The Prettiest One: A Thriller

by James Hankins

  ALSO BY JAMES HANKINS

  Shady Cross

  Brothers and Bones

  Jack of Spades

  Drawn

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 James Hankins

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477829820

  ISBN-10: 1477829822

  Cover design by David Drummond

  For Lynne and John, who, in addition to raising the child who would later grow up and become my wonderful wife, are pretty terrific people themselves.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  EXCERPT: SHADY CROSS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  “MY NAME IS CAITLIN SOMMERS,” she said aloud even though she was alone.

  Her feet hurt as she walked. Her legs were tired. She wasn’t sure why she was walking, but she kept going, her sore feet protesting as they carried her across the cracked pavement.

  Though the night was clear, she walked in a fog. What day was it? Did she have to work in the morning? If so, she’d have to be in the office by nine. For a moment, she wasn’t certain what office that was, then remembered she was a real-estate agent. She couldn’t imagine why that fact had momentarily escaped her. Something bumped against her leg and, looking down, she was mildly surprised to see that she was holding a small canvas bag by its strap. She wondered where she’d gotten it.

  She didn’t know where she was or how she had ended up there, walking across that pavement. She looked down and saw faded, painted white lines passing under her feet, one after the other, as she walked. She was in a parking lot. An empty one. No idea why. She’d simply woken up and there she was . . . wherever that was.

  But no, she hadn’t truly woken up, because she hadn’t been asleep. That was how it felt, though, like she’d been sound asleep and dreaming for days. Even now, wisps of pale memories shimmered briefly in her mind before disappearing quickly, the way snippets of dreams so often do moments after waking.

  I know who I am, she thought, then followed that thought immediately with, Why wouldn’t I?

  The last thing she remembered was . . . well, it was hazy. She recalled . . . going to the gym, maybe? And being in a store, a small one with a bell over the door. She’d bought . . . something yellow.

  She kept walking, kept putting one achy foot in front of the other, until she saw a car up ahead illuminated by the wan light falling from a thin sliver of moon. It felt to Caitlin as though she might have been heading toward the car all along without even knowing it, so she held her course.

  Moving slowly, she walked all the way to the far corner of the lot, where the car waited in the moonshadow of a big shade tree. She stopped and turned. Far across the expanse of empty asphalt hunkered a big rectangle of a building. It looked like a warehouse. Even from this distance, and despite the dim moonlight, the structure’s broken windows and graffiti-decorated cinder-block walls told Caitlin that it was abandoned. She turned back to the car and peered through the passenger’s window. There were no keys in the ignition. She reached into a front pocket of her jeans and found a set of keys. She pulled them out, slid one into the keyhole in the door, and unlocked the car. Inside the vehicle, she slid behind the wheel and dropped the bag on the passenger seat beside her.

  “My name is Caitlin,” she said to no one.

  She started the car, then wondered where to go.

  Home, she realized. Of course she should go home. Her husband must be wondering where she was.

  Join the club, Josh, she thought.

  “My husband’s name is Josh,” she told the empty car.

  She glanced at the dashboard clock: 1:17 in the morning. Josh must be frantic. She leaned first to one side then the other, patting her back pockets. It felt like she had a thin wallet in one. The other pocket was empty. Strange—she always kept her cell phone in her back pocket.

  Okay, no phone. No problem. She’d just drive home and talk to Josh when she got there.

  She eased the car across the empty lot until she reached the exit to the street. It was a quiet, wooded road. This warehouse, wherever it was, was located somewhere remote. Caitlin looked left, then right, then chose left because . . . well, because she had to choose a direction.

  She drove for a few miles, surrounded by trees, until the trees started to thin and signs of life began to appear—first a few houses, then a few businesses, then a strip mall. On the other side of the street from the mall, she spotted the bright yellow sign of an open Shell station. She was about to pull in, ask where she was, and figure out the fastest route home when she saw a sign for Interstate 91 North.

  She nodded to herself. This situation didn’t feel right at all, and she was confused about a lot of things, but she suddenly felt strongly that I-91 would take her home. She checked the fuel gauge, saw that it was nearly full, and swung onto the on-ramp. Soon she passed a sign for Holyoke, which she knew was in Massachusetts. Finally, she had an idea where she was, even if she still didn’t know how she’d gotten there. More importantly, she knew she’d be home in Bristol, New Hampshire, in a few short hours.

  Nothing made sense to her. She had so many questions. But she was suddenly very tired, so she refused to think about anything but the road ahead. She’d be home in a little while. It would be good to get home.

