The Craigslist Murders - Brenda Cullerton [78]
Sighing, she dumped her underwear in the hamper, spritzed her blonde hair with a mist of Joy (That’s right, Joy, she thought. Her mother’s own signature scent.) and played her old “what if” game. What if she hadn’t left her coat and cell phone in the hospital? What if she hadn’t run into John on the street? What if Abe hadn’t opened that small starter fund for her in the Caymans? Five grand wasn’t much but it had been just enough to cover her getaway. She remembered how her shrink used to laugh at her for reading the Post, too. Poor Dr. Greene. She wondered if he’d ever forgive himself for turning her in after overhearing her confession on the cellphone. Anyway, after reading that piece in the Post about the business of identity theft in the Baja, it had cost her a measly $2,000 to become Elizabeth Gordon. Bet, for short. The rest: the work on her face in L.A., the hair, even the switch involved in becoming a perfect trophy wife, had been easy.
There were moments, in fact, when it was so easy, when the role felt so remarkably natural, she caught herself wondering who she really was. A week ago, she’d started trawling through the List, again. Just for fun, of course. But still … It was amazing. The kind of stuff women were selling off during the recession! And they were the lucky ones. George had caught Charlotte chortling in bed one morning. She had been reading Page Six, a paragraph about men trudging into Madison Avenue boutiques with shopping bags. It seems they were returning everything their wives had bought that still had a price tag on it and pocketing the cash. Tough times, Charlotte thought, as she smiled and slipped into a peach silk dressing gown.
THANKS
To the seventy-eight editors/publishers who turned this novel down. Without them, I might never have found such a happy home at Melville House. Thanks also to the believers, to those whose faith (blind as it might have seemed) kept me hoping … To the Almighty Wolcott (a/k/a James) and Laura Jacobs, writer and friend extraordinaire. To the agent, Yfat Reiss Gendell, who took this book on as her very first project at Foundry Media and whose phenomenal success since has had nothing to do with me. To Brendan Bernhard who opened the door at Melville and my sister, Rachel, and reader Akiko Busch, both of whom loved Charlotte even in her fetal stages. Last but hardly least … Huge thanks to my husband, Richard, and to Jack and Nora who lived with a murderous mother for as long as it took to get Charlotte, her fire poker, and her yoga mat out there.