The Perfect House (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Three)

CHAPTER ONE Eliza Longworth took a long sip of her coffee as she looked out over the Pacific Ocean, marveling at the view only steps from her bedroom. Sometimes she had to remind herself just how lucky she was. Her friend of twenty-five years, Penelope Wooten, sat in the adjoining chaise lounge on the patio overlooking Los Liones Canyon. It was a relatively clear March day and in the distance Catalina Island was visible. Looking to her left, Eliza could see the gleaming towers of downtown Santa Monica. It was mid-morning on Monday. The kids had been packed off to daycare and school and the rush hour traffic had subsided. The only thing the longtime friends had on the schedule until lunchtime was hanging out in Eliza’s three-story hillside Pacific Palisades mansion. If she wasn’t so blissed out at the moment, she might even start to feel a little guilty. But as the notion slipped into her brain, she immediately forced it out. You’ll have lots of time to stress later today. Just allow yourself this moment. “Want a coffee refill?” Penny asked. “I need a potty break anyway.” “No thanks. I’m good for now,” Eliza said, before adding with a mischievous grin, “By the way, you know you can call it a bathroom break when there are just adults around, right?” Penny stuck her tongue out in response as she got up, unfolding her impossibly long legs from the chair like a giraffe getting up after a nap. Her long, lustrous blonde hair, so much more stylish than Eliza’s shoulder-length light brown variety, was tied up in a fashionably utilitarian ponytail. She still looked like the runway fashion model she’d been for much of her twenties before she gave it up for an admittedly less exciting, but far less manic, life. She headed inside, leaving Eliza alone with her thoughts. Almost immediately, despite her best efforts, her mind returned to their conversation from minutes earlier. She replayed it as if on a loop she couldn’t turn off. “Gray seems so distant lately,” Eliza had said. “Our one priority was always to have family dinner with the kids. But since he made senior partner, he’s had all these dinner meetings.” “I’m sure he’s as frustrated as you are,” Penny had assured her. “Once things settle down, you’ll probably get back to your old routine.” “I can handle him being gone more. I get it. He’s got more responsibility for the success of the firm now. But what bugs me is that he doesn’t seem to have any sense of loss about it. He’s never expressed regret that he has to miss out. I’m not even sure he notices.” “I’m sure he does, Lizzie,” Penny had said. “He probably just feels guilty about it. Acknowledging what he’s missing would make it that much worse. I bet he’s blocking it out. I do that sometimes.” “Do what exactly?” Eliza asked. “Pretend that something I’m doing in my life that’s not really admirable is no big deal because admitting it is a big deal would just make me feel worse about it.” “What do you do that’s so bad?” Eliza asked mockingly. “Just last week I ate half a can of Pringles in one sitting, for one thing. And then I yelled at the kids for wanting ice cream as an afternoon snack. So there’s that.” “You’re right. You’re a horrible person.” Penny stuck her tongue out before responding. Penny was big on sticking out her tongue. “My point is, maybe he’s not as oblivious as it seems. Have you considered counseling?” “You know I don’t believe in that crap. Besides, why should I see a therapist when I have you? Between Penny therapy and yoga, I’m set emotionally. Speaking of, are we still on for tomorrow morning at your place?” “Absolutely.” Thinking about it now, all joking aside, maybe marriage counseling wasn’t such a bad idea. Eliza knew that Penny and Colton went every other week and they seemed to be the stronger for it. If she did go, she knew at least her best friend wouldn’t rub it in. They’d had each other’s back ever since they were in elementary school. She still remembered when Kelton Prew pulled her pigtails and Penny had kicked him in the shin. That was the first day of third grade. They’d been thick as thieves ever since. They’d helped each other through countless struggles. Eliza had been there for Penny when she had her bout with bulimia in high school. In their sophomore year of college, Penny had been the one to convince her it was not just a bad date, but that Ray Houson had raped her. Penny went with her to campus police and sat in the courtroom to offer moral support when she testified. And when the tennis coach wanted to drop her from the team and pull her scholarship because she was still struggling months later, Penny went to him and threatened to help her friend sue the bastard. Eliza stayed on the team and won conference player of the year as a junior. When Eliza miscarried after trying to get pregnant for eighteen months, Penny