followed her there, and he’d probably also made sure to get himself invited to Bill and Carol Valentine’s apartment for drinks. At best, he had decided to seduce her—and succeeded, almost instantly. At worst, he was a psychotic murderer. She caught herself rapidly touching the pad of her thumb to each fingertip, three times on each finger, then made herself stop.
There was a knock on the door, light, almost hesitant. There was no need to look through the peephole. It’s Alan, came George’s voice. He’s chased you down. Still, Kate looked. And there was Alan’s face, serious, almost haunted. And was there something else? A little bit of anger, maybe.
Kate slid the shoes off her feet and backed away from the door, as quietly as she could, George still whispering in her ear.
Chapter 21
Kate tried to sleep some more, and when that didn’t work, she showered and got dressed, even though she had no intention of leaving her apartment that day.
She opened up her e-mail account, saw that Martha was also online, and sent her a message: Hiya.
Five minutes passed, during which Kate read an e-mail from her father telling her that he hoped she wasn’t becoming too stressed. She knew that the e-mail had been dictated to her father, or flat-out written, by her mother, who didn’t want to write the same message herself. She was about to google Alan Cherney when Martha wrote back: Hi.
Kate: How’s life? Haven’t snogged with my cousin again, have you?
Martha: I wish. he scampered
Kate: What do you mean?
Martha: Haven’t seen him, or heard him. Not that I’ve been trying to (complete lie), but he’s not around
Kate: Since when?
Martha: Since the last time I saw him. I don’t know. Heard him Saturday, I think.
Kate: Strange.
Martha: He ask you about me? Did you tell him to run for the hills?
Kate: I recommended he get as far away as possible.
Martha: You probably did, you dirty bitch
Kate: He probably rented some glamorous flat to get out of mine. If you see him, let me know, though.
Martha: What’s going on?
Kate: Nothing. Just being nosy. Gotta run.
Kate logged out of her e-mail account. Where did Corbin go? Was he on his way back here? And if so, why hadn’t he let her know?
Kate went back to googling Alan Cherney, finding very little. It looked as though he’d been a fencer, and his name showed up on tournament results, plus one photograph from the Tufts varsity squad, a picture that was ten years old. She remembered what he’d said the night before at the cocktail party about how he’d found out Audrey Marshall had been mutilated from a Boston Globe article. No, not from an article, but from the comments section of an article. Kate went to the Globe’s Web site and found an article on Audrey Marshall. There were a few comments, but nothing mentioned how she’d been killed. She checked every article she could find, and all the comments. Nothing. Either it had been deleted—pretty likely, if you thought about it—or else Alan knew what had happened to Audrey for some other reason.
Kate slid the computer off her lap and stood quickly, felt light-headed, then sat again. Her mouth was still dry from the night before and all that gin. She stood again, slower this time, and went to the kitchen. She drank orange juice straight from the carton. Once she began, she felt as though she couldn’t stop, chugging it till it ran down her chin. Then she ate a vanilla yogurt. She started to feel a little better.
She went back into the living room and looked out the window at the day. It was bright and clear, not a cloud in sight, the first day she’d seen like that since coming to Boston. The part of the river she could see, however, rippled with wind, and a nearby tree, filled with new leaves, was bending and unbending. She pressed the palm of her hand against the glass of the window; it was cool to the touch, and she could feel the wind’s vibration through her hand.
Maybe she would take a walk today, she thought, then dismissed it. She felt okay behind the locked door of the apartment, and out there in the world—out there somewhere—was Audrey’s murderer. And maybe that murderer was now interested in Kate.
She tried to tell herself she was being paranoid, but it wasn’t working. What had happened to Audrey had something to do with her. Maybe not at first, but now it