Lying With Strangers (16 page)

ON MONDAY EVENING, KEVIN LEFT THE OFFICE AT SIX-THIRTY, A LITTLE
earlier than usual. Peyton had strong-armed him into attending a cocktail party at Harvard with her. He normally hated those events, the lone lawyer amid a roomful of Ivy League doctors. He knew he’d end up standing around munching baby corn on the cob hors d’oeuvres as Peyton networked as usual. For this, he’d turned down a friend’s offer of seats behind home plate for tonight’s Red Sox game.

The things we do for love.

He had yet to say anything to Peyton about the story Steve Beasley had told him on Sunday. He didn’t want to think Steve was a liar, but he didn’t think Peyton was a cheater, either. That left a dilemma: How could he put Peyton on the spot about something that was little more than a rumor without opening the door to questions about his own past indiscretion? He saw no point in bringing it up, at least not until he knew more.

He took the elevator to the fourth floor of the parking garage and walked toward his car. Footsteps echoed off walls, floors, and ceilings of unfinished concrete. With the press of a button on his key chain, the alarm chirped and led him to his vehicle near the end of a long line of cars. He removed his pinstriped jacket and placed it in the backseat with his briefcase. Just as he opened the driver’s door, something on the windshield caught his eye. It was a
single white sheet of standard-size paper, blank on the side facing up. He slid it from under the wiper and checked the other side.

It was a typed page from his manuscript, presumably from one of the copies he’d left at Booklovers’—the dedication page. “To Peyton” was what Kevin had written. That message was crossed out with broad, angry strokes of red ink. Beneath it was a handwritten note.

“She’s spoken for, asshole.”

The paper began to shake in his hand. On impulse, he crunched it into a tight ball and hurled it across the garage.
Ira fights dirty,
he reminded himself.

But he was less than convinced.

The reception was held at the Fogg Art Museum, a worthy affair to mark the generous decision of a wealthy Harvard Medical School alumnus to drop a proverbial bundle in honor of his deceased older brother. While not on the university’s famed Tercentenary Quadrangle, the museum’s atrium-style courtyard was an attractive setting for everything from wedding receptions to fund-raisers. The guest of honor had wanted the party in Cambridge, even though the medical school was in Brookline, well away from the main campus. It was a fitting tribute, as the museum was near Memorial Church, where his brother’s name was forever etched in marble beside those of other Harvard men killed while serving their country since World War I.

Kevin arrived late. The courtyard was filled with about a hundred and fifty well-dressed friends and alumni, most of them from the medical school. The donor, a distinguished gray-haired gentleman, was speaking from a lectern to an attentive gathering. Kevin spotted Peyton across the room. He snaked his way through the crowd, reaching her side just as the speaker reached the tail end of his speech.

“In closing, I refer you to our school motto engraved on the
Harvard crest.
Veritas
, it reads. Latin for ‘truth’. For me, that word sums up my brother. He was true to himself. True to his family. True to his friends. And true to the beliefs he died defending on the battlefield. He stood for the truth. Let us all stand for the truth.”

After what seemed like a dozen utterances of the word “truth,” Kevin took a side glance at Peyton. She looked back nervously without making eye contact.

“I’m proud to make this grant to the medical school in the name of Douglas Hester, the truest man I ever knew. But the real truth is, I’m thirsty. So in Doug’s honor, the bar is officially open. Please join me.”

A proper level of applause filled the courtyard, followed by the murmur of emerging conversation. Kevin and Peyton still hadn’t looked at one another.

“Nice speech,” he said.

“Yes. Very nice.”

Kevin had resolved to say something to her about the note on his car, but he was losing his nerve. All this talk about “truth” had him feeling hypocritical. Mere mention of the note would trigger talk about what Steve Beasley had told him, about the rose he had found outside their front door last winter and never mentioned to Peyton, about the heckler at Booklovers’ that he’d kept to himself, and on and on. So many secrets, all of which circled back to his own deception, the series of lies and ongoing cover-up that now seemed even worse than his single act of stupidity on that cold night in Providence.

Maybe it was time for the truth. “Peyton—”

“There’s Dr. Sheffield,” she said. “Do you mind if I mingle?”

It took the breath out of him, or at least the wind out of his sails. “You go right ahead. I’ll get us drinks.”

“Nothing for me, thanks.”

