Choose Me

by Tess Gerritsen

  Liam shakes his head. “I know she was upset when I broke up with her. And yeah, sometimes she could act a little psycho. But kill herself? That’s not like Taryn at all.”

  “What do you mean by ‘a little psycho’?” says Mac.

  “She was stalking me.” He sees Mac’s raised eyebrow. “Seriously, she was. It started off with her calling me and texting me at all hours. Then she started sneaking into my apartment while I was out.”

  “You caught her in here?”

  “No, but one of the girls next door saw her leave the building one morning. Taryn never returned my key, so she could’ve come in anytime she wanted. And then I noticed that things were missing.”

  “What things?”

  “Stupid little things like my T-shirts. At first I thought I just misplaced them, but then I realized it had to be her, taking my stuff. That was creepy enough. Then it got even worse.”

  “You mentioned she kept calling and texting you,” says Frankie.

  “I finally had to block her. But then she just used another student’s cell phone to call me.”

  “So she did have a cell phone.”

  Liam gives her a quizzical look, as if the question is absurd. “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Because we never found her phone.”

  “She definitely had one. She was always complaining that her mom could only afford to buy an Android.”

  “If we do find that phone, would you know how to unlock it?” Mac asks.

  “Yeah. Unless she’s changed her pass code.”

  “What is her pass code?”

  “It’s, um . . .” The boy looks away. “Our anniversary. The day we kissed for the first time. She was kind of sentimental about it, and she kept bugging me to celebrate it with her, even after . . .” His voice trails off.

  “You said she kept texting you,” says Frankie. “Can we see those texts?”

  He pauses, no doubt wondering if there is anything on his phone he shouldn’t reveal to a cop. Reluctantly he pulls out his iPhone, unlocks the screen, and hands it to Frankie.

  She scrolls through the list of conversations until she finds the string of texts from Taryn Moore. They are two months old.

  Where RU?

  Why didn’t U show up? I waited over two hours.

  Why RU avoiding me?

  Call me PLEASE. This is important!!!!!!

  The girl’s mounting desperation is apparent in these texts, but Liam did not respond to any of them. Silence is a coward’s way out, and that’s what Liam chose to be. By not responding, he left the girl screaming unheard into the void.

  “I guess you’ve talked to her mom,” Liam says. “I hope Brenda’s okay.”

  “It was a difficult conversation.” It was in fact heart wrenching, even though Frankie was not the one who actually broke the news. That unfortunate task went to a police officer in Hobart, Maine, who knocked on Mrs. Moore’s door and informed her in person. When Frankie called a few hours later, Taryn’s mother sounded exhausted from crying, her voice barely a whisper.

  “Brenda was always nice to me,” says Liam. “I felt kind of sorry for her.”

  “Why?”

  “Her husband ran off with another woman when Taryn was ten. I don’t think she ever got over her dad leaving them.”

  “Maybe that’s why she freaked out when you left her.”

  He winces at the parallel. “It’s not like we were engaged or anything. It was just a high school thing. Except for growing up in the same town, we didn’t have much in common. I’m planning to go to law school, but Taryn didn’t have any plans, not really. Except maybe getting married.”

  Frankie looks down again at Liam’s iPhone. “These are the most recent text messages she sent you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “These were sent back in February. There’s been nothing since then?”

  “No. It all stopped after we had this big blowup at a restaurant. I was having dinner with my new girlfriend, Libby. Somehow Taryn found out we were there, and she barged right into the dining room. Started screaming at me, in front of everyone. I had to drag her outside and tell her, once and for all, that we were finished. I think that’s when she finally realized it really was over between us. After that, her texts stopped. I figured she’d moved on, maybe found a new boyfriend.”

  “Her mother didn’t say anything about her daughter having a new boyfriend.”

  Liam shrugs. “Brenda wouldn’t necessarily know. Taryn didn’t tell her everything.”

