The Prettiest One: A Thriller (17 page)

Caitlin stood in front of the mirror in Bix’s bathroom, her hair wet, a towel wrapped around her, tucked into itself above her chest so it wouldn’t fall. She still wasn’t used to seeing that slightly thinner face framed by short red hair staring back at her. She scrutinized her reflection. She smiled, just to test it out. It wasn’t a bad look on her, actually. Not the appearance she was used to, the one she’d had for the first twenty-seven years of her life, but she had to admit that she was pulling it off pretty well.

Without thinking, she opened the left-hand drawer of the vanity and found a big comb and a hairbrush, along with various cosmetics. She paused. There were four drawers in the vanity, two on either side, and she’d found the one she was looking for on the first try. Could she have somehow remembered it? More likely, it was a lucky guess. The upper left-hand drawer was the same one in which she kept her hairbrush at home, so that was probably why she instinctively tried it first. It may have even been the reason she had chosen to keep her things in the same drawer here at Bix’s place. She probably remembered it subconsciously. Still . . . maybe she had actually
remembered
it, despite Josh saying that she might never recover her memories from the last seven months. How had he said it at breakfast? It’s like that period of time is in a box she might never unlock.

Something struck her, a flash of . . . well, something, but she couldn’t immediately put her finger on what it was. She frowned as she took her hairbrush from the drawer and started dragging it through her wet hair. Something had flitted through her mind but disappeared before she got a good look at it. What was it she had almost seen?

Then she had it. Josh had said her time here in Smithfield was like a box she might never unlock.

A box.

She left the bathroom and walked into Bix’s room without knocking, pushing open the door that had been ajar. Bix was bare-chested and buttoning a pair of faded jeans. Caitlin couldn’t help but notice a bit of chiseling of the muscles of his chest, abdomen, and arms. He wasn’t buffed or ripped—terms Josh’s friends used. Nor would Caitlin describe his physique the way romance authors did in their novels—which Caitlin didn’t read often but which she had to admit she skimmed from time to time—using phrases like “steely contours,” “titillatingly muscled,” or “smoothly rippled.” No, Caitlin simply thought it was precisely the kind of body she’d want if she were a man—not ostentatiously muscular but lean and solid and, yes, chiseled in the right places.

He smiled at her. After a moment, she blurted, “Sorry. Should have knocked.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bix said. “Want me to hold your towel for you?”

She laughed in spite of herself. “Thanks, but I’ve got it.”

“Caitlin?” It was Josh’s voice, coming from behind her. He must have heard her leave the bathroom.

“Hey, there,” she said, turning.

“Am I interrupting?” Josh asked.

“Well, if you must know . . .” Bix said.

“Of course not,” Caitlin said quickly.

Josh looked over at Bix. “You out of clean shirts? Need to borrow one?”

“Not sure yours would fit, Josh, but thanks.”

“Would you please put a shirt on, Bix?” Caitlin asked.

“Says the girl wearing nothing but a towel,” Bix said, smiling, as he lifted a folded T-shirt from the bed and slipped into it. “Now, does everyone feel—”

“Caitlin, what the hell is that?” Josh said suddenly.

“What?”

“On your hip.”

She followed his gaze down to where the towel she had wrapped around herself had opened an inch or two. She turned away from Bix and parted the towel a little more. Josh, who could still see what he had been looking at a moment ago, asked, “Is that a tattoo?”

“Sure looks like one,” Caitlin said, recognizing the image at once. “It’s a Wild Thing.”

“A Wild Thing?”

“From
Where the Wild Things Are
.”

“Exactly,” Bix said, though he wouldn’t have been able to see the tattoo from where he was standing. “You said it was your favorite book as a little girl.”

And it was. Written decades ago by Maurice Sendak, it both frightened and delighted her in equal measures as a child. In it, a boy named Max wreaks havoc in his home and talks back to his mother and so is sent to his bedroom, which mysteriously transforms into a forest, and which somehow contains an ocean on which Max sails to an island inhabited by strange beasts he calls “Wild Things.” He becomes their king but grows bored and misses his home, so he leaves the island, to the dismay of the Wild Things. When he sails home again to his own room, he finds a warm supper waiting for him.

