Page 20 of Willing Prey

SIXTEEN

Claire

It’s nine in the morning on day nineteen, and I’m meeting Sydney at the Green Bean to pick up my mail.

Also to prove Shane hasn’t turned me into a fuck puppet and strung me up in his attic.

Though I’ve been calling her to check in, she’s still uneasy.

I’d never told her about Keith’s and my forest frolicking, so it was a lot to take in when I explained Shane’s offer.

Bad as I felt for dumping it on her, I’d needed someone who didn’t work for Shane to know where I was—and what I was doing.

After almost three weeks in Shane’s house, I feel confident that he isn’t the kind of odd that ends up on true crime podcasts.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t definitively say that at the start when I was filling Sydney in.

Trying to explain the Christmas party encounter didn’t ease her worry that Shane has nefarious motives.

Today should calm any lingering anxieties she has about the situation.

Give her a chance to see that while I may be prey, I am very willing prey.

She’s sitting outside when I arrive. Two iced coffees are sweating on the metal table in front of her, and a stack of mail rests outside the perspiration zone.

At my footsteps, she looks up from her phone, pushing oversized cat-eye sunglasses on top of her head, revealing lime-green fake eyelashes the same shade as the streak in her otherwise jet-black hair.

When we hug hello, she smells like peaches.

The attention to detail makes me smile—her ’50s-style dress is covered in cartoon pictures of the fruit.

During the school year, she tones down her style.

She says she’d rather dress dull than be pulled into the principal’s office every other week because a parent saw her at pickup and didn’t like her artistic expression.

Pushing me out to arm’s length, my best friend—and roommate since the divorce—gives me a once-over. “You don’t look too roughed up.”

“Still kicking.” Nodding toward her dress since she’s death-gripping my upper arms, I say, “Love the dress, and the perfume.”

Sydney grins as she releases me. “I knew you’d appreciate it.”

Settling into the sun-warmed metal chair across from hers, I gratefully take the iced coffee she offers me, the first sip making my taste buds rejoice. “How are you? Is it nice having the place to yourself again?”

Sydney and I were roomies all four years of undergrad. As far as postdivorce roommates go, she’s the dream, but she’s also getting married this fall. I haven’t decided if I’ll take over her lease or find a different, less expensive place.

“I’m good.” She sips her own drink. “You can come back whenever you’re ready, though. I kind of like reliving our dorm days.”

“As long as we don’t relive the quesadilla incident.”

She sniffs, her expression haughty. “You know I’m not the only person who’s tried that.”

“Reheating a cheese quesadilla with a flat iron? You’re the only one.”

“In theory, it should have worked.” She’s concerningly thoughtful. “I’d like to try again in a more controlled environment. I still think the problem is that the straightener was cheap. Only one heat setting.”

Hell no.

I give her my best teacher glare, but she gives me one right back.

It’s a showdown now for which of us can be the glariest. I already know I’m going to lose—she teaches first grade, which requires mental fortitude I don’t possess.

“You can form your hypothesis for now, but at least wait until I’m back to test it.

I’d like to see you explain yourself to the firefighters. ”

“I’ll use some sort of nonstick spray. The tortilla sticking is what got us last time.”

Sighing, I reach for my mail. “There was no ‘us.’ Just you, your straightener, and a charred quesadilla. I was asleep.”

“Sleeping through greatness,” she says with a laugh.

Ripping open the first letter, I’m relieved to see it’s another recall notice for my truck’s passenger-side airbag, not a bill. “I’m getting you his-and-hers fire extinguishers as a wedding gift. Irving will thank me.”

Sydney snorts. “Just make sure you put little bedazzled Mr. and Mrs. stickers on them.”

“Already planning on it.” I move on to the next envelope, see it’s my student loan statement, and set it to the side unopened. Despite my being signed up for electronic statements, good ole Sallie Mae wastes paper to taunt me monthly.

“Okay, I’ve waited long enough. I want to know all about the serial killer you’re fucking,” Sydney declares while I tear a save $5 on $25 purchase coupon out of a dollar-store mailer.

Of course, just then a man walks by. I accidentally make eye contact with him and fight the urge to say, She’s kidding . Seems like protesting too much.

“You won’t believe me, but Shane’s really nice. Sweet even.”

Taking a long, slow sip of her coffee, she evaluates me. “You’re hiding something. Is he incredibly unfortunate-looking, and you haven’t told me because you don’t want to be mean? Does he have a creepy dick? You should tell me. I don’t want to mock him if he can’t help it.”

