HER PERFECT SECRET a totally gripping psychological thriller Read online

  HER

  PERFECT

  SECRET

  A totally gripping psychological thriller

  T.J. BREARTON

  Joffe Books, London

  www.joffebooks.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2021

  © T.J. Brearton

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is American English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of T.J. Brearton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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  Cover art by Stuart Bache

  ISBN: 978-1-80405-028-6

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE | Friday

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY | Saturday

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE | Saturday late evening

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO | Sunday

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  PART FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ALSO BY T.J. BREARTON

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  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE | Friday

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  It’s him.

  I recognize the sharp nose and flare to the nostrils. His thick eyebrows and defined cheekbones. But mostly it’s the eyes. Sea green.

  There’s no question that he’s a handsome man. The child I remember, just eight or nine, was becoming handsome, too.

  The boy’s name was Tom.

  “Mom, Dad,” my daughter says, “I want you to meet Michael.”

  Michael.

  Not him, then. Just a close resemblance. A trick of the light.

  “Michael and I are getting married,” she says.

  My husband, beside me, coughs, like he’s just choked on something. We’re standing halfway between the house and the lake, on the gently sloping lawn. The sun is beaming down. “Really?” my husband says. “Married? Wow . . .”

  He’s trying to sound upbeat. He glances at me; everything is in that glance. More than you could put into words. The turbulent history of our daughter, Joni. The girl who ran away from two preparatory schools. The girl we spent nights searching for, on dismal city streets, wondering if we’d find her dead or alive.

  She’s not a teenager anymore, I remind myself. She’s a young woman. We knew she was bringing someone, but the engagement is a huge surprise.

  I try not to stare at Michael, the man holding her hand as they stand just slightly downslope of us in the yard. The lake shimmers behind them, a gunmetal blue, scattered with sun diamonds. Somewhere in the distance a motorboat is buzzing. I ask Joni, “When did this happen?”

  “Just two weeks ago,” she says, tucking her wavy blond hair behind her ears.

  I hear it in the curt tone and see it in her body language — my question has kick-started her defenses.

  “We wanted to tell you here. Coming to the lake house was already in the plan, and then, when he asked me . . .” Joni squeezes Michael’s hand as she trails off. She’s deferring to him.

  Michael takes a subtle step forward. He’s concentrating more on my husband, Paul, than me. “I would’ve liked to ask you in the traditional way, sir.” He glances at Joni before finishing. “But we wanted it to be a surprise.”

  I’m aware of my folded arms; my own defenses are up. I try smiling. “How long have you two been . . . ?”

  “Mom,” Joni says, “things have been busy.”

  “I’m just asking how long you’ve been dating. I’ve never . . . you’ve never . . .”

  “We’re going to talk about all of that.”

  “Okay.”

  “But I wanted to . . .” Joni chews her lip and looks away. After a moment of gathering her thoughts: “I wanted to tell you as soon as we got here. So you could get used to it. Because I thought that if I just introduced him as my boyfriend, and then at the end of the weekend told you about our engagement, things might . . .”

  End on a bad note, she might’ve said. I get where she’s going.

  She’d been vague on the phone: someone I can’t wait for you to meet. We knew what that meant. Joni had been bringing home someone I can’t wait for you to meet since she was seventeen. Five years of new faces, flash-in-the-pan relationships. She brought them to us because she sought our approval. Almost like a cat, dropping the dead mouse on the doorstep. I never understood why, when she was so rebellious about everything else.

  As a psychotherapist, I should have some insight. But perhaps my being her parent clouds my judgment.

  Joni finishes her thought: “If we waited until the end of the weekend, you wouldn’t have time to get used to it. So, we’re doing it like this.” She draws a breath. “Mom, Dad, this is my fiancé. Michael Rand.”

  He grins and blushes at the same time. He’s good with eye contact, though, and his own body language implies openness. He holds Joni�
��s hand, and his other arm hangs at his side. I try not to study his features in an obvious way, comparing him to that boy from fifteen years ago.

  It’s hard not to; the likeness is uncanny. The eyes, the nose. Even the dark hair — cut into a contemporary medium-length layered look — is similar. It’s thicker than I remember, but then he’s so much older.