“Okay. I’ll get myself one.”
I could use it,
he thought. He watched as she disappeared into a crowd that was gradually breaking into small, conversant groups.

“You look bored.”

He recognized the voice from behind. He turned and tried not to panic. “Sandra?”

“Are you going to say hello, or just stand there and gawk?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Same as you. My date’s right over there.” She pointed with a nod toward a handsome but older man who somehow made Sandra seem older, too. He was engaged in conversation in a group near Peyton.

“Well, it was good to see you again, Sandra,” he said, trying to break away.

“I was sorry to hear about you and Peyton.”

He stopped cold. “Hear what?”

“It is rather ironic, don’t you think?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You write a story about a successful woman who gets tangled up in a kidnapping after cheating on her husband. Then Peyton ends up cheating on you.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Steve Beasley told me. Right after he read your manuscript. He also told me that one of the more incidental characters is a tramp who tries to sleep her way up to partnership in a Boston law firm. There’s a nasty rumor floating around the firm that you based that character on me.”

That one hurt on several levels, not the least of which being that it wasn’t true. “None of the characters is based on anyone.”

“Good answer.”

“Please listen to me. I’m sorry about the way things went with us, but it’s important for me to know that you believe me on this. The entire time I was writing this book, I thought of you as a friend. A good friend. Even if I had intended to put you into the story, it would never have been like that.”

“Thanks for being so concerned about my feelings,” she said coolly. “But if Ira has anything to say about your writing career, you’ve got much bigger things to worry about.”

“What have you heard?”

“Just that he’s determined to show you that nobody takes on Marston and Wheeler and wins.”

Kevin did a quick shoulder check to see if anyone else from his firm happened to be at this event. “Sandra, if you know anything specific, I would really appreciate it if—”

“I’m sorry about you and Peyton,” she said, nipping that one in the bud. “That’s all I wanted to say to you. Goodbye, Kevin.” She turned and walked away.

Kevin retreated to the hors d’oeuvres table. He staked out a spot nearest the exit, sampling the smoked salmon on little square toasts as his eyes darted across the courtyard in search of Peyton.

Of all the people to show up—Sandra. Peyton still didn’t know a thing about her. He regretted it, for sure. But it had happened at a time when his marriage was faltering so badly that Peyton hadn’t even told him she was pregnant. Who could say which was the greater deception? There could be no betrayal unless both people were being true to each other. Or so he had nearly convinced himself. This much he was sure of: It certainly would have been a betrayal of the highest order if he had strayed during happier times, when things had been going strong between him and Peyton, say as recently as two weeks ago—precisely when his friend Steve claimed to have overheard Peyton’s lover on the telephone.

He was popping clumps of salmon as if they were peanuts, his mix of emotions suddenly so stirred up that he wasn’t even aware of how overstuffed his mouth was. He kept an eye on Peyton, then finally got her attention. After dozens of events like this one, they had that nonverbal-communication-from-across-the-room routine down pat. He signaled and started toward the exit. She followed.

He headed down a lonely marble corridor and found himself at a set of locked doors at the entrance to a lecture room. He would have preferred to go inside the hall, but it seemed private enough at the end of the long corridor.

Peyton caught up to him and said, “We can’t leave yet. We just got here.”

“I’m sorry. I have something to say that just can’t wait.”

“What’s the matter?”

This wasn’t the ideal place to tell her, but they were alone—and it was time. “Three times in the last two days I’ve been told that my wife is seeing another man.
That’s
the matter.”

She froze, speechless. Kevin continued. “Supposedly it happened when I was in Los Angeles.”

All color seemed to drain from her face. His pace quickened, as he sensed he was on to something. “Steve Beasley said you called him at the Waldorf looking for me. He overheard a man in the background. I’ve been trying to convince myself that it can’t be true, that maybe Ira Kaufman was putting Steve up to playing a dirty trick on me. Is that all it is? Or am I fooling myself?”

“Kevin—” She started to say something, then stopped. “Do we have to talk about this here?”

“Don’t tell me it’s true.”

“I just want a chance to explain. In private.”

“I can’t
believe
this.” He turned away, then glanced back and asked sharply, “Was it somebody I know?”

“I didn’t sleep with anyone. I…I had too much to drink and got sick. I ended up spending the night at Gary’s apartment. I wasn’t unfaithful to you, I swear.”

