The Perfect Stranger (Social Media #2)(68)

But Landry is braking. Stopping. So is the oncoming car.

Elena can’t help herself: “You could have made it.”

“Like I always tell my kids when they’re at the wheel, yellow means slow down, not speed up.”

“Not where I’m from.”

Landry shrugs. “Where I’m from, slow and steady wins the race.”

Finally, the light is green, the coast is clear, and they’re pulling into the busy parking lot. Starbucks is hopping at this hour on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Reaching for the back door handle, Elena flashes back to what Tony said to her as she got out of his car at the airport this morning.

“Your secret is safe with me . . .”

What was he talking about?

What did I tell him?

She rubs her temples with her fingertips as they step from the parking lot glare into the dimly lit interior—then stops short, spotting Tony at the far end of the counter, waiting for a beverage.

Landry promptly crashes into her from behind. “Oops, I’m sorry!”

“It’s okay,” Elena murmurs.

It’s not him. As he turns, she’s almost positive the man is a total stranger who has on the kind of sleeveless muscle T-shirt Tony sometimes wears.

Or is it?

It has to be a stranger. This is Ohio. Tony’s back in Massachusetts.

Still, Elena keeps a wary eye on him as he walks out without a backward glance, half expecting him to come back.

He doesn’t.

Of course not, because he isn’t Tony.

Waiting anxiously for her turn to order coffee, she stares blankly at the menu board she’s seen a thousand times at Starbucks back home, frustrated with herself.

After connecting with the others back at the hotel, she’d finally managed to banish unpleasant thoughts of Tony and last night. But now that she’s heard his message and seen evidence of all those missed calls, toxic tendrils are once again unfurling in her mind, choking out all other thoughts.

Tony knows “her secret.”

Tony wants to talk to her.

He wants to see her, be here with her . . .

Back at home, she had a printout of the hotel reservation right next to the flight information, under a magnet on the refrigerator. Did he wander around her apartment while she was sleeping?

What if he really did follow her here?

What if he pops out any second now? Surprise!

The thought is enough to make her queasy.

“Elena?”

She blinks, and realizes Landry is talking to her, gesturing at the waiting cashier. “Your turn to order.”

“Oh, sorry, I’m just feeling a little . . . out of it,” she murmurs, and asks for a venti black coffee.

“Are you okay?” Landry asks.

She’d never understand. Aside from Meredith’s death and the cancer diagnosis they all share, Landry Wells has her life together. Elena came here thinking she was finding kindred spirits: women who know what it’s like to walk in her shoes.

But they don’t. When this weekend is over, Landry is going to go back to her handsome lawyer husband and her two beautiful kids and her big house on the water. And Kay is going to go back to . . .

Well, who knows what Kay’s life is really like?

For better or worse, cancer or not, it’s a world away from hers, which means . . .

Which means I have never been more alone in my life.

“So did you see her?” Crystal demands of Frank, the moment they’re safely back in the car.

He’s driving this time, headed back to the station house. She has some information to look up on the Internet—the sooner, the better.

“Did I see who?”

“Jenna Coeur.”

His eyes widen. “Did I see her where?”

“At the memorial service,” Crystal says impatiently, pulling her iPad out of her bag.

“Jenna Coeur was there? Are you sure?”

“Positive. I recognized her but I don’t know if anyone else did, and I could tell she was trying to keep a low profile. She was disguised as a blonde—or maybe she is a blonde now—and she came in late and then snuck out right before the end of the service.”

“Why was she there?”

“Good question.” Crystal rapidly types the name Jenna Coeur into the search engine. “There’s obviously some connection between her and Meredith Heywood. We need to figure out what it is.”

“Maybe they’re old friends or something, from when they were kids.”

“I doubt it. Meredith lived in Ohio all her life and I’m pretty sure Jenna Coeur was from someplace in the northern Midwest—Minnesota, North Dakota . . . something like that. Her real name was Johanna Hart.”

“Coeur means heart in French.”

“You speak French?”

“I took it in high school. That’s one of the only words I remember. That’s because on Valentine’s Day junior year there was this Parisian exchange student who—”

“Frank.”

“Yeah.”

“As much as I love to hear about your teenage Casanova years, we’re talking about Jenna Coeur right now.”

“Right. I’ll tell you the other thing later,” Frank says as he pulls out onto the highway. “Her name was Mimi. It’s a good story.”