pretend he wasn’t, but that wasn’t going to change facts, and Henry would make sure that Corbin never forgot it.
Henry Wood became Henry “Hank” Torrance, mediator specializing in business disputes in St. Louis, Missouri. It was easy work. There were so many simple ways to manipulate people, especially people weakened by grievances. Especially stupid people. He met a woman named Kaylee Buecher who reminded him of Claire, the way she looked and moved, and the smuttiness behind her eyes. He took her to dinner and listened as she told him, in that ugly midwestern accent, how she was the first one in her family to go to college, and her parents didn’t appreciate her, just wondered why she hadn’t gotten married yet. He never called her back but stalked her for half a year. She lived in a single-family in Webster Groves, a rental. He followed her, learned her schedule. He bought a set of picklocks, taught himself how to use them, and broke into her house whenever he felt like it. He liked to rearrange her things, spit in her leftovers, read her pathetic diary (“Hi Future Me!”). One afternoon, she came home early from work with a man from her office. Henry hid in the bedroom closet and listened to them have sex. Afterward, the man cried, moaning that he was married and he’d never cheated on his wife before. Or that’s what he said, anyway. After he left, Kaylee got on the phone and told some friend of hers all about it, then she called her office to tell them she’d be at home the rest of the day with a migraine. Henry stayed in the house all that evening and through half the night, leaving at three in the morning after standing over Kaylee’s bed and watching her sleep.
Being alone in the house with Kaylee was the best feeling he’d had since spending time with Corbin.
He visited as much as possible. He learned every hiding place in Kaylee’s Dutch Colonial, memorized every creaking floorboard and unoiled hinge. He found he could move around the house at ease with Kaylee in it. He was nearly caught only once. He was in the downstairs bathroom, the one Kaylee never used, when she came home from a night out, bolting into the bathroom to pee. Henry had time to step into the shower stall but not to pull the curtain all the way across. Kaylee sat on the toilet, ferociously emptying her bladder, and if she’d looked up and into the mirror she would have seen Henry’s face from behind the shower curtain. But she never looked up, never taking her eyes off her phone. It was what had saved her, some text she was reading that was making her laugh and cry at the same time.
Eventually, the owners of Kaylee’s house put it on the market because of the real estate boom, and Kaylee decided to move back into the city with a girlfriend. On Henry’s last night with Kaylee in the house, he cut a deck of cards in the living room while Kaylee slept upstairs. Red and he’d kill her in her bed, black and he’d let her live. It was a seven of clubs. Before leaving, Henry got a pair of scissors and cut every picture of Kaylee Buecher that he could find in half, replacing the two pieces back into the frame, or taping them together and putting them back up on the fridge. Then he stole a hand-signed screen print of Andy Warhol’s portrait of Mao that was probably worth tens of thousands.
Being with Kaylee had been fun, but also somehow lonely. Even though he’d left her the photographs he’d improved, she would never know it was he that had done it. It would just be a mystery in her life.
Henry decided it was time to find Corbin. Time to get revenge.
It wasn’t hard. According to LinkedIn, after a few years in New York City, Corbin had moved back home to Boston to work at the headquarters of Briar-Crane. During his summer vacation, Henry flew to Boston to look for Corbin. He shadowed Briar-Crane’s small South End offices; it was clear that Corbin was away. Henry left a fake business card with the chatty Briar-Crane receptionist and learned that Corbin was on the North Shore with family for most of August. Henry rented a car, drove north, and checked into the New Essex Motor Court, the only hotel with a vacancy at the