Believe Me Read online

  Believe Me is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 Shippen Productions Ltd.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  The author published an earlier version of this story as The Decoy under the name Tony Strong.

  Excerpt from Casablanca granted courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Delaney, JP, author.

  Title: Believe me: a novel / JP Delaney.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Ballantine Books, [2018]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018009618 | ISBN 9781101966310 (hardback: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781524798833 (international edition) | ISBN 9781101966327 (ebook)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Suspense. | FICTION / Contemporary Women. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3569.T717 B45 2018 | DDC 813/.54—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2018009618

  Hardback ISBN 9781101966310

  International edition ISBN 9781524798833

  Ebook ISBN 9781101966327

  randomhousebooks.com

  Designed by Debbie Glasserman, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Carlos Beltrán

  Cover photographs: DreamPictures/Getty Images

  v5.3.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part Two

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Part Three

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By JP Delaney

  About the Author

  You act with your scars.

  —Shelley Winters

  No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

  —Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

  PROLOGUE

  On the day of departure, guests are requested to vacate their rooms by noon.

  By eleven o’clock the sixth floor of the Lexington Hotel has nearly emptied. This is Midtown Manhattan, where even the tourists are on busy schedules of galleries and department stores and sights. Any late sleepers have been woken by the noise of the maids, chattering to one another in Spanish as they come and go from the laundry room beside the elevator, preparing the rooms for another influx this afternoon.

  Dotted down the hallway, discarded breakfast trays show which rooms still have to be cleaned.

  There’s no tray outside the door of the Terrace Suite.

  Each morning, a folded copy of The New York Times is delivered to every room, with the hotel’s compliments.

  In the case of the Terrace Suite, the compliment has been refused. The paper lies on the mat, untouched. A DO NOT DISTURB tag hangs from the handle above it.

  Consuela Alvarez leaves the Terrace Suite till last. Eventually, when all the other rooms are done, she can leave it no longer. Wincing at the ache in her lower back—she’s changed a dozen sets of linen already this morning, and scrubbed a dozen shower stalls—she taps on the door with her pass card, calls “Housekeeping,” waits for a reply.

  None comes.

  The first thing she notices as she lets herself in is the cold. An icy draft is blowing through the drapes. She clucks disapprovingly as she goes to the window and hauls on the cord. Gray light floods the room.
<
br />   The place is a mess. She bangs the window shut, a little ostentatiously.

  The person in the bed doesn’t stir.

  “Please…You have to wake up now,” Consuela says awkwardly.

  The sheets have been pulled right up over the face. Smoothing the body’s contours, like something buried under layers of snow.

  Looking around at the debris—a tipped lamp, a broken wineglass—Consuela has a sudden sense of foreboding. Last year, there was a suicide on the second floor. A bad business. A boy overdosed in the bathroom. And the hotel was fully booked: They’d had to clean the room and get it ready for the next occupant at five.

  Now that she looks again, there are several things that seem unusual, even strange, about the Terrace Suite today. Who goes to bed leaving broken glass on the carpet, where they might step on it next day? Who sleeps with sheets covering their head? Consuela has seen a lot of hotel rooms, and the scene in front of her seems somehow unnatural.

  Staged, even.

  Consuela crosses herself. Nervously, she puts her hand on the bedcovers, near where the shoulder must be, and shakes it.

  After a moment, where her hand has pressed, a red flower blooms on the white linen.

  She knows there’s something wrong now, something very bad. She touches the bed again, pressing with just a finger this time. Again, like ink spreading through tissue paper, a red petal blossoms on the sheet.

  Consuela summons all her courage and, with her left hand, yanks the covers back.

  Even before she takes in what she sees there, her other arm is reaching up to cross herself again. But this time the hand that darts to her forehead never completes the gesture. It comes down, trembling, to stifle her scream instead.

  1

  My friend hasn’t showed yet.

  That’s what you’d think if you saw me here, perched at the bar of this corporate-cool New York hotel, trying to make my Virgin Mary last all evening. Just another young professional waiting for her date. A little more dressy than some of the other women here, maybe. I don’t look like I just came from an office.

  At the other end of the bar a group of young men are drinking and joshing, punching one another on the shoulder to make their points. One—good-looking, smartly dressed, athletic—catches my eye. He smiles. I look away.

