I can barely wrap my head around it. The Moore sisters obviously knew all of this, too; they set up both my house-sitting gig and that meeting.

  In that very apartment I first began to think about changing my look. I stared into a big, rectangular mirror in the entranceway, pulling up my hair and taking off my glasses.

  I made banana smoothies there every morning, too. Were the Moore sisters somehow watching me?

  I almost trip over a curb, grabbing the side of a trash can to prevent my fall.

  It sounds crazy. But no crazier than anything else that has happened to me recently.

  All this time, I’ve been fixated on C
assandra and Jane Moore. I’ve researched their PR company and clients, I’ve tried to be someone they’d want to hang out with, and I’ve even viewed them as my saviors.

  But Valerie Ricci must have colluded with them to get me into that apartment. And she was the one who hired Jody and questioned her about me.

  Valerie must be more than just a casual friend of Cassandra and Jane’s, like they portrayed her.

  She’s not just a part of this. She’s at the epicenter of whatever it is.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CASSANDRA AND JANE

  MAYBE IT WAS TOO MUCH to hope that Shay would be arrested on the spot for James’s murder, after Valerie phoned the police with an anonymous tip about the open door and bloody towel in apartment 3D.

  But at least it should have taken the police focus off Daphne. That text she’d sent to James: I hope you rot in hell. The letter R carved into his forehead, with the beginning of an A next to it. Had some shrewd investigator guessed at the word and envisioned a link back to Daphne?

  Surely the police had already retraced James’s steps on the evening of his death. They would have gotten a description of the woman seen leaving the Twist bar with him: Tall, with golden-brown hair, wearing a tan sundress. Maybe a security camera affixed to a bank or nearby building had captured the image of the two of them departing and heading toward Central Park on that breezy August evening.

  It could easily have been Shay. Especially once the dress—which the Moore sisters had removed from Amanda’s laundry bin only hours after her death—was discovered on Shay’s floor.

  Shay should be holed up in Sean’s apartment right now, still reeling not only from the drugs, but also from her subsequent police questioning, and Cassandra’s searing rejection.

  The last thing the sisters expected was for unassuming, gentle Shay to go on the offensive.

  Immediately after Cassandra and Jane receive the call from Valerie—“I think Shay was here; she tricked me into coming down into the lobby”—they know they have to increase the pressure on her.

  The tracker in Shay’s new purse has remained at Sean’s apartment. But when Jane telephones Jody immediately after Valerie received the flowers with no card, Jody confirms Shay left early that morning.

  “Thank God we caught you alone,” Jane says, speaking quickly to circumvent Jody’s questions—such as how the Moore sisters have her cell phone number. “Cassandra and I are in your neighborhood; we can be there in ten minutes. We have to talk to you.”

  Jody must have been looking out the window for the sisters because before they can even press her intercom, she buzzes them in.

  As soon as Jody closes the door behind them, Cassandra grips Jody’s forearm and speaks in a hushed, urgent tone: “We may not have a lot of time. Listen, there’s no easy way to tell you this. But you may be in danger. We have reason to believe that your boyfriend’s former roommate is seriously unhinged.”

  Jody gasps as her hand flutters to her chest. “What? Shay made it sound like she was in danger. She said she had a date last night and woke up surrounded by a bloody scalpel and a man’s wallet! Sean thought maybe the guy roofied her.”

  Jane slips her hand into her coat pocket. Her fingers close around a four-by-six photograph. The Moore sisters have been in this apartment once before to collect Amanda’s necklace from Shay, but only in the living area. They can see a few doors; they need Jody to lead them into the room that Shay is using.

  “I know,” Cassandra continues while Jane nods. “But she’s been doing all this crazy stuff lately, like following us.”

  “She’s stalking some of our friends, too,” Jane adds. “Shay followed one to an exercise class and went shopping at this boutique another one owns.”

  “Oh my gosh,” Jody whispers. “Does she have one of those split-personality disorders? I saw this movie about it once.… I can’t believe I slept in the room next to her!”

  A teakettle whistles and Jody hurries over to turn off the stove’s burner. “I thought we could have some tea.” Next to the stove are three china cups on saucers.

  “Thanks, Jody, but I don’t think there’s time. We should check Shay’s room in case she has a weapon or something,” Cassandra says. “Just to be safe. I’m sure you’re fine—I mean, you made it through last night.”

  Jody nods and heads for the farthest door, her movements quick and a little jerky. She’s on edge now, just as the sisters want her to be.

  “It’s my office now.” Jody twists the knob.

  All Jane needs is a few seconds to hide the photo—and then they can guide Jody to it.

  Valerie had suggested a compartment of Shay’s purse, but if the bag isn’t accessible, Jane plans to shove it between the pages of her Data Book or even under the mattress.

