tyz7412: So what kind of investigator would you be if you were in a mystery?
mysterybkluv: oh, amateur sleuth all the way. But without all the stupid bumbling.
poirotsgirl: Yeah, I hate it when the sleuth just goes up to people and is like “I have no authority and you might be the killer, but did you do it?”
mysterybkluv: that’s the worst. I love these books but I wish the authors would respect their own characters’ intelligence.
tyz7412: you’d never be that stupid, huh?
mysterybkluv: definitely not
CELIA STOOD UP SLOWLY and backed away from the window. Her husband and her supposed friend were clearly conspiring against her, and she wasn’t being crazy or paranoid. There was no way to misinterpret the bit of conversation she’d just heard. This wasn’t Jennifer and Pete planning a surprise birthday party for her or some innocuous equivalent. They wanted to bring her to heel like a dog.
There were two ways to handle this. First, she could pretend she never heard anything, act normal (or what passed for normal at the moment) and play along until she could figure out what they were doing and why.
The second option would be to confront Pete the moment he walked in the door. This had the advantage of taking him by surprise, but she was worried about that “dose” he’d talked about. Would he overpower her, hold her down, inject her with something to change her, to make her forget who she really was?
Someone did that before, someone held me down by the wrists. Someone said I got exactly what I deserved.
The flash was brief, too brief for her to grasp completely, but she was pretty sure that Pete wasn’t the one who’d done that to her before. The man in her memory was hazy but somehow familiar.
Pete is not familiar to me. That’s been the problem all day. He doesn’t seem like someone I actually know.
She heard Pete’s footsteps approaching the door and made a quick decision. She’d play along for now, pretend that this bullshit life really belonged to her. She wanted to know who Pete was, and why he would do this to her.
But I’ve got to make sure he doesn’t give me whatever he thinks he’s going to give me. An injection? A pill in a drink?
Celia resolved not to accept any food or drink from him. She wasn’t sure what to do about an injection, though. If he was trying to do it secretly, he’d probably give it to her while she was asleep.
Should she avoid sleeping tonight? And how could she even do that? All she wanted to do was to put her head down and sleep forever. She was certain she’d never been as tired as she was at the moment.
I just have to avoid Pete until he’s asleep, and definitely not get into the same bed as him.
Celia felt her skin crawl at the thought. She wasn’t going to sleep next to a stranger—because whatever Pete said, and no matter what the evidence inside this house seemed to indicate, he definitely was a stranger to her. He was not her husband.
He’s not my husband because I don’t have a husband. And I don’t have a husband because I don’t need or want that kind of relationship in my life.
Pete opened the door just as another sharp pain stabbed behind her eyes.
This is getting old, Celia thought as she rubbed her temples. If I concentrate really hard on those flashes, will they break through? Will I be able to remember my life completely and these stupid headaches will go away?
Pete took off his coat and shoes, giving her a sympathetic glance. She was paying attention so she noticed it was a shallow thing, that his eyes didn’t really give a shit how she felt.
Because he doesn’t care. He’s playing a part. I just need to figure out why.
“I bet you’re wiped out, huh?” he said, approaching her. “Let’s get you up to bed.”
“Tired but wired,” Celia said, managing not to shrink away when he rubbed his hand up and down her arm. “I think I’ll stay up for a little bit.”
He frowned. “I don’t know. I really think you should go to sleep. You have circles under your eyes.”
“Still, I don’t think I can settle down right now,” Celia said. “I just have too much on my mind. I’ll just thrash around and keep you up.”
She said this with a butter-wouldn’t-melt smile, like she really cared whether he had a good night’s sleep or not.
His hand closed around her upper arm—not tight, not hurting, but firm in a way that told her he wanted his own way.
“Come on, Ceil,” he said, giving her the same fake smile. “Dr. Pete insists.”
She shook his arm off. “I think I know what’s best for me, Pete.”
“Sure about that?” he asked, giving her a speculative look, and that look made her stomach turn over, made her scared in a way she hadn’t been before.
Pretend not to notice. Pretend it’s all a game. Never let them see you’re scared.
“Of course I’m sure,” she said, stepping around him and going to the sink to dump out the wine and rinse out the glass. She deliberately showed him her back, showed him that she wasn’t in the least bit concerned about anything he might do to her. It was a good thing he couldn’t see the beating of her heart. That would have been a dead giveaway.
Celia felt Pete’s gaze on her. She wished she could hear what he was thinking, wished she knew what he was up to. She finished rinsing the glass and put it in the dish rack to dry. When she turned around, he was standing in the same place, watching her.
“Trash TV binge, then?” he said.
Eww, no, I hate that crap, she thought automatically. Then it occurred to her that this was part of the programming, of whatever he was trying to do to her. He was saying something that she ought to believe, that ought to be part of her personality, just like Jennifer’s insistence that she was a runner.