  CHAPTER TWO

  JOSH SOMMERS DREAMED OF HIS wife, as he often did. Tonight, she was wearing her yellow sundress with the red flowers, the one she’d worn on their first date. They were walking in a nondescript park, surrounded by faceless people enjoying the brilliant sunshine. He and Caitlin were laughing. They used to laugh a lot together. Somewhere, a church bell rang.

  “Come on,” Caitlin said, “we’ll be late.”

  She turned and started away from him at a trot, the sundress swaying against her slender calves, her blonde hair bouncing against the back of her neck.

 
; “Slow down,” Josh called.

  She turned her head and smiled but didn’t slow her steps. In fact, she began to retreat from him more quickly, even though her legs didn’t seem to be moving any faster. Somehow she slipped farther and farther away, despite his having broken into a run.

  “Caitlin, wait for me.”

  She didn’t turn around again. And she didn’t slow down. She was almost flying across the grass now, moving with an ease and grace that should have been impossible at the speed she was traveling. The sun disappeared behind a dark veil of clouds that hadn’t been in the sky just seconds ago. A strong, cold wind blew in Josh’s face, slowing him down, though it didn’t seem to touch Caitlin at all.

  The church bell rang again. Caitlin reached the crest of a hill and stood for the briefest of moments, a bright splash of yellow against a sky as dark and gray as wet concrete.

  Josh was running as fast as he could now, his legs pumping, his heart hammering.

  The bell rang again and Caitlin sank from sight behind the hill.

  She was gone.

  Josh opened his eyes to the darkness of his bedroom. He’d known it was a dream all along, but his breath was still short and his pulse was still pounding. He blinked at the ceiling, slowed his breathing, and tried to calm his racing heart. His hand reached out and found the cold, empty side of the bed.

  The doorbell rang, and he realized it had been ringing for some time, that it had been the church bell of his dream. He turned to the clock by his bed: 3:09 a.m.

  What the hell?

  He slipped out from under the bedcovers, tugged on a pair of jeans, and headed for the stairs as the doorbell rang yet again.

  “Hang on,” he called as he neared the bottom step.

  He crossed the foyer and peeked through the little curtain beside the door. It took a long moment for his mind to process what he saw. As soon as it did, he fumbled with the dead bolt and yanked open the door.

  Caitlin stood on the porch.

  It was really her. It didn’t seem possible, but there she was.

  “I’m sorry, Josh,” she said as she slipped past him into the house. “I know it’s late. I know I woke you. I would have called, but I must have lost my phone.”

  How . . . ?

  “And I would have let myself in, but I guess I lost my house key, too,” she said. “It’s probably with my phone, right?”

  He could only stare at her.

  “I know you must be angry and have a lot of questions,” she added. To Josh, she sounded like someone who had recently awakened from a drug-induced sleep. “Believe me,” she said, “so do I. But I’ve been driving for hours and I’m really tired. Can we talk in the morning?”

  She did indeed look tired. And a bit . . . lost. She also looked very little like the woman he’d married.

  “Caitlin?” he asked. “Is it really you?”

  She was heading for the stairs when she stopped and turned back toward him.

  “I expected questions,” she said, “but that wasn’t one of them.”

  “What were you expecting?”

  She gave a small shrug. “Maybe something more like ‘Where have you been?’ ”

  He nodded. “Okay, where have you been?”

  She said nothing for a moment, looking lost in thought. Finally, she said, “I really can’t tell you.”

  “Seriously?” he asked, his voice rising just a little despite his effort not to let it. “I understand you were upset with me when you left, but you’ve been gone for seven months, and you can’t tell me where you’ve been?”

  Caitlin opened her mouth to reply, then seemed to realize that she had no idea what to say.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “WAIT,” CAITLIN SAID. “WHAT? Seven months?”

  That made no sense to her. For a moment, she thought her husband might be putting her on. But he looked so . . . stunned. And serious. Then she wondered if something could be wrong with him, like he’d had a stroke or something. Finally, she had to consider the possibility that there was something wrong with her instead.

  “What, Caitlin?” Josh said. “You just lost track of time? Somehow seven months just—”

  He stopped. His eyes widened.

  “Is that blood?” he asked.

  Caitlin looked down. Her low-cut, tight-fitting sweater was maroon, so it was hard to see the darker red splotches. But they were there. At her stomach. On her sleeves. She also now saw smaller reddish-brown spots on the thighs of her dark jeans. She looked back up at Josh.

  “Jesus, Caitlin,” he said, moving quickly to her. “You’re hurt.”