  Frankie thinks about the secrets her own daughters have kept from her: The birth control pills that she found in Gabby’s underwear drawer. The boy who’d been sneaking into Sibyl’s bedroom, until the night Frankie pulled her service weapon on him. Yes, girls were very good at keeping secrets from their mothers.

  “Was there another boyfriend?” Mac asks.

  “I don’t know of one,” says Liam.

  “Ever see her with anyone else?”

  “Just that classmate of hers. Guy who hung around her all the time. I don’t know his name.”

  “You think she was involved with him?”

  “You mean, like her boyfriend?” He laughs. “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “If you saw him, you’d understand. The kid’s as big as a blimp. She probably let him hang around with her out of pity. I can’t think of any other reason.”

  “Friendship, maybe? A dazzling personality?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” Liam snorts, because he can’t imagine being supplanted by a fat kid. He has the blind self-confidence of someone who knows damn well he’s good looking, who has never doubted his self-worth. Frankie decides she does not like this boy after all.

  “Why do you think she killed herself, Liam?”

  He shakes his head. “Like I said, we lost touch. I wouldn’t know.”

  “She was your girlfriend. You’ve been together since high school. You must have some idea why she did it.”

  He thinks about it for a moment, but only for a moment. As if the question isn’t important enough to rack his brain over. “Really, I don’t.” He glances down at his Apple Watch. “I’m meeting someone in twenty minutes. Are we done here?”

  “What an asshole,” says Frankie as she and Mac eat lunch in the Boston PD canteen.

  “Comes with being a golden boy,” says Mac. “I knew a few kids like him when I was growing up. Arrogant jerks. Thought they were something special, when all they did was hit the genetic lottery. Wish I’d gotten a few of those genes.”

  “What’s wrong with your genes?”

  “You mean, aside from the fact I’ve got diabetes, male-pattern baldness, and rosacea?”

  “I don’t think rosacea’s genetic, Mac.”

  “No? Well, somehow, I caught it from my mom.” He hoists the ham-and-cheese sandwich to his mouth and takes a giant bite. Given his weight and his hypertension, ham and cheese are not what he should be eating, but that sandwich looks damn tempting to Frankie, compared to her Caesar salad. Frankie doesn’t even like salads, but this morning she glimpsed her reflection in the ladies’ restroom, and it confirmed what her ever-tightening waistband already tells her. Salads it will have to be until her trousers stop pinching. Until she doesn’t grimace every time she glances in a mirror.

  “So you got any plans for tonight?” he asks.

  “I think it’ll be TV and bed.” She resignedly spears a romaine leaf with her fork and chews it without enthusiasm. “Why do you ask?”

  “If you’ve got no plans tonight, Patty’s got this cousin.”

  “Of course she does.”

  “He’s sixty-two, has a good job, owns his own house. And he’s got no criminal record.”

  “Ah, a real winner.”

  “Patty thinks you’d really like him.”

  “I’m not in the market, Mac.”

  “But don’t you ever think about getting married again?”

  “No.”

  “Seriously? Someone to come home to every ni
ght? Someone to grow old with?”

  “Okay. Yeah.” Frankie puts down her fork. “I do think about it. But there aren’t any Romeos beating down my door at the moment.”

  “This cousin’s real nice, and Patty’s anxious for you two to meet. We can keep it casual, just a double date with beer and burgers. If you get antsy, you just have to give me the signal, and you can make your escape.”

  Frankie picks up her fork and listlessly moves lettuce around on her plate. “Does her cousin know I’m a cop?”

  “Yeah. She told him.”

  “And he’s still interested in meeting me? Because that usually stops ’em cold.”

  “Patty says he likes strong women.”

  “Who are also armed?”

  “Just don’t wave it around. Be your usual charming self. It’ll be great.”

  “I don’t know, Mac. After that last blind date . . .”

  “You know why that went wrong? It’s ’cause you let your daughters set it up. Who the hell sets up their mom with a bartender?”

