The Assistant: A gripping psychological thriller with a nerve-shredding ending Read online

WHEN SHE REACHED the Carlton High School track, the curb along the athletic field was empty of cars. Good. She was alone. She went through the opening in the fence and clawed her way past the shrubs and vines, tearing them off her skin like they were long fingers stroking her body, trying to claim it as their own, pulling her down into the earth.

  Freeing herself, she walked to the edge of the track, stretched her calves and quads, and took off in a burst. She was still rattled from the previous day. She needed to push herself hard this morning. Besides, getting to a state where her body was working close to maximum capacity was more likely to free her mind to discover a new way for dealing with the situation at work.

  It looked as though she couldn’t rely on Brent to give her any insights, and she wasn’t about to ask Janelle. Both of them had been at her level two years ago, recently promoted to positions with more responsibility, and power. Sometimes there was a niggling thought that Tim’s imagined voice was right—there was some flaw in her, an unattractive blind spot that was keeping her back.

  Four laps around the track equaled a mile, and she’d already completed the first one. She pushed Janelle, Brent, and Tim’s cruel voice out of her thoughts. Brent was right about one thing—she needed to focus.

  The semi-darkness gave the track a surreal quality, making her feel as if the world were deserted. That was exactly what she’d wished for, and now she was wishing it was something else. It pissed her off that a thread of fear was beginning to wind its way through her heart and up her throat, even though she knew it was nothing but years of paranoid brainwashing. This was the suburbs. There was no crime to speak of—the occasional car break-in or an unlocked bicycle stolen off a front porch. Non-crime, really.

  She rounded the end of the track. To her right was the equipment storage shed. Next to that was a closed-up stand where they sold hot dogs and soda at sporting events. The untrimmed shrubs along the fence were crowding up to the snack stand, ready to overtake it. She glanced past the small building toward the opening in the gate.

  It must have been her gut telling her to look. The skinny creep with the weird hair stood among the shrubs, as if he was determined to keep himself hidden. She stumbled. She regained her footing and increased her speed. With her back now turned to him, she began sprinting. He had no right to be here. He didn’t appear to enjoy running, wasn’t any good at it, so he should find something else to do. This was her time, meant for clearing her head and draining all the tension from muscles and bones that spent too much time immobilized.

  Maybe he was stalking her. He’d seen her somewhere else when she wasn’t aware of him and he’d followed her home, then watched her movements, figured out when and where she ran and was now inserting himself into her life.

  Her hands trembled and she gasped for breath as she struggled to maintain the full-on sprint. Already she’d looped the track and seen from the corner of her eye that he remained partially hidden, watching. Her lungs burned and her heart pounded like an alarmed neighbor slamming a fist against the door to warn of a fire. It wasn’t possible to have a heart attack at her age.

  Well, maybe it was, but she was in good shape, and she ate well. Her legs were getting rubbery. She slowed but continued running. She could call the police. The very act of taking the phone out and putting it to her ear might frighten him off. But if it didn’t succeed in scaring him, she wasn’t sure what she’d say to the dispatcher. A man is staring at me. I think he’s following me. There was no way to communicate the alarm she felt without sounding unbalanced. But the fear was real, and it wasn’t just her mother’s hysterical caution. This was her gut, screaming that the man was dangerous.

  As she rounded the curve in the track, she glanced at the equipment shed. He wasn’t there. Had he left, or moved further into the shrubbery? The sky had lightened, but the thick clouds still kept it darker than normal. She didn’t want to slow down or he’d think she was vulnerable, he’d realize his presence had upset her.

  Behind her, she heard feet thudding on the track. How had he slipped out of his hiding place and started running without her noticing? She glanced toward the opening in the fence. The best move might be running directly across the grass and slipping out to the street. It wasn’t impossible to jog around the neighborhood, she just didn’t like it because running on concrete would eat away at the integrity of her joints over time.