As much as Caitlin loved the story, it was the creatures that kept her entranced. There were several Wild Things, and they all looked like monsters of one kind or another. The one adorning Caitlin’s hip had a broad, semi-smiling mouth with a row of short fangs running from one side to the other, yellow eyes, light-colored fur, and claw-toed bird feet. Caitlin’s eyes were particularly drawn to the creature’s wavy hair, which looked to be the same shade of red as her own. She had to admit that she kind of liked the tattoo.

“Seriously?” Josh said. “You got a tattoo?”

“Sure she did,” Bix said. “We both did.”

He pulled up his shirt and turned so they could see the tattoo on the back of his shoulder. Bix’s Wild Thing looked a lot like a Minotaur from Greek mythology, which was depicted with the head of a bull and the body of a man. Sendak’s Wild Thing version was a bit different, though. It had a bull’s head and stood erect like a man, but its entire body was covered in blue-gray fur—except for its big, naked human feet.

“Nice work, huh?” Bix said as he tugged down his shirt. “My little Wild Thing,” he added, smiling at Caitlin.

“Not anymore, Bix,” Josh said. “So what’s going on in here?”

Caitlin took a last look at her own tattoo, then turned back to the men. She’d forgotten for a moment the reason she’d barged in on Bix.

“You said that before we sold the car I came here in, you dumped everything from it in a box.”

“Yeah, it’s in the closet,” Bix said as he stepped over to the closet and slid open one of the doors. He reached up and took a cardboard box down from the shelf. It was a little bigger than a shoebox. He put it on the bed.

“There could be answers inside,” she said as she sat down next to it.

“Whoa, there,” Josh said.

Caitlin glanced up, then followed Josh’s gaze to her thighs, where her towel had ridden up, exposing most of her legs and, she feared, a little too much beyond that. She quickly adjusted the towel before Bix could see anything private, though she realized a moment later that it hardly mattered. Still . . .

“Could you guys give me a minute or two here?” she asked.

“Sure,” Bix said.

They closed the door behind them as they left. Caitlin removed the lid of the box and peered inside.

Bix sat in the armchair in his living room with his head tipped back, his legs sticking out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He had his eyes closed so he wouldn’t have to make eye contact with Josh, who was sitting on the couch doing something on his tablet. Even though Bix had been sleeping with the guy’s wife, he resented the hell out of Josh. It didn’t matter to him that Josh had been with Katie for years before Bix ever met her. Bix loved her. And even though she didn’t remember being in love with Bix, the fact was, she
had
loved him. There was no doubt about it. And deep inside, he believed she’d remember that one day—maybe not in time for her to decide to stay with him, but she’d remember.

Bix’s thoughts wandered to the film
Cast Away
, in which Tom Hanks gets stuck on a deserted island for four years. The only thing that sustains him during that time, that gives him the strength and will to survive and ultimately risk his life to be saved, is a photograph of his girlfriend and the thought of reuniting with her one day. And miraculously, years later he makes it back to her, only to find that he’s been presumed dead by everyone and his girl is married to another man. For four years he thought of nothing but her, but she had moved on, started a whole new life. She’s happy again. So Tom has to let her go.

Bix and Katie had rented the movie a few months ago, and he remembered being pissed off for Tom. She was with
him
first. He was the goddamn star of the movie. When he came home, she should have left the second guy. It occurred to Bix now that Josh was a little like good old Tom in the movie, having lost his wife for a long time before getting her back. It was Bix who was the second man. Josh reuniting with Katie was like the happy Hollywood ending Bix had wanted for Tom Hanks. It didn’t seem so happy, though, when Bix was on the losing end.

He heard his bedroom door open and Katie came down the hall, the cardboard box in her hands.

“What are you wearing?” Josh asked.

“Oh,” she said, looking down at herself. “I was in Bix’s room in nothing but my towel, so I threw on some of my old clothes. I mean . . . the clothes I wore when I was . . .” She trailed off.