  “Well,” Paul says, sticking out his hand, “welcome to the family, Michael.”

  They shake. “Thank you, Mr. Lindman.”

  “Call me Paul.”

  Michael faces me and holds out his hand. “Mrs. Lindman.”

  For a moment, I can’t move. Locked on his eyes, it strikes me again that Tom’s were the same exact color. But how can I really remember that? It doesn’t seem to matter, because I’m suddenly thrust back fifteen years, flicking through photos of a violent and bloody crime scene. The man on the floor of the kitchen, his head beaten in, a shining pool of dark blood surrounding him.

  I blink and pull back from the memory. I shake Michael’s hand, trying not to withdraw too quickly, marshaling the effort to maintain eye contact long enough.

  It’s him.

  It’s not. It can’t be.

  But even if it were — what could I say? What could I do? Everything that happened during those five sessions with eight-year-old Tom Bishop is held in confidence. Even if I were sure, I’d be ethically bound to keep it to myself. Telling Joni would not only be unprofessional. I could lose my license to practice psychology. My daughter’s engagement hanging in the balance or not.

  “Well,” Paul says. “Should we have a drink to celebrate?”

  “Dad. It’s eleven in the morning,” Joni says.

  “So? This is vacation, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll make mimosas,” I blurt out, eager to get away. “Why don’t the three of you sit down at the lake? I’ll be right back.”

  I turn and start walking up to the house before anyone can object.

  “Mrs. Lindman?”

  Not fast enough.

  I slow and turn. “Yes?”

  Michael says, “Can you make mine a virgin? I don’t really drink.”

  For a moment, I can’t find my voice. Then, “Of course. No problem.” I continue along, trying not to run. I might not be able to say anything, but I can satisfy my own curiosity. I can do a quick search online. Nothing unethical about that.

  Just before I reach the front door, I glance back toward the lake. Paul is walking down to the dock, Joni and Michael beside him, their hands still interlocked. I grasp the door handle and am about to step inside when Michael looks over his shoulder at me.

  He smiles, then turns away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tom Bishop is a semi-famous triathlete. He’s also the owner of a company that presents “the world’s finest dollhouse miniature shows.” I google Thomas Bishop with no better results. And then it hits me: little eight-year-old Tom was rarely in the media. When he was mentioned, his identity was concealed.

  Laura Bishop is a different story. I find ample stories about the woman who killed her husband and then blamed someone else. She almost got away with it, too — if it weren’t for the witness statement provided by her own son, she just might have.

  For a few minutes, I click through the articles, devouring images of the Bishop home, police tape across the door. Laura Bishop’s mugshot — an art-world socialite caught without makeup, her hair scraped back into a ponytail, her eyes dark and vacant. So different from the posed shots that would follow in longer news stories about the murder. I snap the laptop shut.

  This is crazy.

  I take the laptop from the kitchen island and bring it back into the living room, set it on the desk overlooking the front deck and the lake beyond. The three of them are down there, sitting in the Adirondack chairs, talking. Joni tosses her head back, laughing.

  I’m being ridiculous. The odds of my daughter’s fiancé being the grown-up version of a boy I treated fifteen years ago are astronomical. But while a Facebook search yields plenty of Michael Rands, none look like the young man on my front lawn. Still, it doesn’t mean anything. My daughter’s fiancé is a millennial, and lots of millennials eschew Facebook.

  I try Instagram and Snapchat, but no luck.

  I’m overtired; maybe that’s the problem. Paul and I drove up to the lake house on Thursday, hoping to beat the traffic but not succeeding. Apparently a few thousand other people had the same idea. A four-and-a-half-hour drive under optimal conditions took us more than six. And I didn’t sleep well last night. It’s been hot and aggressively humid, and the house has no A/C.

  “First-world problems,” Joni would call these concerns. And she’d be right. But on top of everything, I had to leave several of my active patients behind, including one of them who’s been especially troubling. Maggie Lewis. A bright and beautiful young woman stricken with chronic depression and anxiety. When she’s off her meds, she’s a wreck. When she’s on them, she’s lethargic and gaining weight. Recently, she’s threatening to stop them again. I fear she might have already. So that’s bothering me, if I’m honest.