  “I don’t . . . feel hurt.”

  “My God, what the hell happened?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  He touched her arm with a quick, comforting hand before slowly, gently lifting her sweater. He was wincing before he even got a glimpse of what lay beneath. Caitlin kept her eyes on his face, not wanting to see whatever wound she’d suffered. Josh’s wince disappeared and a frown took its place. Still holding up her shirt, he peered at her sides, then her back.

  “There’s nothing here,” he said. “I don’t think it’s your blood.”

  She wasn’t all that surprised. She hadn’t felt injured. Of course, that begged the question—

  “So whose blood is it?” Josh asked.

  She wished she knew.

  The shower seemed to clear Caitlin’s mind a bit. She stood with her head down and let the hot water wash over her, allowed the steam to work its way into her. She was tired, but she no longer felt drugged. When she stepped out of the shower, she found that Josh had left her favorite flannel pajamas on the vanity, the ones with drawings of teacups all over them. After she dried off, she slipped into them and they felt wonderful.

  She turned to the sink, used a corner of her towel to clear the steam from a little circle in the mirror, and nearly screamed.

  The person looking at her from her reflection wasn’t Caitlin.

  She backed away, bumping into the wall behind her.

  After a steadying breath, she stepped forward and looked again at the mirror, but the steam had already reclaimed it. She used the towel to clear another spot, then sucked in another breath, a deeper one, and looked.

  Who the heck was that?

  Where was her blonde hair? Who had dyed it red?

  And if she hadn’t still been so confused when she’d washed her hair in the shower moments ago, she likely would have noticed then that it was a good four inches shorter than she’d always kept it. No longer shoulder length, her hair now fell just below her ears.

  Caitlin leaned closer to the glass and studied her face. It was thinner. No one would ever have called her overweight in the past, and she still looked healthy, but she could see in her cheeks that she had dropped some weight. She ran her hands down her sides. Five pounds gone, maybe ten, which, when you started at 123, made a difference you could see. Where had the weight gone?

  Where had the time gone?

  Josh said she’d been missing for seven months.

  Seven months.

  When Caitlin walked out of the bathroom, Josh was sitting on the bed, waiting. As soon as the door opened, he came to her, wrapped his arms around her, and hugged her as though he never planned to let her go. She hugged him back and it felt good. He kissed her damp hair. She breathed in his scent.

  After the longest, most meaningful embrace of her life, Caitlin said, “I need tea.”

  Downstairs, she sat at the kitchen table while Josh made her tea with honey and lemon; then he followed her into the living room where she curled up in a corner of the sofa. Josh sat beside her. Not at the other end, but right beside her.

  “Feeling okay?” he asked. He looked like he was trying to be casual about it, but Caitlin could sense him studying her. That was natural, she supposed, under the circumstances.

  “I’m okay,” she said, though it was only partly true. Physically, she felt fine. Mentally? Less so. She took a sip of tea, he
r hands wrapped around the oversize mug.

  “While you were in the shower,” Josh said, “I bagged up the clothes you were wearing. I also went out to the car in the driveway and found a gym bag on the front seat.”

  He nodded to a little black canvas bag on a chair across the room. Caitlin looked at it. It seemed familiar.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “Ready to talk?” he asked softly, still watching her intently while trying to appear as though he wasn’t.

  She shrugged. She wasn’t sure how much she could say. She didn’t know anything.

  “Okay,” he said, “I’ll start. When you left seven months ago . . .”

  “Has it really been that long?”

  “It has.”

  My God. “I don’t remember it, Josh. Not a moment of it.”

  He frowned, then smiled uneasily, and it felt to Caitlin as though he were trying to gauge her honesty. Well, why wouldn’t he? This was crazy. After looking into her eyes for a long moment, he dropped his gaze to the tabletop.

  “Honey . . .” he began, his voice different. Sad, maybe. He started to say something else, then stopped.

  Her heart sank. He didn’t believe her.

  Finally, he nodded, seemingly to himself, and said, “You were gone more than half a year.” When he looked up again, his eyes were wet. “I thought you were dead, Caitlin. Everyone thought you were dead.”

  He took a big, shuddering breath. Caitlin reached out a hand and held one of his.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”

  Heck, she couldn’t even imagine what she herself had been through.

  “You really don’t remember any of it?” Josh asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s terrible. I looked in the mirror upstairs and didn’t recognize myself. I came home covered in blood. Whose was it? What the hell happened to me?”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  She tried to focus her thoughts. There was a parking lot. And . . .