  “Well, he was pretty hot. And he made a mean martini.”

  “You should always start with the background check.” He gives a bow. “And yes, you can thank me for that. At least with Patty’s cousin, you know right off the bat he’s okay.”

  Okay. When had okay become the best she could hope for in a man? When did she stop seeking the thrill of raging hormones and a pounding heart and settle for the merely acceptable?

  “What’s this cousin’s name?”

  “Tom.”

  “Tom what?”

  “Blankenship. He’s a widower with two grown kids. And like I said, I ran a background on him. Not even a parking ticket.”

  “Sounds like stellar dating material.”

  Tonight is billed as nothing more than beer and burgers at a pub on Brighton Avenue, so why is she still standing in front of her closet, debating what to wear? She has not been on a date in months, not since the hot-but-larcenous bartender. She doubts this evening will turn out any better, but there is always that chance, that cruel glimmer of hope, that this man could be the one, and she doesn’t want to blow it. So she stands perusing her closet for just the right outfit.

  Not the blue dress, which she outgrew about two sizes ago. She yanks it off the hanger and tosses it onto a growing pile that’s bound for the Goodwill donation bin. Her green dress has stains in the armpits, so into the donation pile that goes as well. Defeated by her pitiful wardrobe, she finally rakes out her tried-and-true black pantsuit. It’s who she is anyway, a pantsuit kind of gal.

  Finally dressed and ready to go, she walks into the living room to collect her coat from the closet.

  Her daughter Gabby looks up from her magazine and makes a face. “Oh, Mom. Are you really going to wear that, tonight?”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “This is supposed to be a date, not a court appearance. Why not put on a dress? Something sexy?”

  “It’s thirty-three degrees outside.”

  “Sexy requires sacrifice.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says this article.” Gabby flips the magazine around to show her mother a photo of a dewy-faced model in a red leather minidress.

  Frankie scowls at the six-inch heels. “Yeah. No.”

  “C’mon, Mom, just make an effort. Sibyl and I think you’d look pretty tasty in spike heels. You can borrow mine.”

  “First of all, daughters should not use the word tasty and Mom in the same sentence, unless it refers to food. And second, I really don’t care if I look tasty.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Okay, maybe I do.” Frankie thrusts her arms into the sleeves of her coat. “But not for some guy I’ve never even met.”

  “Wait. Did Mac set up this blind date?”

  “Yes.”

  Gabby groans and looks back at her magazine. “Then you might as well just go as you are.”

  “Wish me luck. I might be home late.”

  Gabby flips a page. “I doubt it.”

  “. . . and then when our kids were still in high school, she went to culinary school and got her degree at age forty-four. Started a whole new career when she opened her own catering business. Man, did we eat well, the kids and me! She picked up a ton of clients up on Beacon Hill, doing their Christmas parties, New Year’s, bar mitzvahs . . .”

  Frankie glances at her watch, takes another gulp of beer, and wonders how to gracefully slip out of the pub and go home. How much more can the man say about his saintly wife, Theresa, who’s been dead now for seventeen months? Not a year and a half but a precise seventeen months, his status as a widower tallied the same way parents tally a toddler’s age. That’s how fresh his loss still feels to him.

  When Frankie first glimpsed her date across the pub, sitting with Mac and Patty, she had high hopes for the evening. Tom is trim and clean shaven, and he still possesses most of his hair. When they shook hands, his grip was firm, and he looked her in the eye as he smiled. They ordered drinks and chicken wings for the table. She told him she had twin daughters. He told her he had daughters too. Then he started talking about his late wife.

  That was two pitchers of beer ago.

  Patty announces brightly: “I’m off to the ladies’ room.” As she stands up, she gives her husband a poke in the arm.

  “Hm? Oh yeah, I’ll get us another round of beer,” says Mac and obediently rises from his chair as well.