“Oh, spare me. The guy said he saw you naked! Steve heard him!”

“Kevin—”

He walked away before his anger could make him say something stupid. Peyton hurried to keep up. “Don’t make me chase you.”

“No one asked you to come along.”

With that, she stopped. Kevin continued down the empty hall, turned the corner, and nearly slammed into another woman. He was about to excuse himself, until he realized who it was. Sandra. It was either one heck of a coincidence, or she had strategically positioned herself just around the corner at the entrance to the
ladies’ room. Neither one said a word, but from the look on her face he knew that she had managed to hear it all.

“Kevin, nothing happened!” Peyton was still out of sight, trailing behind him.

He shot Sandra a look and headed briskly for the exit, wondering which of the two might follow him out.

PEYTON WAS HOME BY TEN O’CLOCK. SHE HADN’T CHASED AFTER
Kevin, but she hadn’t expected him to leave her stranded at the cocktail party either. She waited long after most guests had already left, hoping he would return. No such luck.

A taxi dropped her at the curb outside her apartment. She climbed the front steps and unlocked the door. Before going inside, she took a long look up Magnolia Street, then down, as far as the old glowing street lamps would allow her to see. Their car wasn’t there. Kevin hadn’t come home.

She opened the door and stepped inside. Today’s mail was at her feet in the foyer. She gathered it up and went to the bedroom, where she dropped it on the bed with her purse. She checked the answering machine, but he hadn’t called. She tried his office and his cell. No answer.

Wherever he was, he clearly didn’t want to talk to her.

She let her bathwater run as she removed her makeup and got undressed, then eased herself into the tub. A long soak would do her good.

The phone rang just as she’d gotten comfortable. She was tempted to let it go, but maybe it was Kevin. She jumped out and wrapped herself in a towel, then ran to the phone and answered it.

The dial tone hummed in her ear. She hesitated just a moment, then dialed *69, the call return service that automatically dialed
back the last number that had called. For all Peyton knew, she was calling back some obnoxious telemarketer. After nine unanswered rings, she resigned herself to the fact that she would never know if it had been Kevin. She hung up and went back to the bathroom.

She had one foot in the tub when the phone rang again. Startled, she slipped and went down on one knee on the hard tile floor. She gathered herself up, pulled on her robe, and hobbled back to the phone.

“Hello,” she said, but again she was too late. There was only a dial tone. Immediately she dialed *69. After three rings, she got an answer.

“Yeah.” It was the gruff voice of a man.

“Who’s this?”

“Lenny. Who’s asking?”

“Did you call me a minute ago from this number?”

“No.”

“Did somebody just call me from your phone?”

“Only if they got your number off the bathroom wall. This is the pay phone at Sylvester’s.”

Peyton could hear noise in the background, like a crowded bar. “Okay, thanks.”

She hung up, unsure of what to do. She’d never heard of Sylvester’s, but it was more than conceivable that Kevin had left the party and gone straight to a bar. Maybe he’d had a couple of drinks, called her from the pay phone, and then chickened out.

She cinched up her bathrobe, went to the kitchen, and pulled out the yellow pages. Sylvester’s was in South Boston, relatively easy to reach by taxi at this time of night. But what was the point? She wasn’t even sure it was Kevin who had called. Better to stay put and wait for him to call again.

She was suddenly hungry. Kevin had managed to rob her of an appetite for hors d’oeuvres at the cocktail party. The last she’d eaten was at the hospital’s noon lecture. She grabbed a boil-in-the-bag dinner from the freezer and dropped it in a pot of water
on the stove. In twelve minutes it was done, in another eight she’d finished eating. After cleanup, it was almost 11:00
P.M.
Still no word from Kevin.

She stretched out on the living room couch and switched on the late news. It was the usual smattering of daily violence, but she was hardly watching. In her mind, she was already rehearsing her speech to Kevin for when he walked through the front door—which would be soon, hopefully. She’d tell him the truth, of course. It was about time for that.

The question was, would he believe the truth?

She grabbed the remote and channel surfed for something that might at least distract her, if not ease her mind.

The phone rang. Peyton’s eyes opened to the sight of a test pattern on the television screen. She checked the clock on the mantel. It was 4:11
A.M.

