Before She Knew Him(81)
He’d been driving for ten minutes when he realized how hard he was gripping the steering wheel. He told himself to relax. Things were in motion and he just needed to let them play out.
He cruised down Sycamore Street, curious to see if Henrietta Mazur’s car was parked in front of her house. It wasn’t, so he kept going, his window cracked, expecting to hear the distant sound of sirens, but maybe he was too far from the other side of Dartford. Maybe the house hadn’t burned, the flames just sputtering out before they ever got going, but he didn’t think that was the case. He did a loop that took him up near Scituate River and did hear the distant sound of some kind of siren. It could be anything, of course, but it could also be his childhood home burning to the ground. He rolled the window all the way down. There was smoke in the air, but it had the fruity, pleasant aroma of chimney smoke, a common smell on a brisk fall afternoon.
He drove a short distance to Black Brick Studios. He knew where Henrietta usually parked, near the entrance to the basement. He left his car a block away on a side street, then walked down the hill to the lot. The gray Golf was there, along with one other car, a light blue Prius. The back parking lot was bordered on one side by a high embankment and on the other by a sloping embankment that led down to the river. A huge willow tree, beginning to turn yellow, rustled in the cold breeze. Richard stood about halfway between the willow tree and the locked back door of the studios, trying to look casual. One of two things would most likely happen next. Either Henrietta would come out from those doors and he’d be waiting for her, or whoever owned the Prius would emerge and, if that was the case—he was hoping it would be—he’d make sure he was walking toward the door with purpose, and hopefully whoever it was would let him in.
He stood for about thirty minutes, the clouds building up in the sky, till he saw the doorknob of the metal door turn. He began to walk swiftly toward the door, his phone in his hand, and watched as a woman with short gray hair emerged.
“Oh, hey,” Richard said, approaching. “Can you hold that?”
He saw the doubt in the woman’s eyes, but she held the door because he’d asked her to do it. “Visiting Hen,” he said, and held up his phone. “Does your phone work down there?”
“No, not really,” the woman said.
Richard slid past her, saying thanks, and the door closed behind him. He stood for a moment in the dim hallway and breathed deeply through his nostrils; he could smell paint and turpentine and the lingering scent of patchouli from the woman who’d just let him in. He wondered how long she’d be haunted by what she had just done. Probably for the rest of her life, he thought.
He began to walk toward Henrietta’s studio, not attempting to walk quietly. It didn’t matter if she knew he was down here. They were alone, and there was nothing she could do about it. He turned a corner, saw the light coming from underneath the door of her studio, then heard her door open. She poked her pretty head out and saw him. He kept coming.
“Hi, Matthew,” she said, a little bit of uncertainty in her voice.
“I’m not Matthew,” Richard said.
Chapter 38
Hen almost ran, but something stopped her. You run, you die, a voice was telling her, so instead she stepped out into the hallway and faced the man who just told her he wasn’t Matthew.
But it was Matthew, even though there was something different about him, in his eyes maybe, even in the way he was walking, the set of his head.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Richard,” he said. “We haven’t officially met yet.”
“No, we haven’t.” Hen’s entire body had turned icy cold, yet her brain was clicking along calmly, trying to assess the situation. “Where’s Matthew?”
“Matthew? Who knows? Who cares?”
He was taking a step forward, his face completely illuminated by one of the hallway’s hanging lamps. Maybe Richard is his twin, she thought, but then she saw the scar below his mouth, the one that made him look a little like Harrison Ford, and she realized that there was no brother named Richard. There was just Matthew, and he was far more insane than she had realized. Again, she thought of running, but she also realized almost for the first time how strong Matthew was, with his broad shoulders, his large hands. She could bolt toward the other side of the studio, toward the metal steps that led up to the first floor, but now Matthew was only about two feet away from her.
“I’d like to see your studio,” he said. “See where you make all your dirty pictures.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, and it stayed standing up, as though he hadn’t washed it for a few days. He was now close enough that she could smell alcohol on his breath.
“I actually have to go,” she said, wondering if maybe he’d let her just walk past him. Maybe if she did it quickly, nonchalantly, but as soon as she began his hand flashed forward and he grabbed her by the neck, pinching hard with his thumb and forefinger. She kicked out at him, hoping to hit him in the groin, but caught his shin instead. His face flinched, his lips parting but his teeth clenched, and, still gripping her neck, he pushed her into her studio, then shoved her hard so that she went flying backward, landing on her back and sliding a little along the concrete floor. A jolt of pain radiated up her spine.
Hen pushed herself back along the floor until she was leaning up against her chair. Matthew was looking around the studio, eyes flicking over everything.