Page 33 of The Perfect Illusion

“Okay,” she said as she headed for the door. “Please send me the address. Then put out a request for a volunteer—a uniformed officer who can spare an hour. Have them meet me at the front of the building. They can accompany me to the interview. Then I’ll be extra safe.”

She could hear Brady express his continued reservations as she walked out the door. But she didn’t turn around or reply.

This was going to be a solo effort.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Caroline Walters was trying not to speed.

She peeked at the clock. It was 2:12 P.M., almost ten minutes since she'd left the grocery store. With the perishables in her car, most notably the ice cream, she couldn't help but press her foot down a little harder on the accelerator.

But as she pulled off the main street and into her residential neighborhood, she slowed down some. People walked their dogs here. Parents pushed strollers. Kids rode bikes. She didn’t want to accidentally hit someone because she was trying to get her mint chocolate chip in the freezer before it melted.

Not that Frank would care. Unlike her ex, who had a real temper and could be incredibly controlling, her current spouse was a teddy bear. Caroline had some suspicions that he might not be all sweetness and light at work, but he had an excuse. As a renowned heart surgeon, he dealt with life and death situations on a regular basis. If he was short with folks in the operating room, he deserved a little understanding.

Caroline slowed at a stop sign and took half a second to glance at herself in the rear-view mirror. She was happy that she didn’t look as frazzled as she felt. Though her modeling days were now well behind her, she thought that she still looked fairly desirable, even after a day like today. Her dirty blonde hair still had bounce and her light blue eyes hadn’t lost their sparkle.

No one would have believed that Carrie Madrona—as she was known back in her college modeling days—would prefer being in jeans and a plaid button-down shirt as opposed to a fancy dress, especially when the jeans had paint and dried spaghetti sauce on them. But that’s what the modeling was for in the first place.

Carrie always wanted to teach elementary school, specifically kindergarten. And the modeling that she took up in high school and continued through college allowed her to get her degree without any student debt. But once she got her current position with the kids at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, there was no need to keep doing all those time-consuming photo shoots.

Her previous spouse wasn’t happy that she quit modeling. Carrie suspected that they liked the cachet that came with being married to a model. Maybe that was one of the reasons the marriage didn’t work out, although Carrie thought that there were other, more serious issues.

The divorce left her flush so that she didn't have to return to modeling to help pay the bills. But she'd never really been a person who put an emphasis on money, so her life didn't change that dramatically. Her joy came from helping those little kiddos with their little hands, the ones that accidentally spilled paint on her jeans and, today at least, intentionally threw a handful of cafeteria pasta on her.

Carrie pulled onto her own street as she marveled at how different her life was from just months ago. Back then, she was a recent divorcee, still working as a kindergarten teacher but living in a one-bedroom apartment. Now she lived with her surgeon husband in a chichi part of town in a mansion that had multiple bathrooms which were bigger than her old bedroom.

But she was still a teacher, and that’s what mattered most, though that might change soon. For a while now, she and Frank had discussed her "retiring," as odd as that sounded for a twenty-five-year-old woman. It was his idea, actually.

His pitch was two-fold. First, he’d made it clear how important travel was to him. He loved to check out exotic parts of the world, and he loved doing it with her. But her school year schedule only gave them a limited window in the summer to explore the globe.

The other part of his pitch was more sensitive. Frank, at 53, was more than double her age, which hadn’t been a barrier to them falling in love. More of an issue was his concern that if they had kids—which he badly wanted—he wouldn’t be able to play with them on the floor if they waited too long. Or worse, not make it to their high school graduation.

Carrie thought he was being unnecessarily morbid but she didn’t say that. After the interpersonal coldness of her last spouse, Carrie was happy to be with someone who could express their vulnerability. And she knew that if she insisted on continuing teaching, he’d make his peace with it.

So they’d come to an agreement. Carrie stipulated that she wanted to teach for at least two more years. She loved the kids too much to put a stop to it so soon after starting. Then she’d switch over to being a substitute so that they could travel more and hopefully get pregnant. She teased him that if he stayed in shape, he should still be able to get on the ground with an infant without too much trouble.

But she had one more request—which was really a politely worded demand. Once she transitioned out of full-time teaching, she wanted him to help her bankroll a foundation that would help underprivileged children with an emphasis on two major priorities: providing nutrition and early reading assistance in public schools like the one where she worked. He agreed before she’d even finished explaining the idea.

Carrie pulled into the driveway and popped the trunk. She had four bags of groceries, so she'd need to make two trips. She grabbed the first load and headed for the front door. After fumbling with the keys for a moment, she got the door open and headed into the house to drop off the bags on the kitchen counter. Then she’d go back for the rest.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

The woman followed Caroline Walters down the street, making sure not to get too close.

She glanced at the time. It was already 2:15. She said that she’d be back at the office by 3 P.M., which could get complicated, depending on how this went.

As she watched her target make a long, full pause at the stop sign, a singular thought popped into her head: Walters put on a better show than the others. Both of the prior victims made no secret of how much they relished their new, uber-luxurious lives with their wealthy, older husbands.

Walters had managed to keep her avarice under wraps so far. She still worked at some crappy, broken-down school, wiping drool from toddlers’ mouths. Her wardrobe hadn’t changed dramatically since the wedding, and she still drove the same Jeep Compass she’d had for the last seven years. To any casual observer, Walters was an angel.

But the woman knew it was all a front. Just like the others, Walters was a two-timer who had abandoned her spouse for an older, richer model. It was both obvious and offensive. And like the others, Walters would pay for her rapaciousness.

The woman observed Walters pull into her driveway, but she kept going down the street until she could find a spot to make a U-turn. When she returned, she noted that Walters had left the trunk open and was walking toward her front door with grocery bags in each hand.

The timing was perfect. The woman parked the car on the street behind a large hedge that blocked her own vehicle from being seen by any home security cameras. Then she got out of the car and looked around the neighborhood. There was no one in sight.

She was already dressed all in black, but now, as she walked toward the house, she pulled out the black ski mask and put it on her head. Then she slid on the black gloves. Finally, as she walked down the path, she tapped her right side to make sure the sheath was still connected to her waistband. In the sheath was a ten-inch hunting knife.

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