Stranger Read online

  I could go back to him.

  Am I insane? Has my survival instinct failed?

  You won’t escape me.

  I shake his words from my ears, his face from my mind. I check the clock. It’s not that late. I could go shopping.

  Spending the money, his money, is the only way I’m able to cope with the pain. It’s like if I keep using it, then he hasn’t left me, like he’s still here to take care of me when I need him. I can pretend I’m not twenty-one and parentless. I can pretend I’m young and light-hearted.

  The fact that he’s gone . . . I can’t accept it.

  Any more than the comfort I want to take from the strange man who’s threatening me with secrets. He knows the answers I’ve craved for years, but now I’d rather pretend my questions never existed.

  * * *

  I watch her walk—scurrying in those dainty shoes, on those too-cute legs that when spread across my hips would be . . .

  I ignore it. Whatever that thought was, I won’t have it again.

  When she’s lost to my sight, I walk to my truck. The dingy old Ford with a rust job for a coat of paint gets me to my temporary home on the beach.

  I get my tent and cookstove from the bed of the truck and pitch camp between the brush and the sand. I’m not the only one camping on the beach, but I talk to no one. Since I left everything in Nashville and came here two weeks ago, I’ve spoken to as few people as possible.

  I want no one. I need no one. My ever deepening plans for the little Miss Vandershall keep me company.

  I light the stove, boil water for my meager meal and . . . look down at my empty fingers. I touched her.

  She was in my hands.

  So close.

  She spoke to me.

  I dump the dry ramen noodles in the boiling water and stir with the aluminum fork. For the first time in years, progress.

  It should calm me, give me a moment’s peace in my relentless search for justice. But no matter how hard I try not to dwell on the dead, that moment’s peace does not come. The crimes her father committed against my family can’t go unpunished.

  There is no peace for me. Only rage, only bitterness, only the drive for revenge that has robbed me of my life. It should exhaust me, I am exhausted. But it doesn’t mean I’ll rest. Calm is not something I’ll know or find.

  The revulsion, the hatred burning through my veins is insatiable. That’s why I’m here. In this spot, the perfect spot to watch her.

  I turn off the stove and eat, ignoring how sick I am of this tasteless food. The waves crash onto the shore, the salt in the air tickles my nose. There’s a moon reflected in the ocean. I glanced at it once, over a week ago.

  My object of focus: her and her condo, her back terrace on the second floor with a view of the water. The interior light is still off. She isn’t home yet. I’ll stay awake until she is. My obsession is boundless.

  I fantasize nightly about how I can do what I said, and ruin her life. I stay my feet, curbing the impulse to begin now: to break into her condo, to see what she’s made of, to find out how much of me and my darkness she can withstand before she succumbs and wastes to nothing.

  I have one reason for living: the destruction of Penny Vandershall.

  There is nothing else left in this world for me.

  Chapter Three

  I drop my shopping bags over a chair and close the front door. I grip the deadbolt, then have a thought.

  If he’s stalking me at the hospital, he probably knows where I live.

  My heart racing, I open the front door and step out onto the walk. I stare into the dark, down the quiet street, between the parked cars, into the recesses of the other buildings—nothing. Only a neighbor boy taking out the trash.

  Feeling foolish and missing the adrenaline rush, I go back inside but pause over the deadbolt. Being home, facing a lonely night with no company but my grief—it’s my most feared time of the day.

  I add to my list of insane actions and leave the deadbolt unlatched. I type my code into the security system and disengage it for the night.

  The adrenaline returns. I embrace the fear I’ll now have to keep me company all night. If he tries, he’ll be able to get inside. It’s reckless, but it gives me something else to think about, something to keep me from another night of crying myself to sleep.

  Besides, being perfectly good all the time, always doing the safe thing—it’s exhausting. I’m tired of it. I need something more than “nice” in my life.

  If he wants to, he’ll be able to come in and . . . and . . . what do I want him to do? What am I afraid he’ll do? Maybe I’ll find out.