My sip goes down the wrong pipe, and I gurgle a cough. “You Googled him; you know what he looks like.”

“Cat. Fishing.” She makes one word into two. “We’re going to have a long talk about AI and photo editing before you start seriously dating. Anybody can look like anybody.”

“But I’ve met him in real life. He looks better in person than on his LinkedIn.”

Understatement.

Shane in a suit is attractive. Shane in a T-shirt and jeans could make me crash my truck doing a double take.

“There has to be something wrong with him.”

“He works crazy hours. I don’t think he has time to date.” As I say it, I realize I’m wrong. Shane’s around enough to have a relationship.

“You need to be careful. I know there’s something. He has a room full of stuffed animals with Fleshlights up their asses. He replaces the cream in Oreo cookies with jizz. Keeps a mannequin foot in the freezer and—”

An amused, feminine voice interrupts Sydney. “No mannequin feet that I know of, but my knees can’t handle the attic ladder. So he may have something fun stashed up there.”

Sydney and I whirl toward the voice.

Oh my god.

It’s Gretchen. Her pixie cut is perfectly tousled, her white-and-hot-pink hair nearly fluorescent in the sunlight. I’m surprised I didn’t notice her sooner. Cup of coffee in one hand, paper bag in the other, she beams at me. “Fancy meeting you here, Claire.”

“Hi, Gretchen,” I say awkwardly, trying not to let my panic show. She probably thinks I’m shit-talking Shane. That I’m unprofessional. A horrible person. I’m in full spiral mode. I’m going to get fired, lose the rest of the money, and possibly hurt Shane’s feelings.

Sydney glances between us and makes the connection way too fast. Shoving an empty chair back from the table with a Doc Marten–clad foot, she gestures toward the seat grandly. “I take it you know the man of the hour?”

“Sydney”—my tone is between a warning and a plea—“this is Gretchen. She works for Shane. Gretchen, this is Sydney. She is my roommate and has no boundaries.”

“I’d like to clarify that by ‘work,’ she means I manage the house.” Gretchen’s eyes sparkle like she’s delighted by this encounter. “I survived the Jane Fonda era; that’s enough cardio for a lifetime.”

Sydney cuts her eyes at me, then refocuses on Gretchen. “Interesting. Did he send you to follow her? You realize this seems suspicious, don’t you? The first time I see Claire and—”

“She listens to a lot of true crime podcasts,” I interject. “I swear I didn’t tell her that Shane violates cookies or stuffed animals or fucks freezer feet or whatever she was saying when you walked up.”

Gretchen sits with a laugh. Setting her bag on the table, she pats my forearm comfortingly. “It’s okay, sugar, I’m not a narc.” Turning to Sydney, she says, “Which podcasts?”

Before I can make sense of the situation, Gretchen and Sydney are already deep in conversation.

It takes me a moment to adjust, but once I do, it’s fun.

So fun that a good fifteen minutes go by before I realize I’ve only opened half my mail.

I’d planned on opening it here so I could send anything important back to the apartment with Sydney, not tote it to Shane’s.

Pulling a plain business envelope from the pile, I’m distracted by Gretchen and Sydney as I open it and pull out a folded piece of paper.

Pain slices across my fingertip, the annoying zing of a paper cut.

Fuck.

Pressing my thumb to my wounded index finger to stem the tiny stream of blood, I shake the letter open with my other hand.

A Polaroid tumbles out, landing face up.

Aged and battered, I recognize it on a cellular level long before my eyes focus.

It’s a photo of Keith and me, eleven years younger.

We’re on our honeymoon, bundled in winter gear, kissing in front of a ski lift.

Grief is a lightning strike. Blazing through my bones, rousing everything it touches.

My rib cage strains as buried someday s and one day s reanimate and try to dig their way out.

They’re panicking, writhing in my chest. My brain is shrieking, Stay dead, please stay dead, there’s nowhere for you to go .

I’m a dozen self-help books deep, and not one has told me what to do with dreams built around a person who stopped loving me.

And I don’t know why they stopped.

There’s a lump in my throat—a someday , probably—but I gulp it down. I’m not crying outside a coffee shop. I fucking refuse. Sydney and Gretchen have gone silent, and when I tear my eyes from the photo, they’re watching. Waiting.

“Keith,” I say quietly.

Sydney reaches for the photo. I start to read the letter.

It’s handwritten. I make it two words. My name written in Keith’s looping scrawl makes my eyes prickle.