  She rounded the curve again and as she did, she saw he was about twenty yards behind her. She ran toward the outer edge of the track and slowed. She was breathing so hard it would be impossible to speak, to tell him he needed to leave her alone or she’d report him. He ran past her, not turning to look, as if to make her more unsettled. She bent over and put her hands on her thighs. She gulped in air, trying to get her lungs to calm their frantic search for oxygen.

  By the time he’d circled the track and was coming up on her again, her breathing had slowed. She folded her arms across her stomach and widened her stance. When he was about fifteen feet away, she took a single step forward. “Stop following me.”

  He came to a standstill so quickly and smoothly she wondered if he’d been waiting for her to speak. The thin beard trembled like it had a pulse of its own. His skin was pale and his hair almost colorless in the cloudy, predawn light. “What?”

  “Leave me alone. I mean it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She glared at him. He was not going to get away with an innocent facade. She was not backing down, no matter how much he tried to make her appear foolish. “I want you to stop following me.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “You’re here every day.”

  “I’ve never seen you before.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  He backed away and returned to his slow, stilted jog.

  She ran after him and grabbed his upper arm.

  His left foot skidded on the track. “Let go of me.”

  “I’m not afraid of you. But I want you to find another place to run, if that’s what you’re really doing.”

  “You’re nuts. Let go of my arm.”

  “You’re clearly not a runner.”

  He wrenched away from her. “What’s wrong with you?”

  She couldn’t let him see she was trembling. “If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going to hurt yourself. You shouldn’t be running if you have a handicap.”

  “I’m not handicapped, you bitch.”

  She gasped. Her instinct had been correct—there was a layer of rage very close to the surface. He was after something, he just hadn’t been prepared to make his move. Yet. She’d thrown him off his plan. Too bad she couldn’t leverage that skill at work. Maybe that was the approach to take with Hank, knock him off balance. She smiled.

  “What are you laughing at? There’s nothing wrong with me.” He turned and started up again, as if to defy her.

  She crossed the track and stepped onto the lawn. She made her way through the shrubs and out to the sidewalk. There was a reason he was there, watching her, and she was going to make it stop. But for now, she was pleased that she’d confronted him, and even more pleased that she’d figured out an angle for getting Hank’s attention.

  Running a few miles on concrete wouldn’t damage her body forever. She started a slow jog up to the corner and turned toward downtown. Something would come to her, or an opportunity would present itself. All she needed to do was pay attention.

  5

  Vanessa

  VANESSA’S LEGS FELT like sticks of ice when she woke to the alarm on her phone chiming in her ear. She tapped it into snooze mode. The comforter and top blanket were piled on Matt’s side of the bed. If it had been a Saturday, she would have slid up close, wrapped her right arm around his waist and worked her fingers up to his chest, stroking the soft hair, running her index finger in a circle around his nipple and putting small kisses along his shoulder blade until he woke with a longing groan.

  The dream was slipping away. If she opene
d her eyes, it would evaporate. It was so much easier to retain her dreams on weekends when she woke naturally rather than to an electronic sound.

  She’d been walking down a street in the dark. Hank was at her side and Matt was a few steps behind them. The air was thick with the scent of gardenias. It was warm. She’d been naked.

  Matt hadn’t seemed to notice, although she’d had the impression Hank was very well aware. They’d both been speaking to her, but it was impossible to distinguish their voices. Then, she’d been in a hotel room. It was familiar—the palatial room in New Orleans where she’d stayed during the electronics trade show the previous summer.

  The dream was identical to one she’d had many times since she’d returned from New Orleans. Hank was in her hotel room. It was dark. He was kissing her. She was half enjoying the kiss and half trying to decide what to do, whether she should take charge and stop things from careening over the side of a cliff. Before she had time to make her decision, Hank was removing her clothes. He was very methodical, taking each item and folding it, placing it on the dresser before he proceeded to the next. When he was finished, he carried her to the bed and made love to her, although she couldn’t figure out when he’d taken off his own clothes. Then, she’d been making love with Matt and immediately after, the hotel room filled with blinding light and she woke. Every single time.

