You Are Not Alone(53)
Valerie leaned forward, her brown eyes flashing. “How would we do it?”
“Slip some in his drink.” Amanda shrugged. “A little goes a long way. Too much can be really dangerous, and even a small amount will make someone violently ill. As in, puking uncontrollably and running for the toilet. So you have to be careful.”
“But how would we even get it?” Cassandra asked.
“It’s available over the counter. I could pick some up from a drugstore,” Amanda said.
The others had looked at one another.
Amanda didn’t know it, but she’d just passed with flying colors.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
SHAY
The chances of anyone having an indistinguishable look-alike somewhere in the world—meaning all eight measurable facial features are identical—are exceedingly rare; the odds are roughly one in a trillion. But because people see the entire face of whomever they are looking at, rather than scrutinizing each individual part, they often find striking resemblances between those who don’t actually share many measurable facial similarities.
—Data Book, page 44
WARM WATER SLUICES DOWN my back and I reach for the bottle of lavender bodywash. As I adjust the shower setting, making it a touch hotter, I look down at my hand on the big silver knob. I had a manicure yesterday after I finished moving. My pink, oval fingernails don’t look as if they belong to me.
They’re the hands of someone more polished and feminine.
Like Amanda.
Amanda likely stood in this exact spot, twisting this same knob, every day. Including the day she died.
I yank my hand away from the faucet. I rinse off quickly, then wrap myself in a towel. My robe is still in one of the brown boxes stacked near my closet.
I change into sweats, pull my damp hair into a ponytail, and put on my glasses, since all I’m planning to do tonight is order in dinner and finish unpacking.
To chase away the lingering unease I felt in the shower, I plug my iPhone into a tiny portable speaker and put on a pop playlist.
I order a medium pizza with mushrooms and peppers via Seamless, then I quickly text my new landlord to remind him to drop off my key to my mailbox in the lobby. There are two rows of ten little bronze boxes, one for each of the twenty tenants in the building. I’ve already filled out a change-of-address form at the post office, so I should start receiving mail any day now.
Next I grab a pair of scissors and slice through the top of the nearest packing box. I start filling my dresser drawers with my T-shirts and sweaters, then I move on to the closet. I hang up my jackets and I’m starting on my pants when my doorbell rings.
The chime is a lower note than it was in my old place, and for a moment I mistake it for part of the song I’m listening to. Then it sounds again.
I climb to my feet and walk to the front door, peeking through the peephole.
I expect to see the pizza guy, but instead, a woman stands there, a bottle of wine in her hand. She’s fortyish, with a round face and warm eyes.
“Hi, neighbor,” she says when I open the door. “I’m Mary.”
“Hey, I’m Shay.”
She hands me the bottle of Merlot.
“Thanks.” I’m not sure if she wants us to drink it together, so I ask, “Would you like to come in?” I open the door a little wider.
She shakes her head, smiling. “Nobody wants a guest on moving day. I just wanted to welcome you to the building.”
She gestures to the open door across the hall. “I’m right here in case you ever need to borrow a cup of sugar or anything.”
Then Mary looks past me, into the living/dining area, which is already filled with the couch I brought from the old place I shared with Sean and a small round table with two chairs that I picked up at a discount store.
Her expression shifts as sorrow fills her eyes.
“I know what happened to the woman who lived here before me,” I blurt out. “I mean, in case you were friends—I just want you to know I’m sorry.…”
Mary sighs heavily. “I did know Amanda. It’s not like we were super-close, but every once in a while we’d have a glass of wine, and sometimes when I traveled, she used to feed my cat.”
Mary’s voice seems to fade away as I flash to the lies I told Cassandra and Jane—about meeting Amanda because we shared a veterinarian, and about my fictional dead cat.
A sense of dread begins to creep over me.
“Amanda had a cat, too, right?” I blurt. She was holding a calico cat in the photo at the memorial service. I’m certain of that. It was the genesis for the lie I so regret, the one that keeps snowballing.
Mary looks surprised.
Foreboding is gripping me now; I feel a twitching in my chest.
“No, Amanda didn’t have any pets.”
Of course she didn’t, I think. In all of the conversations I had with Jane and Cassandra, they never mentioned Amanda leaving behind a cat.
Something’s still not adding up, though.
“But your cat,” I say almost frantically. “It’s a calico?”
Maybe Amanda held Mary’s cat in the photo. Mary could have taken the picture.
Mary shakes her head, looking confused. She turns back and calls, “Felix!” Then she makes a clicking sound with her tongue. I hear a soft meow, and a small gray cat winds through the open door and comes to stand by Mary’s leg.