The Perfect Cover (The Perfect Stranger #2) - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,42

but the landscaping is well-maintained and pristine.

“How much longer do you want to wait?” Isabelle asks.

I look at my phone. It's half past.

Tessa is an early riser and she's probably getting her morning coffee. It's not the best time to visit an old friend, but I don't have the energy to wait any longer.

“Let's go,” I say, getting out of the car.

“You don't want to park in front of her house?” Isabelle asks.

I shake my head no.

I don't want any of her neighbors who all park their cars in their garages taking note of a strange car in their cul-de-sac. If it’s out here on the main street, then no one is going to pay attention to it.

Tessa Henderson lives at the end of a cul-de-sac, about five houses in. There are only twelve houses all around, but with their two or three car garages, it takes a good five minutes to walk to her place.

Her front door is hidden around the corner from her garage and is surrounded by lush green hedges and purple flowers spilling over the top. There is a grandiose Pepper tree, tall and magnificent, right up front.

The front door is surrounded by windows on both sides, the kind of luxury that only people who live in safe neighborhoods allow themselves.

I look for a knocker, but it's a modern door and it doesn't have one. There is a small doorbell to the right side, hidden in the wall.

Isabelle stands a little bit behind me.

When I press the buzzer, a loud piercing sound consumes the house. I see a tiny little dog fly out from the corner and bust ass toward the front door.

Fearless and full of venom the way that little dogs tend to be, she stands on her back legs and challenges me with all of her might.

A moment later, Tessa walks up to the door. She’s dressed in an embroidered bathrobe with her hair up in a turban. She reminds me of some sort of exotic widow from a fifties movie.

I have never seen her look this way. Usually, she is dressed in an unassuming and serious way.

Nothing too flashy. Nothing too opulent.

Yet here she is answering the door in a robe that you’d imagine a Vegas lounge singer would wear on her days off.

I can feel Isabelle’s body tense up behind me, but as soon as Tessa opens the door and throws her arms around me, we both let out a sigh of relief.

“Tyler? Is this really you?” she asks.

Before I can answer, she pulls me inside, along with Isabelle and shuts the door quickly behind us.

“Is this really you? You look great!”

“You, too,” I say, pointing to her attire.

“Well, you get bored wearing the same exact bathrobe all the time, you know?” she asks casually.

“This is my friend, Isabelle,” I say, turning around.

25

Isabelle

When I meet her…

I can tell that Tyler was nervous coming here, but Tessa actually puts me at ease. She has a motherly type of demeanor even though I don't think she has kids.

I like her robe and her plush pink turban. I like the casual way in which she pops up her glasses and uses them to accentuate her sentences.

She doesn't seem annoyed that we’re here so early and gets busy making breakfast and coffee. I keep insisting that I don't want anything, but she practically bullies me into eating her pancakes.

“It's so nice to have guests,” she says. “Especially, a longtime friend who I haven’t seen in a while.”

“So, you have known each other for a while?” I ask.

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“A few lifetimes at least,” Tyler adds.

The two of them reminisce a bit about the past. Tessa tells me about getting her PhD at the University of Pittsburgh.

“I majored in organic chemistry,” she says. “I got offered a job at a lab but I wanted to continue going to school so I ended up going to grad school. After that, I worked in a lab for many years. It was rewarding. I wish that I’d tried teaching, but I didn't.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“I like to keep to myself. I don't like a lot of interactions and interruptions throughout the day.”

“Really?” I ask, finding that hard to believe given how nice she’s being now.

“Well, it's not every day that you see a ghost,” she says, leaning back against the kitchen counter and looking Tyler up and down.

I open my mouth to ask her more about that, but Tyler beats me to it.

“It got pretty bleak in there,”