The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [1]
Theresa never argued. She simply tightened her red-checkered apron, ducked her blond head, and kept sweeping.
She was a popular girl in her high school class of nearly one hundred, friendly but not outgoing, attractive but demure. While other seventeen-year-old girls at Mt. Greylock High School were succumbing to the star fullback’s urgent groping or the forbidden lure of cheap beer, Theresa came home every Friday and Saturday night by ten.
She was very, very punctual, Theresa’s mother told him. Did her homework the way she was supposed to, went to church, attended to her chores. No hanging out with dopers or druggies, not their Theresa. She never stepped out of line.
Mrs. Matthews might have been as beautiful as her daughter once, but those years had come and gone quickly. Now she was a high-strung woman with faded blue eyes, dirty-blond hair, and a doughy body. She wore her hair pulled back tight enough to stretch the corners of her eyes and crossed herself at least once every two minutes while clicking together her rosary beads. He knew her kind. Prayed to the Lord to deliver her from all sorts of evil. Was glad at her age she was no longer required to have sex. And on Friday night, when Mr. Matthews drank a whole bottle of Wild Turkey and smacked her and Theresa around, she figured they both deserved it because Eve had given Adam the apple and women had been serving time ever since.
At fifty years of age, Mr. Matthews was pretty much what he’d expected as well. Steel-gray hair, buzz cut. Stern face. Trim waist. Huge arms that bulged as he hefted hundred-pound bags of flour and seventy-pound tanks of pop syrup. He sauntered through the tiny store like an emperor in his domain. While his family worked busily, he liked to lean across the counter and shoot the breeze with the customers, talking about the falling price of milk or the hazards of running a small business. He kept a loaded gun beneath his bed and a rifle in the back of his truck. Once a year he shot one deer legally and—according to local rumors—bagged a second illegally just to prove that he could.
No one told him how to live his life, mind his store, or run his family. He was a true bull-headed, narrow-eyed, dumber-than-a-post son of a bitch.
Jim had spent just two afternoons in the store inspecting father, mother, and daughter, and he’d learned all he needed to know. The parents would never cut it in high society, but they had no genetic defects or facial tics. And their daughter, their beautiful, quiet, obedient daughter, was absolutely perfect.
Jim opened the door of his car and stepped out. He was ready.
Above him the spring sky was pure blue. Before him the Berkshire hills framed Mt. Greylock High School with pure green. Below him the unbroken valley spread out like a verdant buffet, endless fields spotted by faint dots of red barns and black-and-white Holsteins. He inhaled the scents of spicy pine, fresh mowed grass, and distant dairy farms. He listened to cheerleader songs. “Go fight win, go fight win.” He watched Theresa’s long, limber legs kick at the sky.
“We’re from Greylock, no one can be prouder. If you can’t hear us, we’ll shout a little louder.”
He smiled and stepped into the full brilliance of the spring sunshine. He caught Theresa’s eye as her lithe body dropped into the splits, her pompoms victoriously thrust into the air. She smiled back at him, the gesture reflexive.
He took off his sunglasses. Her eyes widened. He unfurled his charming grin until she blushed becomingly and finally had to look away. The other cheerleaders were now glancing from her to him with open envy. A few pouted prettily and one overdeveloped redhead pushed out her perky