  Frankie knows exactly why they are leaving her alone with Tom-who-has-no-criminal-record. Patty views every unmarried acquaintance as a personal challenge, and Frankie has been her most vexing project.

  Left alone at the table, both Frankie and Tom sit in painful silence for a moment, both of them staring at the platter of now-ravaged chicken wings.

  “I’m sorry,” he sighs. “I guess I’m not lighting any fires for you.”

  This is true, but Frankie wants to be kind. “I can see this is all too soon for you, Tom. It takes time to heal. Until you do, you shouldn’t force yourself to get back into circulation.”

  “You’re so right. This is my first date since . . .” His voice trails off. “But Patty’s been nagging me for months to get back in the game.”

  “Yeah, she’s a force of nature.”

  He laughs. “Isn’t she, though?”

  “But you’re not ready.”

  “Are you?”

  “It’s not so fresh for me.”

  He looks at her. “I’m sorry. Here I’ve been talking about Theresa all evening, and I should have asked about your husband. What happened to him?”

  “Patty didn’t tell you?”

  “All she told me was that it was a few years ago.”

  She is grateful for Patty’s discretion. It’s painful enough that so many of Frankie’s colleagues know the truth. “He had a heart attack. It was completely unexpected.” In more ways than one. “It happened three years ago, so I’ve had time to adjust.”

  “But do we ever, really? Adjust?”

  She considers the question. Thinks about the months after her husband, Joe, died, when she lay awake at night, tormented by questions that have no answers. By grief mingled with rage. No, she will never really adjust, because now she questions everything she once believed in, everything she took for granted.

  “The truth is I’m still not over his death,” she admits.

  “In a way, it’s kind of comforting, knowing that I’m not the only one who’s having a hard time.”

  She smiles. “I think you must have been a really good husband.”

  “I could have been a better one.”

  “Remember that, if you ever get married again. But right now, I think you should just take care of yourself.” She reaches for her purse. “It was nice meeting you, Tom,” she says, and she means it, even though there are no sparks between them, and there probably never will be. “It’s late, and I should head home.”

  “I know this wasn’t the world’s best date, but can I call you sometim
e? When I am feeling ready?”

  “Maybe. I’ll let you know.”

  But as she walks back to her apartment, Frankie already knows they won’t be seeing each other again. Sometimes there are no second chances at happiness. Sometimes, merely being content with your life is enough. The air is so cold it feels like she’s inhaling needles, but it reminds her she is alive.

  Unlike her husband. Unlike Taryn Moore. Unlike all the other lost souls whose bodies have passed beneath her gaze.

  She takes another deep breath, grateful for its sting, and walks the rest of the way home.

  BEFORE

  CHAPTER 8

  TARYN

  She really should be a better friend to Cody. He was the one person who always answered his phone when she needed a favor, the one person who tolerated her bad moods. The two of them were the black sheep of the flock, and ever since they’d met last year, when he’d chosen the seat next to hers in Western Lit, they’d been hanging out together, if only because black sheep always recognized their fellow outcasts. So yes, she really should be nicer to him, but sometimes it irritated her, the way he was always hovering nearby, trying to be helpful. Trying to burrow his way deeper into her life. She wasn’t blind; she knew why he saved her a seat in class, why he shared his class notes and slipped her candy bars when she was hungry. She would never like him the way he wanted her to like him, and how could she, when there was so much about him she found unattractive? It wasn’t just his waddling walk or the crumbs that always stuck to the front of his sweaters. No, it was his sheer neediness that annoyed her, even though she did understand where it came from. Like her, he was the kid who never fit in, the kid who was desperate to prove himself.

  She looked at him across the library table, where they both sat working. For the past hour he’d been hunched in his chair, working on the class paper that was due in two days, but he had tapped out scarcely two sentences on his laptop. As usual he was wearing his red baseball cap with the grease-stained bill, and it was pulled so low over his forehead that she couldn’t see his eyes.

  “Why don’t you ever take that thing off?” she asked him.