Nothing As It Seems: The Good Girl ; Don't You Cry ; Pretty Baby by Mary Kubica

Author:Mary Kubica
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2018-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

QUINN

It’s dark by the time I leave the apartment of Nicholas Keller. It’s darker than dark. It’s pitch-black, a starless November night, the sky an inky black.

I hop on the 55 bus in Hyde Park, a good six or seven miles south of the Loop. My home, at least nine miles north of the Loop, feels far away. In another world entirely, on another planet, in another galaxy, and though I want to be there, I wonder if my home will ever again feel like home.

The commute to my apartment is inauspicious even before it begins, over an hour long, retracing the steps I made on the way to the Hyde Park flat less than an hour ago as the sun was just starting its drop in the cold night sky. Two buses, an “L” ride and a half-mile walk on foot.

But that was before. Before I had confirmation from Nicholas Keller that Esther killed his fiancé, a woman now buried beneath a bronze grave marker in an idyllic cemetery in the suburbs of Boston.

What I don’t get is what all these weird occurrences have in common: Esther’s disappearance, the hunt for a new roommate, the petition to change her name, the death of Kelsey Bellamy.

There’s one thought I can’t get out of my mind. Is Esther on the hunt for a new roommate because she also wants me dead?

Is Esther trying to kill me?

A shiver runs down my spine, and I imagine spiders scaling my vertebrae like a flight of stairs, thousands of spiders climbing the skin, their long segmented legs stealing their way across, claws digging in. Spinning webs beneath my shirt.

Is Esther a murderer?

Suddenly I’m scared.

And still, none of this explains the identity of My Dearest. Who is My Dearest? Who, who, who? I demand to know, needing the answers now.

I think desperately of the men Esther has brought home over the months we’ve been together. There weren’t many; that much is for sure. There was the one who liked to cook, some hottie with high cheekbones, a strong jawline and large sweet-talking eyes. There was a secret admirer who sent her flowers, a dozen red roses without a card.

Were either of these men My Dearest? I don’t know.

And what do any of these things have to do with me?

One thing I know for sure: something sketchy is going on. Tornado sirens start screaming silently in my ear. Air-raid sirens warn me of an impending nuclear attack. Everywhere I look, I see a giant red flag. Danger, Will Robinson!

I’m scared.

The evening commute has come and gone. The bus isn’t as crowded as it often is, which is both a blessing and a curse. I would welcome the noise, for a change—bodies pressing into mine, reeking of their noxious breath and body odors. I’d embrace it for one reason and one reason alone: the fact that there is safety in numbers.

But not tonight. Tonight I am alone.

I slide into a ragged seat all by my lonesome and look out the window into the shadowy night.

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