LUCY: The Complete Lucy Kendall Series with Bonus Content (The Lucy Kendall Series Book 5)

by Stacy Green

  By the time I squeezed my small rental into a parking spot in Center City, my stomach felt like I’d eaten a pound of greasy bacon. The tall buildings blocked much of the wind that had given my car the wicked shimmies for most of the ride, but I still tucked my head to my chin and braced myself as if I’d walked into the heart of the weather.

  Inside Chris’s modern and clean building, I punched in the code he’d given me and then entered the elevator without anyone giving me a second glance. Too soon, the bell dinged, and I crossed the threshold to his floor. Sturdy carpet muted my footsteps as I made my way to his corner apartment. The roots of my hair itched, my skin felt damp against my scarf. My spare key shook in my hand as I unlocked the door.

  It swung open, and I realized I’d stopped breathing. What had I expected? To find Chris asleep on the couch with a bandaged flesh wound on his arm and a guilty smile?

  Silence pressed against me as I shut the door. His pristine, minimal decor seemed even colder than it had when I’d visited before. His counters gleamed as dark as a wet blacktop on a hot summer’s day, his stainless steel kitchen clean enough to eat off any surface. Nothing in the garbage can, no lingering scent of cooking or cleaning or takeout food. Just vacant.

  I wound my way through the living room and into the bathroom to find the same results. The guest bathroom was clean and cold, the toilet paper stocked and the modern, raised circular sink dry.

  The bedroom waited, and I hesitated near the door, my feet shuffling against the dark wood floors. I didn’t doubt my decision to search for the memory box. But the dread of the answers I might find made me feel like lead weight sinking to the bottom of the river.

  I yanked the edges of my scarf, unwinding the warm material from around my neck, and stuffed it into my pocket. Then I threaded my hair into a quick ponytail. Unbuttoned my warm coat, folded it over my arm. I slung my bag over my shoulder, gripping the leather strap so tightly my hand stung.

  Finally I pushed the door open. My throat swelled up at the faint whisper of Chris’s cologne. I ignored it and took stock of the room. Plush, beige carpet offset the masculine black and silver comforter, and the espresso furniture was a nice, if not impersonal, touch.

  I deposited my stuff on the edge of the bed and forced myself to check the master bathroom. For what, I still wasn’t sure.

  It hadn’t been used recently, either.

  His shower essentials still sat in their places; I assumed he’d taken travel-sized items. His toothbrush wasn’t in the holder on the sink.

  Impulsively, and uncertain of what I was looking for, I checked the medicine cabinet.

  Antipsychotics? Antidepressants? A medication that treats pathological liars?

  I found nothing but some basic over-the-counter cold medicine, vitamins, and men’s grooming items that looked far more complicated than anything I’d ever owned.

  I couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer. Chris’s large, walk-in closet loomed before me. The doors softly popped when I pulled them open, revealing the sort of organization I’d come to expect from him. Dress clothes on the right, dress shoes lined up beneath. Work and casual on the left, shoes lined up beneath. The back of the closet held several storage shelves, and I focused on them. Chris owned several watches. Most of them probably cost half a month’s rent for me. Another compartment littered with shiny loose change and what looked like financial papers. Those should have been in a safe, but whatever. Hats and gloves and scarves compulsively arranged on a single shelf.

  A narrow drawer held something that sent a wave of confusion and then pulsating anger through me. I stared at the generic plastic bag, trying to reconcile what I saw with what I knew.

  These were the sort of bags issued by prisons and used to house an inmate’s personal effects. Inmates didn’t get them back until they’d been released.

  I didn’t need to open these to see they belonged to John Weston. His driver’s license mocked me beneath the plastic, along with a gold ring, a tarnished chain, and a picture of a woman who had to be Mary.

  With cold fingers, I slipped the Polaroid out of the bag. It was curved and wrinkled, as if it had been carried around in a butt pocket for too long.

  Mary.