  With a twisted smile and a ragged sigh of relief, I pull out my phone and type a text. I don’t want to send it, but it’ll be easier to text my news about being moved off the intensive care unit than it will be to tell Amisha tomorrow.

  I’m off NICU.

  I don’t wait to see what she’ll reply. I drop my phone in the basket on the cherrywood table. I’ll see if she responds in the morning.

  I turn to my shopping bags. Inside the hanging one is a dress—satin and lace, ice blue and ivory. The one I’ll wear to the hospital benefit dinner. It was his favorite color on me—the blue that matches my eyes. He would’ve loved this dress, taken me out wearing it, showing me off like his prize. I was his prize daughter, if his only daughter.

  My perfect grades—enough to get into the best medical schools in the country. My perfect looks—my trim figure, my pristine complexion, my highlighted hair, my fashionable makeup and clothes. Perfect for him to display.

  It was the only way I could catch his attention—always giving him something he could present or brag to his work colleagues about.

  I dig out the box for the new watch I bought and pry it open. This I can wear to work every day. The diamonds and the crystal face are too fashionable for a hospital job, but it’s pretty, small, and it won’t be in my way. It’s nice to have on something pretty when wearing scrubs all day.

  The landline phone blinks with a message light. I groan. I know who left the message here since I ignored both of the ones he left on my cell. Blake, my older brother, means well, I think. But since he became the executor of the will, the finance manager for my trust fund, all around self-absorbed, number crunching, heartless, spineless . . .

  I have no desire to talk to him. He hated our father, for a reason I still don’t understand, and he’s made the most painful time of my life seem like a surgical, clinical experience.

  When I told him how much I missed our father—desperate for support from someone who should be sharing my grief—his response was, “You’ll forget him soon. Like everyone else should.”

  Like a knife through my lungs. As if forgetting him isn’t the thing I fear most.

  I don’t want to forget. I want to be numb. Distraction—I wonder if he’ll be there again tomorrow.

  I wonder if he’ll sneak in my door tonight.

  Just because I don’t want the answers to my old questions doesn’t mean the curiosity that’s plagued me for years has died. They reappear in my mind like ghosts, hovering over me. I want to not think about them. They should’ve been buried months ago.

  But I was forced to move away from my family, across the country—from Nashville to California—and never told why.

  * * *

  I arrive the next day, and she’s already eating.

  I gird myself against the instinctive need to go to her, to threaten her again. I force myself to wait beside the pillar at the entrance like always.

  She has to come to me.

  She hasn’t seen me yet, so I observe her puffy eyes, her hair flat and tightened in a ponytail, like she didn’t wash it this morning. Something sparkles on her wrist.

  Diamonds. On a watch. Shiny and new.

  Bitch.

  I stare at the cloudless sky, forcing the urge to do her violence back into its tightly sealed hole. I can’t hurt her—yet.

  “Who are you?” I know it’s her
by the whispered sound of her voice. That would disturb me if I wasn’t so surprised to see her standing in front of me. Her eyes are wide like a scared little deer, like prey, fearing for her life. And still, she followed my plan, she came to me. “I don’t know your name.”

  I can’t help my sadistic smile. This will be too easy. “We’ll keep it that way. For now.”

  “How come?” she whispers, her eyes alight with an eagerness that excites me.

  “My answers. You won’t like them. They’ll hurt you.” It’s a warning and a promise.

  A gust of breeze blows a blond tendril of her hair across her eyes. She pushes it behind her ear with delicate fingers, fingers that move with a gentleness that bothers me.

  Last night, when I touched her arm—her skin wasn’t just soft, it was supple, moldable, easily bruised. The sweetness about her, the naïveté—the need to devour it surges in me like a storm wrecks the shoreline.

  I want to make her hurt.

  I want to take her positive memories of that depraved man she called a father and obliterate them with the vile truth of the monster he was. Sunlight catches on the diamonds at her wrist, and the twist in my gut hardens to cement.

