The Perfect Impression by Blake Pierce

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Jessie tried to be gentle.

She was worried about the baby and didn’t want to do anything that might put her at risk. So she took one large step forward and spread her arms wide, blocking Ariana’s momentum. The young mother, realizing she had nowhere to go, stopped. But that didn’t prevent her from yelling.

“I heard everything!” she shouted over the baby, who had gone from wide-eyed confusion to terrified crying. “I wanted to believe you. You said you just wanted to relax, that you didn’t want any part of that group sex stuff. I told myself I could trust you. But I had a feeling. I just knew it. I knew that the only reason you really wanted to stick around was to be a part of their little game. You disgust me!”

Theo was standing behind his desk like it was a shield that might protect him. He looked genuinely fearful.

“Ariana,” Jessie said softly, forcing the woman to meet her eyes,” I know you’re upset. You have every reason to be. But look at your child. She’s scared. You’ve got to think about her.”

“He wasn’t thinking about her when he decided to have a threesome the second I was gone.”

“I just—” Theo began to protest. But Jessie cut him off so that he didn’t exacerbate the situation.

“No, he wasn’t,” she agreed, “and he’s going to pay a price for that. But right now, we need to cool things down a little. So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to hand me Ginnyand I’ll pass her over to Theo. They’ll stay in here for a little while. You and I are going to the kitchen to get some water and take a breath. Then we’ll reevaluate, okay?”

She looked back and forth between them. Theo’s face was pinched in apprehension and his hands squeezed the back of his chair, as if he was ready to use it to defend himself if necessary.

Ariana Aldridge didn’t look like she was especially enthused with the idea, but after a few seconds her face softened slightly and she nodded. She whispered soothing shushes to the baby as she handed her over to Jessie, who in turn put her in Theo’s outstretched arms.

“Don’t leave this room,” she ordered, and then turned back to his wife. “Why don’t you lead the way to the kitchen?”

Ariana, who no longer looked like she might jump across the desk to get at her husband, gave him one last, sickened stare and left the room. Jessie followed her, keeping enough of a distance that she had time to react if the woman changed her mind and charged back to the office. It turned out not to be necessary.

They reached the kitchen and Ariana walked over to a cabinet and pulled out two glasses.

“Is tap okay?” she asked. “Or would you prefer mineral water?”

“Tap is fine,” Jessie said. She wasn’t really thirsty. She was just hoping that having the woman perform an everyday task would get her back on the road to normalcy.

As she waited, she rested her hands on the kitchen counter and allowed herself a moment to regroup. She casually scanned the messy countertop, covered in empty baby bottles, pacifiers, and a pile of unopened mail. Next to a set of keys rested a checkbook with several pieces of paper sticking out. Glancing at them absently, she noticed a name at the bottom of one. It said: Catalina Couriers. Looking closer, she saw that there were multiple receipts with the name.

“Ice?” Ariana asked with her back to Jessie as she opened the fridge to get herself some.

“Sure.”

As Ariana rifled through the ice tray, Jessie slid out the receipts slightly and saw that they weren’t receipts at all. They were ticket stubs. There were four of them.

Ariana closed the fridge and turned around to hand over the glass. Jessie’s body was tingling slightly, though she couldn’t quite place why. Something just felt off.

“I hate to impose but do you think I could have a little something to eat?” she asked. “I didn’t have lunch. Even a few crackers or a granola bar should tide me over.”

“No problem,” Ariana said. “That’s all in the pantry. Just give me a second.”

“Thanks so much,” Jessie replied.

The second Ariana was out of sight, Jessie moved the stubs out further so she could read them all clearly. The first two made sense. One was a ticket from Long Beach Terminal to Avalon on Friday afternoon. The second was a return trip to Long Beach on Saturday afternoon. That one was clearly Ariana’s unexpected, rushed return to the mainland after bailing on the swingers’ weekend.

She assumed the other two stubs would be for Theo’s outbound and return trips, but they weren’t. The third stub was another trip from Long Beach to Avalon on Saturday night, arriving at 6:30 p.m. The fourth was for a return trip on the first ferry out on Sunday morning at 9 a.m.

Jessie stared at the collection of tickets, letting the magnitude of what she was seeing coalesce in her brain. There was only one logical explanation for these timestamps. Ariana Aldridge, despite her claims of having gone back to L.A., had apparently returned to Catalina on Saturday night without telling anyone.

“You said a granola bar was okay?” Ariana asked as she stepped out of the pantry with one in her hand.

She looked at Jessie and then down at the counter. Her expression made it clear that she understood what had been uncovered.

“It’s not what you think,” she said defensively.

“What is it then?” Jessie asked, not making any sudden movements. Ariana hadn’t run away or attacked her, and there was no reason to escalate the situation if it could be avoided.

“I did leave the island,” she insisted. “You can see that from the stub.”

“But you went back.”

Ariana Aldridge sighed heavily as she put the granola bar on the counter.