She’d fallen asleep on the couch, waiting up for Kevin. Obviously for nought. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and answered the phone. There was no dial tone but no reply, either. She sensed someone was on the line. “Hello,” she said, a little louder this time. Still, there was no response. She hung up and sat bolt upright on the couch. If that had been Kevin, she didn’t like the game he was playing.

Seconds later, the phone rang again. She answered, “Who is this?”

There was silence on the line. Again, she sensed the caller was still there. After several seconds, she detected the sound of someone breathing.

“Who’s there?”

The breathing became louder, and she quickly hung up. No way was that Kevin. He’d lost his temper at times, but never had he been that mean to her. Then again, he’d never had reason to believe she’d cheated on him before, either.

Moments later, the phone rang again. She let it ring nine times before she finally answered. “I know who this is. Stop it, or I’m calling the police.”

“Check your mail.”

“What?”

The line clicked. The caller was gone. She laid the phone in the cradle and paused, confused.
Check the mail?

Instinct told her to dial the police, but her curiosity said otherwise. She was sure it wasn’t Kevin, which meant it had to be the same joker who had stolen her computer—Gary. With any luck, he had been foolish enough to send her something in the mail that would help her prove he was harassing her. She rose from the couch and started toward the bedroom, where she’d left the mail unopened beside her purse. As she crossed the hallway, something caught her eye on the floor in the foyer. It was an envelope.

She knew it hadn’t been there earlier. She’d picked up all the mail on her way in. Someone had evidently delivered it in the middle of the night as she lay sleeping on the couch. Slowly she approached and picked it up. It was a standard business-size envelope with no postage and nothing written on it at all. She opened it carefully. There was no letter inside. Just an inch-long lock of sandy brown hair. Human hair.

Chills raced up her spine, as she was not sure what to make of it. She hurried back into the living room to dial the police, but just as she reached the phone the lights went out.

She continued dialing, but the phone was dead. It was a cordless model that didn’t work without electricity. Through the front window she could see porch lights burning across the street. It was clear that someone had cut off her power, probably through the master circuit outside the building. That realization sent her heart racing.

Her first impulse was to run out the door screaming her head off till she found a neighbor. But maybe that was exactly what he wanted her to do. Perhaps he was out there waiting. She needed another plan. Her gun was locked in a strong box on a shelf in
the pitch-dark closet. Useless. She had another thought: the cell phone. It was buried at the bottom of her purse on the bed, where she’d left it.

A dim glow from the street lamp streamed into the apartment, just enough to feel her way down the hall now that her eyes had adjusted. It was progressively darker as she neared the bedroom, and her steps became more tentative. She only assumed the power had been cut off from the outside. She’d never really fiddled with the circuit breakers. That was Kevin’s realm. What if they were inside? What if
he
was inside?

A ringing noise pierced the darkness. It was from the bedroom. She was about to scream, then realized what it was. It was coming from her purse.

Someone was calling
her
on her cell phone.

Peyton didn’t move. It kept ringing. She entered the bedroom slowly, then approached one step at a time, feeling her way along the edge of the bed until she could reach across the mattress and grab the purse. She dug inside and answered in a shaky voice.

“Hello.”

“Got your lover.” The voice was garbled, disguised by a mechanical device. It had a low, almost underwater creepiness to it.

“Who is this?”

“I said, I have your lover.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“His name’s Gary Varne.”

“Who is this?”

“I have pictures. Drinks at Chauncy’s. Dancing at Colombo’s. You lying on his bed while he undressed you.”

Peyton froze. He knew the exact bars she and Gary had visited that night. “What do you want?”

“Ten thousand dollars. Cash. Or your husband sees the pictures.”

Her throat tightened. She realized that the pictures wouldn’t show that she’d been sick and was unconscious while Gary had removed her soiled clothing. “I won’t be blackmailed.”

“Then don’t pay me. Or better yet, go to the police. You do either of those things and Gary Varne lands on your doorstep. Dead.”

“You mean, you’ve kidnapped him?”

“Bingo. If you’re smart, you pay. If you’re dumb, he dies. Do you understand me?”

She now realized the hair in the envelope was Gary’s. It was his exact color. She could barely speak. “Yes. I understand.”

“In two days I’ll call again. Have the cash in order. And don’t even think about calling the cops.”

She clutched the phone till she heard the dial tone. Unable to move, she simply stared into the darkness. It had all been a horrible mistake. And now Gary Varne had been kidnapped. By some guy with pictures.

Now what do I tell Kevin?