  She was much younger than in any picture I’d seen of her. Tall and domineering, yes, but also attractive. Black hair down past her shoulders, hips cocked in a way that suggested both command and awareness of her power. Her smile wasn’t as much of a smile as an acknowledgement, as if her allowing the picture to be taken was pleasant enough.

  Blocky handwriting on the bottom read “1980.”

  This had been taken before Chris was born. A quick search of the bag revealed nothing else. At the time of his arrest, John Weston had no pictures of his son. Only one of Mary, the woman who’d been his doom.

  How had Chris felt about all of this?

  And when had he seen his father? John Weston would have been required to sign a form allowing Chris to take these. He didn’t have a chance at parole, so it wasn’t unusual. Unless the person who’d been given the items maintained he hadn’t seen his father since he was a child.

  Just another lie.

  But a truth that wasn’t owed to me.

  One I might be able to forgive if I didn’t find anything else. I sensed that wasn’t going to be the case.

  The memory box was tucked so far back into the closet I almost didn’t see it. On hands and knees, I pulled it out from beneath a shelf of sweaters and stared at it. Nothing special. One of those cardboard photo boxes with pretty designs and a high price tag. I traced the scrolls, all sorts of nefarious images racing through my head. The greasy bacon sensation reared its head, and I almost raced for the bathroom.

  Instead, I opened the lid.

  And then I ran for the toilet.

  14

  Dry-heaving left my throat raw and my head aching. Sitting back on my heels, I slashed the spittle off my mouth. He’d lied. He’d lied to cover up the lie. How long had he been watching me?

  I flushed the toilet and then rinsed out my mouth, making sure to dry up the sink. My body seemed hollow as I went back to the closet, as if I’d become nothing but a worn out shell.

  The box lay open as I’d left it. A picture of me, taken from a distance, in the warm weather–a season I hadn’t yet experienced with Chris–gazed up at me. I sank back down onto the thick, cushy carpet and reached inside the box, half-expecting an electric shock to attack me.

  Instead I found more pictures of me, all taken during a warmer season. Last summer. I recognized the white sundress I’d purchased in May. Each picture was taken from subterfuge, and usually while I’d been walking down the street. One showed me getting into my car, the next texting on my phone. As if to distract myself from what I was seeing, I thought about how Chris was the only person I knew who still used a digital camera and had the pictures printed out. Most people just used their phones and stored their memories in the cloud.

  A particularly grainy shot stood out. Taken at night, as I’d come out of a restaurant on the south side. I’d been tracking Mark Smith, the pedophile with the cocker spaniel. The one Chris told me he first noticed me going after. But that was in August. I’d bought the white dress in May.

  But Chris said he came looking for you after Justin made the news, after hearing his uncle talk about your fight to keep Justin in prison. That he’d been worried about his own mental state.

  He’d admitted he’d followed me, but I’d never asked when. I’d assumed it had been around the time he’d checked up on Justin, like he’d once said. So that wasn’t true.

  I could deal with that lie.

  The pictures were another story.

  The one with the white dress was the oldest I could find. Then I came to the stuff about Camp Hopeful. Brochures from recent years with quotes from Chris about how the camp had helped his anger issues. Copies of letters from kids writing to him during his years as a counselor, thanking him for his help and understanding.


  He’d done good things for these kids. That should have softened my ire, but the feeling of waiting for the last shoe to drop, of getting ready to jump off a cliff, kept me from feeling anything other than fear.

  Near the bottom of the box were dog-eared printouts. I recognized them as the sort of handouts I’d received during my summer at Camp Hopeful. Printed from a dot matrix printer and loaded with guidelines on how to process your emotions. I hadn’t read any of them at the time.

  There were four group photos with kids of varying ages in attire that clearly suggested late eighties and early nineties. My heart rate again accelerated as I thumbed through the 5x7s.

  And there it was. I stood in the back row, my shaggy hair blowing in the wind and my teenaged face blank in defiance. I couldn’t pick Chris out of the group until I compared the picture with the others. I found him in the front row, kneeling, a sort-of smile on his face. His round haircut framed his chubby face, and he wore glasses. His hiked up socks looked too small for his thick calves.