came over every day until she was finally ready to crawl out of bed. And when Penny’s older son, Colt Jr., was diagnosed with autism, it was Eliza who did weeks of research and found the school that finally helped him start thriving. They’d been through so many battles together that they liked to call themselves the Westside Warriors, even if their husbands thought the name was ridiculous. So if Penny was suggesting she reconsider marriage counseling, maybe she should. Eliza was pulled out of her thoughts by a ding on Penny’s phone. She reached over and grabbed it, ready to let her friend know someone was reaching out. But when she saw the name on the text, she opened the message. It was from Gray Longworth, Eliza’s husband. It read: Can’t wait 2 c u 2nite. I miss your scent. Three days without u is too long. I told Lizzie I have a partner’s dinner. Same time & place, right? Eliza put the phone down. Her head was suddenly swimming and she felt weak. The mug slipped from her hand, hit the ground, and shattered into dozens of ceramic shards. Penny ran back outside. “Everything okay?” she asked. “I heard something break.” She looked down at the mug with coffee splattered all around it, and then up at Eliza’s stunned face. “What is it?” she asked. Eliza’s eyes moved involuntarily to Penny’s phone and she watched her friend track them with her own. She saw the moment of recognition in Penelope’s eyes as she put two and two together and realized what must have so startled her oldest, dearest friend. “It’s not like it seems,” Penny said anxiously, dispensing with any attempt to deny what they both knew. “How could you?” Eliza demanded, barely able to get the words out. “I trusted you more than anyone in the world. And you do this?” She felt like someone had opened a trap door below her and she was falling into a pit of nothingness. Everything that grounded her life seemed to be disintegrating before her eyes. She thought she might throw up. “Please, Eliza,” Penny begged, kneeling down beside her friend. “Let me explain. It did happen, but it was a mistake—one that I’ve been trying to fix ever since.” “A mistake?” Eliza repeated, sitting upright in her chair as nausea mixed with anger, making a churning cauldron of bile bubble up from her stomach to her throat. “A mistake is tripping on a curb and knocking someone over. A mistake is forgetting to carry the one in a subtraction problem. A mistake isn’t accidentally letting your best friend’s husband inside you, Penny!” “I know,” Penny acknowledged, her voice choking with regret. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was a terrible decision, made in a moment of weakness, fueled by too many glasses of viognier. I told him it was over.” “‘Over’ suggests it was more than once,” Eliza noted, scrambling to her feet. “Exactly how long have you been sleeping with my husband?” Penny stood there silently, clearly debating whether being honest would do more harm than good. “About a month,” she finally admitted. Suddenly her husband’s recent time away from the family made more sense. Each new revelation seemed to pack a new punch to the gut. Eliza felt that the only thing keeping her from collapsing was her sense of righteous rage. “Funny,” Eliza pointed out bitterly. “That’s about how long Gray has been having those late-night partner meetings you told me he probably felt bad about. What a coincidence.” “I thought I could control it…” Penny started to say. “Don’t give me that,” Eliza said, shutting her down. “We both know you can get restless. But this is how you dealt with it?” “I know this doesn’t help,” Penny insisted. “But I was going to break it off. I haven’t talked to him in three days. I was just trying to find a way to end it with him without blowing things up with you.” “Looks like you’re going to need a new plan,” Eliza spat, fighting the urge to kick the coffee cup shards at her friend. Only her bare feet prevented her. She clung to her anger, knowing it was the only thing keeping her from falling apart completely. “Please, let me find a way to make this right. There has to be something I can do.” “There is,” Eliza assured her. “Leave now.” Her friend stared at her for a moment. But she must have sensed how serious Eliza was because her hesitation was brief. “Okay,” Penny said, picking up her things and scurrying toward the front door. “I’ll go. But let’s talk later. We’ve been through so much together, Lizzie. Let’s not let this ruin everything.” Eliza forced herself not to scream epithets in response. This might be the last time she ever saw her “friend” again and she needed her to understand the magnitude of the situation. “This is different,” she said slowly, with emphasis on each word. “All those other times were us against the world, having each other’s back. This time you stabbed me in mine. Our friendship is over.” Then she slammed the door in her best friend’s face.