  It’s always hard to break away in August. But Paul and I both work a lot — probably too much — and it’s vital to escape. And now, with our two kids grown, it’s some of the only time we all get to spend together. Still, it’s never easy.

  As I gather the ingredients to make four mimosas — one of them a virgin, meaning just orange juice, since I don’t have any non-alcoholic sparkling wine — I realize I’m not just tired: I’m exhausted.

  I’m a fifty-three-year-old woman who’s been going nonstop for thirty years. Paul and I have been discussing this. It’s time for both of us to slow down. At least, a little.

  I mix the drinks, have a taste-test of mine, then end up drinking three-quarters of it. Oh well. I add more orange juice and a healthy splash of dry sparkling wine and pick up the tray. Halfway to the door, I stop. Though Joni just dropped the marriage bomb outside on the front lawn, they’ve really only been here a few minutes. They came into the house upon arrival and set down their bags. Right there, in the entryway.

  I know Joni’s suitcase — she’s had it for years: a battered purple bag on wheels. The dark leather bag beside it must be Michael’s. And it’s partly unzipped.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Just a quick peek. Just to see if there’s anything obvious on top. Like a wallet.

  There’s not. I start digging past folded shirts and pants. My hand bumps something hard and plastic, like a deodorant stick. I grasp what might be a toiletry kit. A little more rummaging, and now I’m sweating and feeling like a criminal. This isn’t right. The way to understanding Michael’s identity — or my conflation of his identity — is not by sneaking around and being underhanded. The way is conversation, direct interaction.

  I pick up the drink tray off the floor and am about to stand up.

  “Help you with that?”

  The voice is so close I let out a little yelp. The main door is open and Michael is standing behind the screen that keeps out the bugs. He pushes it open as I stand with the tray. “Sorry,” he says, “I thought I’d come up and see if I could give you a hand. Here, let me take it.”

  “Thank you. And that’s okay. I just didn’t hear you.”

  I almost drop the tray it as I hand it over.

  Come on. For God’s sake, Emily . . .

  After a smile, I push my bangs aside and run my hands through my shoulder-length hair.

  “You all right?” Michael looks concerned.

  “I’m good. Thanks for your help.” I gesture for him to back out through the door as I push it open.

  Together we walk along the flagstone walkway, then to the sloping yard. Partway to the dock, a flagpole pierces the earth, the United States flag gently rippling in the humid breeze high above. At the bottom of the lawn, three docks form a U-shape. The two-bay boathouse sits to the left of the U. In it are our sailboat and small rowboat with a trolling motor.

 
; Michael is admiring it all as we walk. “This place is just gorgeous.” He’s handling the drink tray well, like a waiter would, up on his fingers, his other hand gripping the edge.

  “Have you ever been to Lake Placid before?”

  “No. Always wanted to, though.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I’ve read about it. The tuberculosis, the cure cottages. Joni drove me around a little bit this morning so I could see some of the houses. The big porches and everything.” He pauses. “It’s just fascinating. Thinking of all these city people coming here for the fresh air. Hoping it would cure them. Or at least help them.”

  I don’t have time to respond or ask questions since we’re almost to the dock. But my mind is running in multiple directions. Lake Placid is a long ways from where Joni is living. How early did they have to start their journey if Joni had time to give Michael a tour this morning? When did my daughter ever show any interest in, or knowledge of, the history of Lake Placid? More importantly, where did she meet this man and why are they rushing into marriage?

  “Ah, they’ve returned with refreshments,” Paul says. He’s leaned back in one of the wooden Adirondack chairs. My husband is quite like you might picture an architect in his mid-fifties from Westchester County who owns a lake house in the Adirondacks. He’s in white slacks and a navy polo T-shirt. His legs are crossed and he’s dangling one of his boat shoes from his big toe. If anything, he’s acting extra casual. Working a bit to exude calm.

  Joni is dressed atypically — for her. The khaki shorts are preppy, the white top is a button-down blouse. She wears pretty sandals on her feet, toes painted lavender. She wants to appear responsible, given this sudden and overwhelming announcement. She’s laying it on a bit, too.

  Michael looks for a place to set the drink tray, but there’s no small table handy.

  “Here — let me.” I hand off drinks to Paul and Joni and set mine on the arm of my chair, leaving Michael the one on the tray with the red straw.