The Perfect Stranger (Social Media #2)(94)

Crystal checked out of the Los Angeles hotel where Jaycee placed last Wednesday’s call to Landry Wells. No one recalls having seen Jenna Coeur there; the room connected to the outgoing call to Landry’s number was occupied by a walk-in guest who registered as Jane Johnson and paid in cash. Naturally, in Hollywood, that kind of thing doesn’t raise an eyebrow. The hotel’s lobby security camera footage shows a slender woman in a large hat and sunglasses who seemed to keep her face deliberately turned away from the cameras. She could very well be Jenna Coeur—or any white-hot starlet seeking to be incognito.

Then there’s Wasabi Express on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The fact that Jaycee rattled off the number, according to Landry Wells, would seem to indicate that it’s one she knows by heart. But no one who works at the restaurant recalls ever having seen, let alone ever even having heard of, Jenna Coeur. Not surprising. It’s a busy counter place; all of their business is either takeout or delivery to various high rises. She could have used any alias and left the money for her order with her doorman; chances are the delivery kid never had any contact with her, not unusual in that well-heeled neighborhood.

There are hundreds, thousands, of residential buildings on the Upper East Side. Canvassing all those doormen is a daunting task that looms high on Crystal’s agenda, along with countless others. It’s conceivable that Jenna Coeur has been living in one of them, safely tucked away in a tower and unnoticed, for years now. After all, she had money. Tens of millions, even after paying for her legal defense team.

And there you have it: the core difference between Jenna Coeur and Diaphanous Jones, now serving life in prison for the murder of her own child.

Money.

It can’t buy everything, but the acquitted actress seems to have proven that it can sure as hell buy freedom—and a safe place to hide, where no one would ever find you.

No one but me.

Staring at the frozen image on her computer screen, showing a beautiful woman with huge, haunted eyes, Crystal shakes her head.

Look out, because I swear to God that I will track you down before you hurt anyone else. This time, you’ll get away with murder over my dead body.

“And what would you like to order, sir?” Beck asks her nephew Jordan, seated at the kitchen table with his legs dangling from the chair.

“I’ll have the bugs with a side order of . . . um . . . more bugs!”

“Yes, sir.” She scribbles on the pad in her hand, the same one her mother used when she pretended to be a waitress. She located it in a kitchen drawer after Jordan asked her if they were going to play restaurant like Grammy always did.

“Of course we are,” she assured him, and found the pad, along with a box of pancake mix and half a bag of mini chocolate chips in the cupboard.

She gladly said yes last night when her brother Teddy called to ask if she’d keep an eye on Jordan for a while this morning. He was driving down to help Dad deal with some insurance paperwork, and wanted to leave his pregnant wife alone at home to get some rest.

Beck had been planning to drive home this morning to deal with her life and was glad for an excuse to put that off until tomorrow. When she called Keith to tell him she wouldn’t be back until Sunday, he, too, seemed relieved. Their daily conversations have been perfunctory, cementing her realization that the marriage has run its course.

“All right, sir,” she looks at her nephew over the pad of paper, pencil poised, “you say you’d like the bugs with a side of bugs. Would you like the bug sauce on that?”

Jordan screams with laughter. “Yes, please!”

Smiling, Beck puts the pad aside and hands over a coloring book and crayons to keep him busy while she cooks.

At the stove, she drops a few pats of butter onto the hot griddle.

Watching it ooze to liquid, she thinks about Keith.

The thought of ending their marriage—and the inevitable mess that will entail—is overwhelming right now.

Maybe they can keep going through the motions for another couple of months—or even just weeks—until she finds the strength to do what has to be done.

She pours pancake batter onto the griddle and carefully dots each pool with chocolate chips to create eyes, a nose, a smiling mouth.

There. Just like Mom used to do.

So many happy memories . . .

So many difficult moments over the past two weeks, and many more ahead.

For all she knows, Keith is going to hit her with separation papers when she walks in the door. Well, at least she won’t be doing that today.

She still hasn’t figured out how she’s supposed to leave her father here alone.

Both her brothers have offered to take turns staying here with him in the weeks ahead. But they both have kids at home, and Neal has to work, and Teddy has to look for work . . .

She also has a job to get back to. She told her boss she’d be back Monday morning. But she could ostensibly commute to Lexington for a while. Or . . . forever.

Sooner or later her father is going to have to learn to live alone.

So, for that matter, is she.

“I’ll be fine. Go home to your husband,” Dad told her last night, picking the carrots out of the stew she’d made him. She’d forgotten that Mom always left them out; Dad can’t stand cooked carrots.

Does Louise know that?

The errant thought popped into Beck’s head out of nowhere. She hated herself for it. All week, she’d been trying to banish the idea that her father might have had an affair, an affair that might have led him to—