The Wife Stalker
Liv Constantine
1
Piper
Piper Reynard pulled into the parking lot of the Phoenix Recovery Center and parked in her reserved spot. When she’d been forced to leave San Diego ten months ago, she wasn’t sure where to go, only that she wanted to be as far away from the West Coast as possible. It had to be somewhere near the water, though, so that she could still sail on the weekends. And it needed to be a place where she could start over without standing out. After extensive research, she’d settled on Westport, Connecticut, a jewel of a town on the coast of Long Island Sound. The former home of Paul Newman and other celebrities, it had a sophisticated vibe and was just over an hour away from New York City by train. But best of all, it was the kind of place that attracted people from all over, rather than the kind of small town where everyone’s family had lived for generations, making them nosy about newcomers. She’d found the perfect house—a sprawling white clapboard on the water—and joined a yacht club, where she kept the sailboat she’d bought as soon as she came east.
The one problem she had to overcome was how to reinvent herself. She couldn’t continue with her counseling practice, as her license was in her real name, so the next best thing was a business in a similar field. She’d been incredibly lucky to find an existing one for sale and bought the Phoenix Recovery Center a few weeks after moving to Westport. All she’d had to do was have a lawyer set up an LLC for her under the name Harmony Healing Arts. It had already been a thriving business, offering meditation retreats, mindfulness, recovery programs, and nutrition and yoga classes.
She grabbed her briefcase from the passenger’s seat, slid out of her Alfa Romeo Spider, and walked toward the entrance of the building, feeling a sense of pride as she looked up at the sleek, two-story building of glass and cedar. She unlocked the front door and went directly to her office. It was still early, six thirty a.m., but Piper liked to be there well before the center opened at eight. It gave her time to get centered before she thrust herself into her busy day. She took a quick look at her calendar to check the time of her appointment with Leo Drakos. He’d called her out of the blue last week and asked to discuss a client he was defending in a murder case. He spoke to her about Fred Grainger, who had been in one of the center’s support groups for the last four months and was about to go to trial for the murder of his actress girlfriend. She’d googled Drakos and seen he was a well-known defense lawyer, prominent or perhaps even famous in his field. Based on her knowledge of Fred, she didn’t think he was guilty, and she was glad Drakos had taken his case.
She opened her laptop to check the social media accounts for Phoenix. Instagram first. Another three hundred followers. Excellent.
It must have been the podcast episode she’d uploaded yesterday on filling your well before trying to fill someone else’s.
Twitter next. Thirty-five retweets of her blog post on selfishness being the new selflessness. And on Facebook, the center had hit ten thousand likes. A very good morning indeed.
She dimmed her office lights and pressed Play on her iPad. As the soothing sounds of Debussy filled the room, she closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair. Maybe things were really going to be different here. They had to be. She couldn’t keep starting over and finding new places to hide.
2
Joanna
Leo’s finally coming out of his depression. After three long months of his barely communicating with me, lost inside his head, he suddenly seemed to perk up. He was starting on a new murder case next week, and I could see that having it to immerse himself in was a good thing, but I knew from experience that it would also be exhausting. I convinced him that a few days away at the house in Maine before the trial started would be a nice break for all of us. The bracing sea air and magnificent views were always restorative, so I’d already called ahead to Lloyd, the caretaker, to ready the house for us.
As soon as we drove up and opened the front door, fresh flowers greeted us on the entry table, and the rooms seemed to welcome us back. Stelli ran through the house ahead of us like a tornado, and when I heard a whoop of delight, I knew he’d found the surprise I’d arranged to have waiting in his bedroom. A minute later, he came barreling down the stairs holding two remote-control bumper cars and ran to his sister, Evie.
“Look what was in my room! Come on, let’s go play.”
Evie, a grown-up eight to his six, gave him a measured look, then spoke. “Let me put my things away first.”
She was such a sweet child that she didn’t ask if there was anything waiting in her room, which of course there was. I’d ordered her a pink wireless karaoke microphone and asked Lloyd to place it on her bed.
As Leo unloaded the car, I went through the house, turning lights on, unpacking our bags, and getting us settled in. Opening the door to the deck, I took a deep breath of Maine air. It was a perfect spring day, 62 degrees, according to the thermometer on the outside wall, but the sun made it feel warmer. The sea was calm and the sky a brilliant, cloudless blue. I sat in one of the white lounge chairs and breathed in the salt air, closing my eyes as the warmth of the sun spread across my body.
“Are you asleep?”
Leo’s voice startled me from a light slumber, and I sat up, turning to look at him standing at the open sliding glass door. “No, just resting,” I said. “Where are the children?”