“Yup, Keeping Up with the Kardashians all the way,” she said. The words felt strange in her mouth, crazy. She rarely watched any TV at all, preferring movies and books.
She braced for the accompanying wave of pain following this truth, but it didn’t come. Maybe her real self was breaking through. Or maybe whatever formula Pete had given her was wearing off.
“Come on, I’ll set you up, then. I know how much you hate trying to figure out which remote to use.”
Celia followed him into the living room, certain this was another test.
Pete picked up the largest remote from a collection and turned on the wide-screen television.
Obnoxious. Who needs a TV that big just to watch sports?
Pete glanced over his shoulder. “What channel is it on?”
So this was the test. If she actually watched Keeping Up with the Kardashians, she would know what channel it was on. For a moment she thought she’d been caught, then remembered sitting in a nail salon having her nails buffed, the TV overhead showing Kim and Khloé and whoever else all those “K” people were. In the corner of the screen was a big “E.”
“E,” she said, and caught the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes as he turned back and searched for the channel.
The screen filled with a bunch of women who’d clearly had plastic surgery wearing too-tight dresses and stilettos. Two of them were arguing and all of them held glasses of wine.
“Looks like it’s Real Housewives time,” Celia said, settling in on the couch.
Pete asked, “What city is this in?”
Celia shrugged, sure that she could skip this particular test. “Who knows? There are a million of these and they’re all pretty much the same. Perfect for letting my brain drain.”
“Want me to stay up with you?”
“No, you go on ahead and get some sleep. I’m sure you’ve got something important in the morning.”
He hesitated, hunting for some reason to stay up with her. Whatever he was planning on doing, he was definitely going to do it while I was asleep.
Finally he said, “Okay, well, good night.”
“Thanks for coming to rescue me from Lyle,” she said, because it seemed like the sort of thing she ought to say if she was in a real marriage and she wanted to keep that marriage happy.
“I’ll always ride to your rescue,” he said, and bent to kiss her cheek.
This was the ultimate test, the final exam. She had to stay still, to let his dry lips brush across her cheek, to smell his breath (minty, he must have brushed before coming out to meet her), to feel the proximity of another body so close to her own skin. She didn’t feel any accompanying rush of desire, or even of intimacy. She only felt the bone-deep revulsion that she often felt when people she didn’t know got close to her. She didn’t like being touched by strangers, didn’t even like handshakes.
It was only a moment and then it was over, but to Celia it felt like two hundred years passed in that microsecond. Then he was on his way up the stairs, and she sat, listening intently for the sounds of him getting ready for bed. He walked around the bedroom for a while, and she tried to discern if the noises were putting-on-pajamas noises or collecting-medication-for-my-intractable-wife noises. Her conclusion was pajama noises when he went into the bathroom a few minutes later. She deliberately kept the television low so she could hear the sound of the mattress springs when he climbed into bed.
After a few minutes, she felt her head nod forward. Her eyes closed, and she jerked herself back awake.
Not good. I’ve got to stay awake for a while, or else he’ll just zip downstairs and jab me with a needle while I nap on the couch. When I wake up tomorrow, I won’t know who I am. I’ll be his good little wifey, just like in Stepford.
She stood and stretched, thinking she would go into the kitchen and get a snack. If her mouth was busy, she wouldn’t pass out.
The collection of pictures on the wall caught Celia’s eye and she remembered that something about the photos had been nagging at her. She crossed to the frame, filled with a collage of family snaps.
She looked carefully at each picture, trying to grab on to whatever was bugging her. Every photo was of herself, Pete and Stephanie. There were no pics of anyone on their own, none of the requisite solo child on a merry-go-round or blowing out birthday candles. There were none of just her and Pete.
You’d think there’d be something, maybe one of us when we were younger and dating. The only photo I saw of the two of us was a posed wedding picture upstairs.
The feeling that something wasn’t right with the photos was like an eyelash in her eye, a gritty irritation that made her blink and blink and blink.
None of Stephanie when she’s younger, either. There should be a Stephanie’s first birthday, Stephanie in a baby carrier, blah blah blah . . .
Her train of thought trailed off and she eagerly examined all the photos again. She’d figured out what was wrong.
All the pictures, every single one, was of her and Pete and Stephanie at their current age.
Because they’re posed. Because they took these recently, and the reason I don’t remember is because Pete—and Jennifer?—did something to me. They gave me something to make me forget, to make me passive and compliant.
Her eyes in every photo were glazed, the pupils dilated. Even her smile seemed like it was at half-mast.
Someone had drugged her and taken these photos, and then installed those photos and her in this house with these strangers.
Celia was seized by the sudden urge to panic, to flee, to run into the night and never look back. This was not her home. These were not her people. This wasn’t even her town—she was sure of that.