  The alarm chimed again. Sticky thoughts plastered themselves across her mind like spilled food. She turned onto her side. Thursday. She opened her eyes and tried to think what was on Hank’s calendar. Before she could recall, his apology floated through her mind—sorry for keeping you late. What was that about?

  Now that it had gone on for several seconds, the phone’s trilling bored into her ear like a mosquito. She kicked the sheet off her legs, sat up, and silenced the phone. The room was dark. Matt was deep in blissful ignorance of possessing all the blankets. She grabbed her robe and walked down the hall while she put it on. The main bathroom more or less belonged to her, the one she used to get ready while Matt slept for another half hour.

  The bathroom had a long counter and a linen closet with gloriously deep shelves. One shelf held baskets of makeup and face brushes. Another held first-aid supplies. The two center shelves were filled with bottles of nail polish, lined up like tiny soldiers in perfect formation.

  Matt never used the hall bathroom. He never opened the closets or drawers, so he was unaware of just how much nail color she owned. Far too much for one person to ever consume, but she couldn’t stop acquiring it. When she opened the door and saw all the glistening bottles, she felt the pleasure of endless choice.

  Every evening she removed her polish and painted on two coats of a new color. Her nails were shaped into short ovals so she could type easily without damaging the polish or having to hold her fingers at awkward angles to perform practical tasks. When she was a teenager her nails had been dagger-like. Once the realities of adulthood settled in, she’d trimmed them back, but she would never give up all the brilliant colors. Even when she was an old lady, she’d have gem-like nails. Beautifully painted fingernails provided pockets of happiness in her days when she glanced down and saw ten glossy red or pink or taupe fingertips.

  She showered and dried herself. She pulled on a black thong and a black bra with lace straps. While she dried her hair, she studied her reflection. Her pale skin looked dramatic next to the black lingerie. As her hair dried, it changed color from a dark blood-like red to creamy strawberry blond, making her face and her light blue eyes look soft and welcoming. When her hair was falling around her shoulders and arms in long layers, she put on dark brown slacks, high-heeled brown boots, and a light green sweater with a scoop neck that hinted at the swell of her breasts without being flamboyantly low-cut.

  Making up her eyes was her favorite part of getting ready. She worked slowly so the various shadows were evenly applied on both sides. After she brushed her lashes with mascara, she put everything away, wiped the counter, and washed her hands.

  She made coffee and checked email while eating blueberry yogurt. Matt walked into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. He carried the pot to the table and filled her mug. “You look good. Anything exciting going on today?”

  He asked her that question a lot, but today it took on a new flavor. Last night, she’d opened her mouth three times to tell him about the rumor. Three times she’d blurted out something nonsensical, not sure how to begin or whether it was the right time. If there was ever a right time.

  There’d always been a slender thread of jealousy in Matt’s attitude toward Hank. He never complained when she worked late, but there was something—a shadow in his eyes followed by a looking away from her as if he wondered whether she was drawn to Hank.

  Matt sometimes complained that Hank could do as he pleased, speculating about how Hank’s power insulated him from consequences, separated him from the world everyone else lived in. Things didn’t touch people like Hank, they could buy their way out of trouble, in his view. Guys like that think they can have whatever they want.

  Matt wasn’t an overly ambitious guy. Doing graphic design for a boutique marketing company that served high-tech corporations satisfied him. He liked working with computer tools and he liked the praise he received for his creative ideas. His salary was good enough, and he couldn’t see the point of trying to climb up to an account director role or launch his own company. He didn’t want to be rich, and he didn’t want to be in charge.

  We have so much more than most people on the planet.

  She couldn’t argue with that, but there was nothing wrong with wanting more. It was human nature. Occasionally, she thought there was something wrong with him. He was barely thirty. Didn’t he want to travel more? To retire before he was too old to enjoy it? To have a nicer house with more property? To not have to budget their income so precisely? She wanted more, even if she couldn’t define what that was; and she wasn’t going to apologize for it.