  Jody is rambling. “I just can’t believe it. Once there was this ladybug in the kitchen and Shay carried it down the stairs and put it on a bush outside.… But isn’t that the kind of person you’re always hearing about on the news? Those unlikely suspects?”

  Cassandra nods as she scans the room. It’s clean and uncluttered, with a blanket stretched tightly across the pullout futon.

  Jody flits around the room, peering under the futon, then lifting the pillows one by one.

  Jane edges toward the bag and is about to reach for it when Jody looks up. “Should we check her purse?”

  “Ooh, good idea,” Cassandra replies.

  Jody peers into the bag as she holds its handles open. “Nothing in here.”

  Jane slips the photo between the pages of Shay’s Data Book, which is at the foot of the futon.

  Jane opens the closet door. “Nothing here either.”

  “Should we look in her creepy notebook to see if she wrote anything recently?” suggests Cassandra.

  Jane grabs it and begins flipping the pages. The picture flutters out.

  Jody bends down to retrieve it. Cassandra holds her breath. Both sisters stare as Jody looks at the photograph of Amanda on the High Line, wearing a straw hat and tilting up her chin.

  Jody looks up, her face creased in confusion. “Why would Shay draw an X over herself?”

  Then she glances down and gasps. “It isn’t her! I thought it was at first, but it’s just a woman who looks like her!”

  Cassandra and Jane edge closer to Jody, pretending to study the picture of Amanda—the one they printed out and drew the slashing black X over only days ago.

  Cassandra sucks in her breath sharply. “That’s our friend Amanda!”

  Jody looks from Cassandra to Jane. “Why would Shay have her picture?”

  “Shay knew her, too,” Jane says. “But Amanda committed suicide in August.” Jane shakes her head sorrowfully.

  “That’s actually how we met Shay,” Cassandra tells Jody. “She came to Amanda’s memorial service.”

  “Wait a second, this doesn’t make any sense!” Jody cries. She presses the fingertips of her left hand against her forehead. “Shay saw someone commit suicide in August, in a subway station.”

  “Oh my God,” Cassandra says as she takes a step back. Jane sinks onto the edge of the futon.

  “That was Amanda who died in the Thirty-third Street station,” Cassandra whispers as Jane drops her face in her hands. “Shay told us they shared a veterinarian, and that’s how they knew each other. Are you telling us that Shay was in that subway station at the moment Amanda died?”

  “A veterinarian?” Jody stares at them both, her mouth agape. “Shay doesn’t have a pet! So why would she…”

  Before Jody can continue, Jane’s cell phone chimes with the special ringtone assigned to Valerie. Jane yanks her phone out of her left coat pocket and glances at the screen:

  She’s coming.

  Valerie is staking out the front of the building. The warning means the sisters have only a few moments to get out of the apartment.

  “Shay just texted to say she’s almost home and wants Cassandra and me to come over,” Jane says urgently. “We’ve got to get
out of here!”

  Jody backs out of the room. She starts to grab a coat and boots out of the closet by the front door.

  “You don’t have time to put those on!” Cassandra hisses. There isn’t even enough time to make it downstairs.

  The three women scramble up to the fourth-floor landing. They hear footsteps climbing up less than a minute later. Then comes the distant sound of a door opening and closing.

  Jody is crouched on the bottom stair, still holding the photo. “I feel sick,” she whispers. “I can’t believe this is the woman Shay says she saw commit suicide?”

  “Jody, you’ve got to tell the police what you found,” Cassandra urges.

  Shay’s history of stalking has already been established. She was fired from her last job, and she suffered a crushing romantic rejection. She has exhibited bizarre behavior, including trying to slip into the life of a dead woman.

  Is it such a leap for anyone to believe Shay might also be capable of murder?

  Jody stares down at the blue sky, the sunlight on Amanda’s face, the jagged X drawn across her skin. “I’ll call the police right now,” she whispers.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  SHAY

  Some people contend there are two primal fears. The first and most basic is the end of our existence. The second is isolation; we all have a deep need to belong to something greater than ourselves.

  —Data Book, page 68

  RIGHT AFTER I SEE HER FACE, I google “Valerie Ricci” on my phone, trying every possible variation of the spelling that I can think of. I don’t feel safe lingering outside her building, so I head a few blocks away, to a diner I noticed when I house-sat, while I wait for the search engine to pull up results.

  I slide into a booth toward the back, choosing the side that lets me keep an eye on the door, and order wheat toast. I’m still not hungry, but I know I need something to absorb the acid in my nervous stomach.

  My search has thousands of results: One is a lifestyle blogger in North Carolina, another an attorney in Palo Alto, and there are schoolteachers, insurance agents, real estate brokers, and a self-published author. I can’t chase every one of them down.