“You look good, honey,” Josh said.

It was probably the first thing Josh had said with which Bix agreed. Katie looked amazing. Gone were the shapeless sweatshirt and department-store blue jeans. As she stood in the middle of the room, the morning sunlight seemed drawn to her as if according to some previously unknown law of nature. She absolutely glowed. Her hair was still sexy damp. She wore a pair of stylish jeans that fit her in a way that would make store mannequins jealous, topped off by a thin belt with cool, feminine little silver studs. Above that, a tiny sliver of her belly showed below a tight blouse that was short in the waist and the sleeves, coming down only just below her elbows, and was cut so that it was open enough in the neck to show a perfect amount of cleavage—not enough to make her look like a hooker, but enough to draw your eyes and hold them for longer than was polite.

“There’s the Katie I know,” Bix said, grinning. For the first time since she had appeared on his porch and announced that she was actually married to another man, Caitlin looked like Katie again. She looked fantastic. But as much as Bix enjoyed seeing her like this, it felt bittersweet. He was reminded yet again about all he was losing.

“Seriously, Caitlin,” Josh said, “you look great.”

“That always was my favorite shirt on you,” Bix said.

“Of course it was,” Josh said.

“Okay, guys, thanks,” she said, suddenly seeming uncomfortable under their scrutiny. “But let’s forget about my clothes for a second.”

She crossed to the couch and sat beside Josh with the box in her lap. She removed the lid and pulled out a wrinkled piece of light-blue paper.

“What’s that?” Josh asked.

“I think,” Caitlin said, “that this is the reason I came to Smithfield.”

“It looks like a takeout menu,” Josh said.

“It is. For the Fish Place.”

“I know you said the steak tips were good there,” Josh said, “but you think you started a new life just to try them?”

“Do you remember where in the car you found this, Bix?” Caitlin asked.

He thought for a moment. “I think it was right on the seat, along with some garbage. To be honest, I thought you were a bit of a pig, Katie. That menu was there, along with some empty water bottles and old food wrappers.”

“You mean these?” Caitlin asked as she removed three plastic water bottles, empty and hand-crushed, and a crumpled ball of fast-food wrapper.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“You didn’t throw the garbage away?” Josh asked.

“Like I said, before we traded in her car, I dumped everything I could find into a box and set it aside. When we got home, I just stuck it in the closet and forgot about it.”

“Why do you think that menu is the reason you came to Smithfield?” Josh asked.

“I figured it might have been right there on the seat when I got in the car,” Caitlin said, “and Bix just confirmed that. I probably saw it, saw the address, and drove straight there . . . which makes sense, because Bix says it’s where we met.”

“Okay,” Josh said, “but how did you find the place? If you had just entered a fugue state, I doubt you were thinking very clearly.”

“The car had a plug-in GPS mounted on the dash,” Bix offered.

“But is it possible I could have programmed in the address in whatever frame of mind I was in?” Caitlin asked.

Josh considered that. “My first thought was that it might have been tough for you, but they say you can be fully functioning in a fugue state, so I guess you could. Anything else in there?”

Caitlin took items out of the box one by one as she listed them. “A couple of CDs—Iron Maiden and Anthrax—a roll of duct tape, a small pouch of tools . . . looks like a pair of pliers and a couple of screwdrivers . . . a cigarette lighter and half a pack of cigarettes.”

“I forgot about the cigarettes,” Bix said. “You don’t smoke, Katie.”

“I think we’ve established that this wasn’t Katie’s car, Bix,” Josh said. “These are obviously the real owner’s things.”

Bix looked at the collection of items on the couch beside Caitlin. He hadn’t given much thought to them when he’d boxed them up, but now that he knew the car hadn’t been Caitlin’s, that the vehicle and the items inside had belonged to someone else, they started to look a little different to him, taking on new meaning. Duct tape, food wrappers, empty water bottles, cigarettes . . . They looked like things someone might bring on a stakeout. And the presence of the duct tape gave that stakeout a sinister feel.