The last year of undergrad, we were long-distance.

We talked on the phone all the time, but every single week he wrote me a letter.

Mundanities become memories when someone you love writes them down.

I kept every single letter, right up until the end.

I’m not doing this anymore.

“Will one of you please read this?” I set the letter on the table. “See if there’s anything I need to know.”

Anger makes my hand tremble as I pick up my drink. The ice rattles against the cup wall. I place it back down without taking a sip.

Sydney’s skimming the letter, her face twisted in derision. When she’s done, she passes it to Gretchen. “Look at this horseshit.”

Gretchen looks at me first, seeing if I’m comfortable with her reading it. I’m surprised my lips don’t crack when I smile. I feel that brittle. Nodding, I say, “Have at it.”

As Gretchen reads, I try to force myself to relax.

Breathe.

He’s trying to make you emotional for whatever reason.

“That is a letter,” Gretchen says, folding the paper in half.

I shouldn’t laugh, but I do.

Sydney joins in, adding, “You don’t want to read it. Too many words to say I found this photo and remembered the good times, hope you’re doing well .”

“Anything damning enough to send to Naomi and get his ass in trouble?” That would improve my mood.

Gretchen shakes her head. “Assuming Naomi’s the new one, no. It’s carefully worded. Fucking lawyers.”

Sydney gestures to the photo. “How much do you know about this mess, Miss Gretchen?”

Over the past nineteen days, I’ve chatted with Gretchen about my ordeal. She knows I’ve been divorced a little over six months, my husband cheated on me, and he works with Shane.

“Enough to gently suggest she throw out that picture.” Her smile is sympathetic.

Part of my self-control leaves my body with my exhale, and I mutter, “I’d like to throw a dart at it.”

That gets a laugh. I try to push thoughts of Keith out of my head as the conversation slowly turns to other things. After I’ve gone through my mail, I grab all the junk—picture and letter included—and march it to the trash can outside the coffee shop door.

Gretchen and Sydney cheer when I drop it in, startling me and a couple exiting the shop.

“Thank you for your support.” Dropping into the chair with a clang, I’m pleasantly surprised that I feel better than I did when the photo was sitting on the table.

“I like seeing you stick to your guns,” Sydney says.

Gretchen nods. “You’ll do so much better than him.”

“She will.” Sydney’s chirp is confident. “Oh, let’s circle back to where we started. Claire shouldn’t tell me about the mighty hunter, you should.” Angling her body toward Gretchen, she waits expectantly.

“You don’t have to humor her,” I tell Gretchen.

She winks at me. “I could share a fact or two. What would you like to know?”

“What’s wrong with him?” Sydney’s question comes whiplash fast, as does my admonishment.

“Stop. That’s rude.” I get another forearm pat from Gretchen.

“Gretchen knows I don’t mean it rude.” She fidgets with her drink. “I’m just trying to understand. If he’s as nice, normal, and good-looking as Claire says he is, he shouldn’t be single.”

The day is suddenly far too hot, sweat beading between my breasts. A droplet runs from my temple. Gretchen, bless her, doesn’t acknowledge the “good-looking” comment. She watches a woman pass by our table, smiling at the dachshund she’s walking.

“Between us,” Gretchen says pointedly, “Shane is a character.”

Sydney opens her mouth. Gretchen gives her a look and keeps going. “Not an ejaculate-in-the-potato-salad or whatever you said earlier sort of character.” I stifle a laugh. “He’s particular, obsessive, and he has the curse a lot of extremely successful men have.”

“If you say vampirism, I’m out,” I warn Gretchen.

She tsks. “As if you weren’t floating around the house the other day with teeth marks on your neck.”

Her side-eye has me sliding lower in my chair. “Never mind.”

Sydney makes a thoughtful sound. “So he’s a biter. Noted.”

Gretchen continues, “He avoids things he thinks he won’t excel at. That man’s scared of anything that doesn’t have a handbook and KPIs.”

What?

Sydney looks as confused as me. I’m starting to ask for clarification when a cheerful tune plays and Gretchen pulls out her phone.

“Oh, that’s my daughter.” Now she’s up and moving, collecting her bag in one hand as she holds her phone in the other. I wave for her to leave her empty cup for us to recycle.

To Sydney, she says, “It was nice to meet you,” and to me, “See you at the house.”

Then she’s going, answering her phone as she walks away.

Sydney leans back in her chair and gives me a serious look. “He’s definitely a cannibal.”