  Soon after, a table becomes free near the back, and I take my drink over and sit at it. Where, suddenly, this little scene unfolds:

  INT. DELTON HOTEL BAR, W. 44TH ST., NEW YORK—NIGHT

  MAN

  (belligerently)

  Excuse me?

  Someone’s standing in front of me. A businessman, about forty-five, wearing an expensive casual-cut suit that suggests he’s something more than the usual executive drone, the collar lapped by hair that’s just a little too long for Wall Street.

  He’s angry. Very angry.

  ME

  Yes?

  MAN

  That’s my table. I just went to the bathroom.

  He gestures at the laptop, drink, and magazine I somehow managed to miss.

  MAN

  That’s my drink. My stuff. It was pretty clear this table’s occupied.

  Around us, heads are turning in our direction. But there’s going to be no confrontation, no eruption of New York stress. Already I’m getting to my feet, pulling my bag onto my shoulder. Defusing the drama.

  ME

  Sorry—I hadn’t realized. I’ll find somewhere else.

  I take a step away and look around helplessly, but the place is busy and my previous seat has gone. There is nowhere else.

  Out of the corner of my eye I can sense him taking me in, running his eyes over Jess’s Donna Karan jacket, the expensive one she keeps for auditions, the soft dark cashmere that sets off my pale skin and dark hair. And realizing what a stupid mistake he’s making.

  MAN

  Wait…I guess we could share it.

  He gestures at the table.

  MAN

  There’s room for us both—I was just catching up on some work.

  ME

  (smiling gratefully)

  Oh—thank you.

  I put my bag back and sit down. For a while there’s a silence I’m careful not to break. This has to come from him.

  Sure enough, when he speaks his voice has changed subtly—it’s huskier, thicker. Do women’s voices change the same way? I should experiment with that, sometime.

  MAN

  Are you waiting on someone? Bet he’s been held up by the snow. That’s why I’m staying an extra night—it’s chaos out at LaGuardia.

  And I smile to myself, because it’s actually pretty neat, the way he tries to find out if this person I’m meeting is a man or a woman, and at the same time let me know he’s here on his own.

  ME

  Guess I could be here awhile, then.

  He nods at my now-empty glass.

  MAN

  In that case, can I get you another one of those? I’m Rick, by the way.

  Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…

  ME

  Thank you, Rick. I’d love a martini. And I’m Claire.

  RICK

  Nice to meet you, Claire. And, uh, sorry about just now.

  ME

  No, really, it was my mistake.

  I say it with such offhand nonchalance, such gratitude, that even I’d be surprised to discover it’s a lie.

  But then, this isn’t lying. This is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances. Which, as you’ll discover, is very different.

  The waitress takes our order. As she leaves, a man at the next table leans across and gives her a hard time about a missing drink. I watch as she sulkily tugs a pen from behind her ear, almost as if she can pull the customer’s words out and flick them to the floor.

  I could use that, I think. I put it away somewhere, deep in the filing system, focus my attention back on the man opposite.

  ME

  What brings you to New York, Rick?

  RICK

  Business. I’m a lawyer.

  ME

  I don’t believe you.

  Rick looks puzzled.

  RICK

  Why not?

  ME

  The lawyers I meet are all ugly and boring.

  He matches my smile.

  RICK

  Well, I specialize in the music business. Up in Seattle. We like to think we’re a little more exciting than your average criminal attorney. How about you?

  ME

  What do I do for a living? Or do I think I’m exciting?

  To our mutual surprise, we’re flirting now, a little.

  RICK

  Both.

  I nod at the waitress’s departing back.

  ME

  Well, I used to do what she does, before.

  RICK

  Before what?

  ME

  Before I realized there are more exciting ways to pay the rent.

  It’s always in the eyes—that slight, almost imperceptible stillness as an idea dawns behind them. He turns the possibilities of what I’ve just said over in his mind. Decides he’s reading too much into it.

  RICK

  And where are you from, Claire? I’m trying to place that accent.

  It’s Virginia, damn you. Hence the way I rhymed the law in lawyer with boy.

  ME

  I’m from…wherever you want me to be from.

  He smiles. A wolfish, eager smile that says, So I was right.

  RICK

  I never met a girl from there before.

  ME

  And you meet a lot of girls, ri
ght?

  RICK

  I do combine my business trips with a certain amount of pleasure.