But what to do? Where to go? With all these gaps in her memory and no real notion of her resources, it seemed stupid to get into the car and start driving.
Seems stupid to stay, though, too. Seems stupid to stay inside the net when I know it’s tightening around me. That’s the kind of thing that always pisses me off when I’m reading mysteries.
Celia looked around the living room again. There were no books anywhere, just as she’d realized earlier. No books, no magazines, no newspapers, no reading material of any kind. Even if she hadn’t already been convinced that this life was false, the lack of paper would have clinched it. She always had a book in her bag, a magazine on her bedside table, a newspaper in the kitchen. She liked the tactile feeling of real paper under her fingers and the smell of the ink. She’d tried an e-reader but it ended up gathering dust. It felt like she was not reading at all.
Don’t get distracted. You have a decision to make here. Stay and play along, try to find out what’s happening to you and why, or head out and take your chances.
A floorboard creaked overhead. While Celia had been woolgathering, Pete had gotten out of bed. She was sure he was standing at the top of the stairs now, wondering if she had fallen asleep on the couch.
Celia hurried into the kitchen and started hunting around, looking for a snack. Her stomach turned at the sight of the pantry. Tons of prepackaged food, almost all of it processed—snack cakes, chips, cheese puffs, fake fruit bars. She’d never eat garbage like this, and she always tried to buy bulk when possible, to reduce waste.
Another floorboard creaked. Pete was on his way downstairs. Celia grabbed a snack-sized bag of Cool Ranch Doritos (urgh, when was the last time I ate these? Junior high?) and poured a big glass of water.
The stairway up to the bedrooms had three steps, then a small landing for a turn, then the main part of the staircase that completed the trip to the second level. Celia passed through the opposite end of the hallway on her way back to the television, but she could just make out the slightly darker shadow on the small landing.
Pete was standing just out of sight on the stairs, listening for her.
She clomped back into the living room, rustling the bag and humming, making as much noise as possible. She didn’t want another confrontation at the moment, not when she was still sorting things out in her head. And she didn’t want him to think he had a chance to ambush her. She was very much awake—in fact, more awake than she’d been even a few minutes before.
Her heart galloped and the blood pounded in her head. So many things still didn’t make sense but she was putting the pieces together—or rather, she was collecting pieces that didn’t exactly fit, but at least she had something.
And, she realized as she tried to relax into the couch, she’d remembered. She’d remembered that she didn’t like to be touched by strangers, that she bought books and magazines and newspapers, that she didn’t eat junk food. There had been a whole flood of information about her own self, and it hadn’t been accompanied by a headache.
I’m breaking through, she thought in triumph as she tore open the bag of Doritos and noisily crunched on a chip. The real me is breaking through.
Then the artificial flavor hit her tongue, and she nearly choked. She swallowed half the glass of water in one gulp, trying to wash away the film from the chip.
Celia tossed the bag on the table in disgust, marveling that people ate things like that on a regular basis. She wondered if Pete was still standing on the stairs. She wondered if he was contemplating his options, considering whether to overpower her or to try again to wheedle her into bed.
You’re not going to crush me, she thought fiercely. You’re not going to turn me into your little robot.
She turned up the volume on the television—not enough to wake Stephanie, but enough to let Pete know that she hadn’t passed out on the couch.
A moment later, the floorboard creaked at the top of the stairs. Celia released her breath in a long exhale. She couldn’t deny that she felt better with him farther away from her. Still, his behavior meant that she wasn’t safe while he was in the house. She couldn’t risk falling asleep here.
Where can I go, though? I don’t even have my parents’ telephone number on my phone, or any friend that wouldn’t automatically be suspect.
She tried hard to dredge up the image of a friend who wasn’t from this town, someone she could trust, but that part of her memory remained frustratingly blank. Maybe she wasn’t collecting as many pieces together as she’d thought.
Celia checked the clock. Nearly 12:30 a.m. The restaurant had closed around 9:00 p.m., and she’d spent at least two hours in the lot waiting for the police to tell her she could go home. With everything that had happened since she’d gotten home, she’d barely thought about Mrs. Corrigan, and now she wondered if the murder had less to do with that horrible old woman and more to do with Celia herself.
Someone had clearly attempted to set her up for the murder, or at least to get her into temporary hot water. There was no evidence at all linking her to the crime, and of course Celia hadn’t even had a spare moment to leave the kitchen, so she doubted the issue would be pushed as far as her being arrested. But it was a complication—a complication that, now that she looked at it, was meant specifically for her. This wasn’t just the tragic death of a not-very-beloved town citizen. This was a two-birds-one-stone murder. Someone wanted her out of the way.