  We’d been there together.

  But that wasn’t the worst part. What really made my head swim and my heart drop to my numb legs was the thing safety-pinned to the picture. An old notebook page, yellow and stiff like some of the other papers, had been ripped out at some point and attached to this picture. As I read the slanted scrawl, each word a thunderclap, I realized why.

  Today in my group we talked about bad decisions. Counselor Mackie asked for volunteers to talk about something stupid they’d done, but no one wanted to. I thought about raising my hand, but I didn’t want to share either. They might think of me as really bad once they found out the truth, and people liked me here.

  So Mackie started asking questions, making everybody tell something. When it got to be my turn, I got all sweaty and stupid and blurted out about lying to my uncle. Like I hadn’t done much worse things. But Mackie seemed satisfied.

  He asked me why I’d lied. I said I didn’t want to get in trouble. Then he started asking about the consequences of getting caught lying. I told him about how I got grounded from the Nintendo for a week and couldn’t go to the school bake sale. As if I gave a crap about that. Counselor Mackie wanted to know if the lie had been worth the punishment. Of course it wasn’t! I still got in trouble and had to deal with the BS that came with it. Dumb question, if you ask me, but I went along with it.

  Then it was her turn. The redhead. Lucy. She’s older than most of us, like fifteen or something. She never says much, and she looks at all the adults like she wants to kill them. I want to know what’s going on inside her head because it’s got to be a lot more interesting than most of the other kids problems. None of them have seen anything like what happened at my house. But when I look at this girl, I think she might have.

  She rolled her eyes when Mackie asked the question. Then she told him that everyone lies–even him. Mackie looked pissed, but I wanted to laugh because it was true. He asked her why she thought that, and she said because of self-preservation. I had to think about what that meant because she wouldn’t say anything more.

  It took me a while, but I think she meant we lie because we care more about what we want to do than what people think we should do. That’s what self-preservation means to me. Putting myself first.

  I want to ask her, but she ignores everyone. Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow.

  Crouched down, knees popping, I rocked back and forth. I might throw up again. Or cry. Maybe both.

  Counselor Mackie–the hippie with the comb-over and the soft voice. He’d meant well, and he’d irritated me to no end that year. I’d loved messing with his head, which was exactly what I was doing the day Chris wrote about. The day he must have taken notice of me.

  And he’d found me all those years later.

  Had he been looking? Or had he told the truth about recognizing my name during Justin’s parole hearing? Even if he had done so, he started stalking me after that.

  I tried to make an excuse–God knows I wanted to–but my mind flailed.

  And the sound of the apartment door opening and then closing proved to be a bit of a distraction.

  15

  Out of practice.

  I couldn’t think of anything else as I hunkered on the closet floor, my head whipping back and forth like a broken doll’s. The doors were wide open, exposing me to whomever had entered the apartment.

  But what if Chris had somehow come home?

  Or Mary forced him here?

  My bag with the hidden weapons sat on the bed, completely exposed and useless.

  A woman coughed. My throat knotted, my fingernails dug into the carpet until I could feel the netting beneath the plush fibers. I listened for more voices, for an injured Chris to speak. But instead I heard only sniffling and footsteps. Then she blew her nose.

  Mary certainly wouldn’t cry over her son.

  Slowly, my clothes feeling as if I’d worn them for a dip in the pool, I slipped out of the closet to position myself between it and the partially open bedroom door. My hair fell into my face as I peered into the living area.

  At first I saw only the empty apartment, but footsteps reminded me she was still there. And then a small woman with stylishly cropped gray hair and hands that looked stricken with arthritis sat down in Chris’s favorite chair. Elbows on her knees, she put her head in her hands. A soft mewl escaped her.

  Chris’s aunt. I’d never met her, but I recognized her from one of the few pictures sitting around his apartment.