  “You want the truth?” I say, with as much bitterness as I feel.

  Her little throat clenches in a gulp. “I—yeah.”

  It’s on my tongue. I lean toward her. She’s willing and listening. This is the moment I’ve waited for. My breath hitches. The evil in me bares its teeth.

  But caution shouts in my brain, and I glance over my shoulder. Too many people, too close. No one can overhear. What I have to say is going to freak her out. She will get upset, and I don’t want her to make a scene.

  “Why are you looking around?”

  “Not here. Someplace else with no people.”

  Her eyes sparkle, like I’ve said something she likes. “My condo.”

  Surprise, delight—all those things roll around my head. She’s afraid of me, yet she’s giving me the opportunity to be alone with her. The beast in my chest roars with satisfaction.

  “I’ll be there.” I give her a last brutal stare. I want her afraid. The more she fears me, the better it will be.

  She closes her eyes and shivers.

  Good. I turn and stride toward my truck.

  Tonight, when I tell her that her father, a former president of Fenton University in Nashville, was in his private time a violent criminal—I won’t make it easy for her.

  Tonight, she is going to cry.

  * * *

  My daydream of him in my condo—it’s going to come true.

  What’s he going to do to me?

  Amisha walks up beside me and pulls me from my fantasy. “Penny?” She glances where I was looking. “What are you staring at?” He’s too far away now for her to see him, thankfully.

  A spark of self-preservation prompts me. “I have a date tonight.” I need a safety plan.

  “A date?” Her eyes brighten, and she claps her hands. “That’s great. Who is he?”

  “I met him online.” I feel bad for lying, but it’s better than telling the whole truth. I don’t want to have to talk more about my daddy issues. She’s spent years listening to me and my problems with him. I’d rather see her excited about the prospect of me going on a date.

  She pulls out her phone. “I’ll call you to check in. Just tell me what time.”

  A small smile creeps over my lips. She’s a great friend who really cares about me, and I’m glad for a little bit of help at least. I tell her what time, about an hour after I get home, giving me an hour alone with him.

  “I’m so excited you’re going on a date, Penny. It’s been too long.”

  Over four months. I almost wish it was a real date. But it is, in a way. It just started with him stalking me rather than over the internet.

  I’m tired of being fragile and wounded. I want to be something else now.

  Chapter Four

  She finally pulls into her driveway, and my skin vibrates with impatience.

  I’ve waited too long for this. There will be no finesse about it. Soon, in moments, I will be vindicated. Whether she believes me or not.

  She steps from the car and I’m already there, grasping her arm, slamming her car door closed. She can’t move fast enough for me.

  “Whuh—oh!” she shrieks.

  “Quiet,” I hiss, and drag her up the stairs to her second-floor front door. “Open it.”

  She stares at me, a little frozen, a lot scared—her wide eyes flash in the light of the porch lamp. When she’s frightened, it feeds my desire to make it worse. I want her scared.

  I take her keys from her hand. “Which one is it?”

  “It’s a—a keypad.”

  I see the lighted numbers above the knob. “Type it in.”

  Her fingers bounce on the keys as she types. A red light flashes and beeps. “Shoot.”

  I push her aside. “What’s the damn number?”

  She says it, and I get the door open. My hand on her back, I push her inside and move to flip the light switch, but the room automatically lights to our movement.

  I have to pause. I knew it would be extravagant from the outside but seeing it in person still makes me pause.

  Gauzy drapery around enormous bay windows, the sparkling view of the moonlit ocean the focal point of the great room. Ceilings aloft at least twenty, maybe thirty feet. Furniture and kitchen fixtures matching and sparkling like something out of a rich and famous world.

  “Sit.” I point to the nearest chair, a dark wooden one, part of a pristine dining room set.

  “The security alarm.” She points to another keypad on the wall.

  “Code?”