But why? She wasn’t carrying corporate secrets. There was no part of her recovered memory that implied she’d been an office worker. She didn’t collect gossip, and she hadn’t witnessed a terrible crime—at least, as far as she could remember. She was just a regular person whose husband wanted to get rid of her real personality.
Could the murder be related to Pete’s behavior? Celia truly hoped so, because if not, then it meant there was someone else around here with bad intentions toward her. One confusing and scary conspiracy was quite enough, thank you.
Still, whoever had plotted to have her blamed had done a pretty sloppy job of it. There was simply no way there was any physical evidence linking her to the crime, not to mention all the witnesses who worked at the restaurant and knew that she’d been in the kitchen all day.
The gears in her head started to turn. She loved a puzzle. It was her favorite part of mystery stories, trying to follow along and solve the problem before the main character. The trouble was that she didn’t know enough about the town or the dynamics to solve this one. Mrs. Corrigan had hated her and that was about all she knew. She didn’t even have a clear idea why.
Well, you also know that Lyle Corrigan was set to inherit a lot of money. Money was a very big motivator for most people. It would be easy for him to set up Celia to take the fall. He was a police officer.
Then again, if he had killed his aunt, then why had he done such an extremely bad job of framing Celia? She rubbed her hand across her eyes. Like so many things that had happened to her in the past day, it didn’t make sense.
Celia needed to sleep. She needed to let her body and mind rest so she could try to extricate herself from Pete and his machinations as well as the mystery of Mrs. Corrigan’s death. But she didn’t want to sleep in the house. It was too risky. The trouble was that anywhere seemed too risky. She couldn’t sleep out in the open—in the yard or the woods—and there didn’t seem to be any friendly house nearby where she could take refuge.
She considered calling Katherine, but then worried that Katherine, too, might be part of the grand conspiracy. Celia had thought that her conversations with Katherine had been weird—like Katherine’s half had been scripted and Celia wasn’t properly picking up her cues. There had been something vaguely unreal about them.
The only person who hadn’t felt like a total stranger all day was Will, but Celia was wary of that feeling as well. She didn’t know if there was anyone around her that she could trust. Maybe Will was just a better actor than the rest.
There was only one place she could go, and that was only if she could be sure Pete couldn’t follow her. Celia got up, taking the bag of uneaten chips with her, and went to the bottom of the stairs to peek up. She figured if Pete stood there, then she’d just say she thought she heard Stephanie walking around. But no one was on the stairs, and all seemed silent on the upper floor.
She went into the kitchen, threw the chips into the trash, then pulled her key ring and Pete’s key ring off their storage hooks. Pete’s only had four keys on it, while hers had about twenty. She’d used at least some of those keys that day at the restaurant, but she had no idea why the rest of the keys were on the ring.
Unless the keys were put there to confuse me. It seemed petty but not impossible, given what she’d heard Pete and Jennifer discussing earlier.
With more patience than she knew she possessed, she carefully matched any keys on Pete’s ring to hers. At least one of them was for the house back door, and of course one of them was for Pete’s car.
And, as she suspected, one of them matched the door to the restaurant. She assumed the last key was for his office.
Celia removed the restaurant key from Pete’s key ring, pocketed it, grabbed her purse and a charger for her phone from the kitchen, and turned out the light. She picked up her sneakers and quietly slipped outside, locking the door behind her. She hastily pulled on her shoes and hurried to her car. She felt strangely terrified, worried that at any moment Pete would run out of the house after her.
She locked all the car doors and then turned on the engine. The moment it turned over, she saw the bedroom light upstairs flip on. Pete had been awake after all, playing possum while he waited for her to drop off on the couch.
She grinned fiercely as she pulled down the driveway. She’d beaten him—at least for today.
Celia coasted down the road and back into town. Everything was dark and quiet along the way, no sign of life except for herself, no night owls up burning the midnight oil. There was almost no ambient light, streetlights being few and far between on this road. The sky seemed unusually dark, though. Celia thought that with this little light pollution, there should be more stars.
Maybe it’s just overcast, she thought, and then realized that the state of the sky was hardly her concern at the moment. Her life and everything wrong with it was the priority.
The police were gone from the restaurant parking lot, no sign that they’d been there except for the fluttering yellow tape around the dumpster. Celia darted from the car to the restaurant and then shut and locked the door firmly behind her. She made her way into her office and shut and locked that door as well.
Earlier in the day she’d discovered some spare clothes in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet—no doubt for days when spills ruined her workwear. There were also a few toiletries tucked away in there. She’d get up tomorrow, dress in fresh clothes, wash as best she could, and no one would know she’d spent the night.
It would be nice if she had a cot to stretch out on, but it really didn’t matter. All she wanted was to feel safe, and with the doors locked and a couple of miles between her and Pete, she finally did. Celia stretched out on the floor, her back pressed against the door, and fell asleep almost immediately.