  At least it wasn’t Mary. But I’d snuck into the apartment. Although not really, since I had a key.

  I breathed deeply, trying to be quiet, and gathered my thoughts. Working this situation was no problem. My specialty, in fact. Surely I still had it.

  I cleared my throat. “Mrs. Hale, I don’t want to scare you.”

  “Good Lord.” She jumped up, putting the chair and then the kitchen counter between us. I heard her draw a knife from the block.

  “It’s Lucy Kendall. Chris’s friend.” Hands raised, I exited the bedroom.

  Mrs. Hale stood in the kitchen, a gleaming and most likely very sharp knife poised to strike. “What are you doing here? Charles said you were in Maryland.”

  “I was, but I…” What? The thought dried up, and again I felt completely out of my element. What lie could I tell? What possible reason did I have for being here that would pacify her?

  “You what?” She lowered the knife, but still kept a tight grip on it.

  I wet my lips, our eyes locked. And suddenly I decided I really didn’t care about keeping Chris’s possible crazy a secret. “Because Charles mentioned Chris had attended Camp Hopeful. I did too, and I was there at the same time. I needed to find out if Chris knew that.”

  She slid the knife back into its place in the block, the scraping sound pricking my nerves. “I’m sure Christopher knew that. He never does anything by accident.”

  “He followed me for a while, over the summer,” I said. “I found pictures.”

  She shrugged. “I’m not surprised. He’d heard his uncle talk about your involvement in the Justin Beckett case.” Her words sounded hollow, careless. She obviously had more important things to worry about.

  “Why would he follow me?”

  Walking as if she could barely take another step, she returned to the chair. “You’d have to ask him.”

  Still wary, I moved to sit on the edge of the couch, my back facing the windows with the view of the city. “Mrs. Hale.”

  “Anna,” she said. “Please.” Her head dropped to her hand again, her mouth screwing up like a baby’s ready to wail. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  I hadn’t thought about her suffering. She’d raised Chris as her own, knowing he’d likely come with problems. From everything I’d heard, she’d been as good to him as his uncle, never once making him feel unwanted. “You sacrificed so much for him.”

  “No,” she said. “We couldn’t have children of our own, and having the chance to raise Chris
was a blessing, no matter the baggage that came with it.” A shadow crossed her eyes. “That woman. The day I met her, I told Charles I prayed she would never have children. He told me the psychology course I was taking affected my judgment.”

  “You were still in medical school?”

  “First year,” she said. “I waited until Charles got a decent job before applying.”

  “So you’ve been together for a long time.”

  “Since we were teenagers,” she said. A smile ghosted across her lips. “Poor John. He couldn’t take the truth about his adoption, although I never understood why. He wasn’t mistreated at all by their parents. But some people are just born with a chip on their shoulder.”

  “Mary knew he was an easy mark.”

  Her head jerked up, her eyes meeting mine. “Chris said you were good at reading people. And yes, she did.”

  “What was she like, in those days?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  “Cold. Blank, but yet…present.” Anna’s hands wrung. “I only met her twice. Her height and stature weren’t as intimidating as she liked to think. I could tell she enjoyed being taller and bigger, that it made her feel more in control. At first I thought it was because she was insecure. But then I watched her for a while. Everything was just an act. Like she’d put on some kind of mask that didn’t quite fit. I know that doesn’t make sense.” She echoed her husband’s words from last night. She picked at her fingernails, her eyebrows knitted into a thick line. I tasted the guilt in the air. The Hales both thought they should have seen Mary coming, just as Todd did. But no one ever wanted to believe that sort of evil can waltz into their world.

  “It makes perfect sense,” I said. “She had no interest in you or Charles, and her interest in John came from his vulnerability and her ability to control him.”

  Anna shifted, her stare uneasy. “Yes, that’s it. And for some reason, he was smitten with her. I guess because she played the part well. She relished being the center of his attention, and she didn’t like it when he acknowledged me in any way. She barely tolerated his having a conversation with Charles.”