  She tells me, and I disarm it.

  I turn back and she’s seated where I told her, her complexion whiter than ever, though I didn’t think that possible. Her skin is the palest I’ve seen on a Californian.

  She stutters, “What are you—how is—uh—”

  I sit next to her at the head of the table. “How much do you know?”

  “About?”

  “Him.” I snarl. “Malcom Vandershall.”

  She gulps, her throat working over a swallow and shakes her head, as in Don’t make me hear this. She looks scared enough to pass out. The last thing I want is for her to scream at me to leave the condo and for all the neighbors to come running.

  “Was he violent?” I hedge, trying to see how much she knows, trying not to show that there are still things I don’t know.

  “Never.” She breathes once and her eyes drift. “Well, to me anyway. With Blake it was different. I don’t know what happened.”

  Blake is her brother.

  Her brows scrunch. “Do you know—”

  “I know everything there is to know about you.” Except what’s inside your head.

  Her breathing quickens and her voice catches. “So . . . what else?” She tucks her jean-clad legs against her chest and wraps her arms around them, like she’s protecting herself.

  She looks like a wounded bird, who I’m about to crush. The truth will do it as well.

  I lean toward her. “My sister was a student at his university.” My voice shakes, my hands clenched on the table. I can’t say this part—what he did to Louisa—without a monstrous surge of aggression. It’s a reopening of the permanent wound in my chest that most of the time I pretend isn’t there.

  Her breathing stalls as she watches me. “Say more.” It’s almost like she knows. Or thinks she knows.

  She doesn’t.

  I want to drip it out in drops, drag out her torture. I want to see her writhe in emotional pain. I want her to suffer almost as much as her father should have suffered.

  I shift my eyes to the window and take two breaths to regain control. “Louisa died because of him.”

  “How’d she die?” she whispers.

  I can’t stand the weight anymore—the feel of the bomb in my hands is too hot not to drop.

  My heart skips bea
ts, my raw voice scrapes like on a metal file. “He raped her.”

  Her breathing stops and her face goes blank.

  I wait. For it to sink claws into her purity. For it to register on her weak mind. For the horror of the truth to warp her reality.

  Her jaw slowly descends and her mouth silently shapes the word “No.”

  My pulse throbs in my ears and there’s a glimpse of it, the thing that I’ve longed for, the satisfaction I’ve craved. “More than once.” I am the villain here. And I want to be.

  “You . . .” She gasps on a drawn breath, and her next sound shocks me back in my chair. A cry is ripped from her throat. “You lying sack of shit! You’re a liar. A liar. A—LIAR!” Her mouth works on more words that don’t come. Only raw sounds tear from her throat, more animal than girl.

  She leaps from her chair, her hands shield her face. She paces, mumbling to herself, “Lies, all lies. So many lies.”

  With a fury I do not expect from someone who’s no more than five foot two, she launches at me. I fall back in my chair. I thud on the floor, knocking the wind from my lungs.

  She squeezes my throat, her little fingers scratching my skin. “Take it back! You—you—” Insults not coming to her, even at her most enraged. She spits in my eye, clogging it, and it drips down my face.

  “Agh!” I roll and pin her to the floor. “Enough!” I use my shirt to wipe her spit from my face, then capture her scraping fingers on either side of her head.

  She screams and shouts, “Liar!” over and over. Her sounds aggravate me. They strike at old memories I never want to remember. She bucks against me, trying to throw me off.

  I anchor both her wrists in one hand and silence her mouth with the other. “Shut up.”

  She doesn’t listen. She screams and cries, muffled by my hand. She kicks the floor behind me.

  Her protests echo in my head, reverberations of the worst horrors from my childhood. I loom over her and shout in her face. “Shut up!”

  She silences. Her chest jerks in hiccups matching the rhythm of her breath gusting onto my hand. In a re-enactment of the hundreds of times I’ve fantasized this moment, tears spring from her eyes and pour noiselessly down her face.