  Matt was happy with televised sports and his crime shows. He seemed to get a thrill out of rooting for the criminals, even the murderers, if Bonnie and Clyde were any indication.

  She’d asked him once why he was so addicted to crime shows—it didn’t matter if it was true crime or fiction, he couldn’t get enough. It was the way anti-heroes lived life on the edge, he’d said. At the time, she’d wondered why he didn’t make any attempt to live his own life on the edge, even a little, but she hadn’t asked. Maybe living on the edge was overrated. Fun to fantasize about, but the reality wasn’t all that great.

  I’m a simple guy, he said. And she loved him for that. But still, there was a craving inside her, a need for something…

  When she backed her Miata out of the garage, the sky was cloudy, the sun making a half-hearted effort to pierce the blanket of white.

  Something had kept her from telling Matt about what she’d overheard in the break room, and now it was too late. She couldn’t stop the car in the driveway and run back into the house just as he was locking up. Blurting it out would be worse. And tonight, or tomorrow night, or next weekend, would make it appear that she’d withheld it, which would cast it in an entirely different light. Although, he didn’t have to know exactly what day it had happened. She accelerated into the street and headed toward Avalon.

  It was early. She liked to beat Hank into the office, to be sitting at her desk when he came in rather than having to stop in his doorway to let him know she’d arrived. Maybe it was just that the longer she worked at Avalon, the more at home she felt sitting in her corner of the building. As if her desk and computer and the sofa and chair and the windows surrounding the sitting area were all becoming more familiar than her house.

  She was necessary and important here. Everything was clearly defined. With Matt, there were certain areas of the landscape that were uncertain. They’d lived together for over eight years now, engaged for six, and the idea of marriage had become almost a joke.

  Before they began living together, Matt had m
ade the down payment on the house with cash from his parents’ estate. He paid the mortgage and Vanessa paid the utilities. She wasn’t absolutely clear on what her part in the house was, if it was even her home at all. She decorated it, but Matt didn’t care much about those things.

  Of course, her cubicle belonged to her even less than the house did.

  The building was cool, the heat lowered overnight, and just now starting to fill the empty hallways. The minute she rounded the corner to her cubicle, she stopped and took a large step backward, stumbling slightly.

  The entire counter was swarming with ants. The swath undulated, making it appear as if the counter itself were moving. They covered the candy dish and continued down the half wall where they narrowed to a thin stream headed across the carpet, along the bottom of the wall in the sitting area, and disappeared into a space where the window joined the molding on the floor.

  She turned away, her stomach heaving, not wanting to see how far they traveled on the other side of the counter, whether her desk and chair were also covered with the tiny creatures, insignificant on their own, but able to dominate whatever they chose when they joined forces. Her skin tickled and twitched making her feel they’d already found their way up the heel of her boot and were climbing the back of her leg. She rubbed furiously at the backs of her legs. She moved further away from her cubicle, leaned against the wall, and tugged up the hem of her pants, inspecting her boots for even a single ant.

  She wanted to blame someone. It was irrational, but it was her first thought. It wasn’t the candy that attracted them. She’d kept the candy out for years and never seen a single ant.

  Now, her space would reek of insecticide all day. Stray ants that managed to dodge the deadly fumes would linger. She swallowed and took a step forward. She looped her purse strap over the handle of Hank’s office door and walked slowly toward the end of the counter in front of her cube. She peered around the corner. The stream of ants was draped over the side of the trashcan. Of course. Someone had tossed out unwanted food. Maybe it wasn’t malevolent, but it showed a certain lack of respect. The admin’s cubicle was treated like public property. They left candy wrappers, tossed coffee cups and soda cans in her trash, took pens and sticky pads off her desk, and every so often, when she’d left early for a medical appointment or an errand, they wheeled her chair around the corner and into the conference room to accommodate an overflow crowd.