“Yes,” she admitted in a quiet voice. “The whole ferry ride back to Long Beach, doubts were racing through my head. By the time we reached the terminal, I was sure that Theo had stayed behind to cheat. I’d seen him ogling several hotel employees. I couldn’t just go home and pretend like it was no big deal. So I got a ticket for the very next ferry back to Avalon and turned right around.”

“Where did you go once you arrived?” Jessie asked.

“I checked in at the cheapest hotel in town. Then I bought some supplies.”

“What kind of supplies?” Jessie pressed.

“I found a novelty shop that sold kitschy stuff. I bought a blonde wig, big sunglasses, and a baseball cap.”

“Why?” Jessie demanded. It seemed that as long as she kept the questions coming and made them short, Ariana was happy to answer.

“I knew about the dinner reservation at seven thirty and I wanted to observe what was happening without being noticed. So I hurried over to a spot across from the restaurant they were at. I watched them hang out there for hours and then followed them back to the hotel. Once they got settled in at the bar, I snuck in quietly, sat in a corner, and watched everyone. It seemed like Theo was really flirting with Gabby. She was talking to Rich and Theo kind of inserted himself into their conversation and was leaning in really close to her when they talked. It looked suspicious.”

“Couldn’t he just have been leaning in because it was loud?” Jessie asked.

“Maybe,” Ariana conceded. “But right after that, Gabby left. Theo talked to the others a little, but after a couple of minutes, he went upstairs too. I wanted to follow him but I couldn’t go up in the same elevator with him in case he realized who I was. I couldn’t take the stairs right away either. I was afraid that if he saw some strange woman barging up the stairs to his floor, he’d be wary. So I waited a few minutes before going up. But before I could, my mom called because Ginny was running a slight fever. I went out to the courtyard and told her where the medication was and walked her through Ginny’ssoothing routine. It took a few minutes before she was comfortable with everything and I could hang up.”

“What time was that?” Jessie asked.

Ariana reached into her pocket.

“What are you doing?” Jessie demanded, stiffening.

“I’m just getting my phone,” Ariana replied, apparently taken aback by Jessie’s intensity. “I was going to check when my call with my mom ended.”

“Go ahead.”

Ariana scrolled for a few seconds before answering.

“I hung up at ten thirty-nine,” she said.

“Okay. What then?”

“I went up to our floor, but of course the hallway was empty by then, so I went to our suite and…listened at the door.” She seemed to choke up briefly, as if overwhelmed by the indignity of what she’d been reduced to, before gulping hard and going on. “I didn’t hear anything so I moved on to Gabby’s.”

“You didn’t try the Landers’ suite? Didn’t they also leave around the same time as Theo?”

“To be honest, I didn’t really notice them. Now that I look back on it, I think they were all talking to each other before Theo went up. But I was so focused on his whispering with Gabby that it never occurred to me to suspect that he was going to their room.”

Jessie couldn’t help but notice that, although Ariana’s voice was composed, her body seemed clenched up, like she might burst at any moment. It could simply be attributable to remembering a stressful event, or it could suggest she was on the verge of doing something dodgy.

Either way, Jessie took an imperceptible step back and glanced around, making sure that there were no potential weapons in easy reach. She’d just recently had a case in which a woman threatened to kill herself with a kitchen knife and didn’t intend to end up in a similar situation.

“So you said you went to Gabby’s suite,” she prompted.

“Right,” Ariana replied, not needing additional coaxing. “I stood outside her room and pressed my ear to her door. It was humiliating. But I didn’t care because I heard them.”

“What did you hear?”

“Voices: Gabby’s and another person. It made perfect sense that it was Theo.”

“But it wasn’t Theo,” Jessie reminded her. “He was with the Landers at that time. What made you think it was him? Was it a male voice?”

Ariana’s face dropped.

“Now that you ask that, I don’t know. I just assumed it was. But the other person was quieter than she was.”

“How do you know she didn’t just have the TV on?”

“No,” Ariana insisted. “I definitely recognized her voice. Why would she be talking at a normal volume with the television on? It was a conversation.”

“Could you hear anything she said?” Jessie asked.

Ariana paused again, either scanning her memory or pretending to.

“No,” she finally said.

Jessie fixed her eyes intently on Ariana as she asked the next question after that.

“What did you do next?”

Ariana seemed to sense the magnitude of the question and of her answer.

“I left,” she said simply.

“You just left?” Jessie repeated, unable to keep the skepticism out of her voice.

“Yes,” Ariana replied forcefully. “I left the hotel, went back to mine, and cried myself to sleep. I left on the first morning boat back here.”

“To be clear,” Jessie said, “you left Avalon early on Saturday afternoon, then turned right around and took a ferry back to the island that evening, wore a disguise, and covertly watched your husband all night? And when you heard what you thought was him in a hotel room with another woman, you just left?”

“I was in shock,” Ariana said self-righteously.

“Are you sure you didn’t just go back downstairs and wait a while, then go back up to the room and knock on the door to confront them, find only Gabby there, and give in to your rage?”

Ariana stared back at her coldly.

“I’m sure,” she said flatly.

“Well, I’m not. And I’ve got to do something about it.”

“What does that mean?” Ariana asked warily.

“It means I need to take you in.”