CHAPTER ONE
In a dark, unfamiliar bedroom in Beechview, Pittsburgh, Patricia Doricott, a twenty-year-old Duquesne poli-sci major, wakes up groggy.
She lies there for a second until her brain regurgitates the cab ride to Stanley Theatre with Fletch and Lori. The concert. Patricia’s older brother, Tom, bought the tickets for her as a gift, so she was glad Elvis Costello delivered. The music was great.
Her memory is hazy post-concert. She remembers afterward, another cab to Zack’s on Fourth Avenue. Then another club: getting drinks, chatting to a guy at the bar. It was crowded. There were any number of drinks. She’s gone home with someone, which is not a first, but it’s the first time she can’t remember the guy’s name.
The bedroom she’s in now smells of some kind of nauseating air freshener. She makes out a nightstand but no lamp. The room is damn dark: maybe she just can’t see the lamp? Her mouth tastes terrible and her head hurts. Fumbling off the blanket, she realizes she’s still in her clothes. Not the typical Walk of Shame scenario, then. Patti stubs her toe on the way to the door, then twists the handle and opens onto—
Light, god.
A white hallway with dark dado and beige carpet, wincingly bright. She has the world’s most awful headache. Framed pictures in the hall show her reflection in the glass. Her dark hair has gone from tousled to bird’s nest, yeesh.
But framed pictures mean she’s in a house, not a dorm room. Okay, this is better. Easier, in some ways. Just say hi to the guy, thanks for being a gentleman, ask to call a cab, get home.
Patti walks onward until the hallway reaches stairs. She descends slowly, holding the banister, turns right past a front door, walks until the trail spills her out into the kitchen. A plain wooden table with one place setting: a bowl, spoon, glass of water, white coffee cup in a saucer. A box of Cheerios and a carton of milk on the table. Maybe the guy has gone to work. She’s honestly trying to remember his name, but that information lives somewhere just out of reach.
She sits at the table and drinks the water, wishing her head wasn’t fracturing everything into bright, painful prisms. Low music, somewhere farther away – KC and the Sunshine Band. Jesus, how much did she have to drink?
The sound of a door opening, closing, and a young man walks into the kitchen. Tallish, medium build, brown hair, white dress shirt and dark trousers, cute professor glasses. He looks like the guy from the bar, but she can’t be sure.
‘Hi, honey,’ he says cheerfully.
‘Hi,’ Patti replies, but she is thinking,What?
He takes the chair opposite, across the table. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Uh, yeah.’ Her tongue, thick in her mouth. ‘Like my head got steamrollered.’
‘Oh, would you like something for that?’ He grubs in his trouser pocket, pulls out a blister pack of tablets. Pops two and pushes them across the tabletop. ‘Here you go. Tylenol.’
‘Thanks, it’s fine. I’ll wait until I get home.’ Better not to accept strange tablets.Nice place, do you mind if I call a cab?she rehearses mentally as she sips the water.
The guy cocks his head and smiles. ‘You do look so much like her.’
‘Pardon?’
‘It’s nothing. Would you like me to show you to the bathroom?’
‘Uh, if you wouldn’t mind. Then I should probably call a cab.’
‘Sure.’ He smiles again as he rises from his seat and hurries over to help ease Patti’s chair out from the table. ‘Follow me.’
He leads her back the way she came. The music murmur fades the farther they get upstairs. Patti’s trying not to trip over her feet. How embarrassing. No wonder she woke up in her clothes.
Confession time. ‘I’m sorry, but what was your name again?’
‘Peter.’ He looks over his shoulder as they reach the hallway, walk past the pictures. ‘And you’re Patricia?’
‘Patti. Yeah.’
‘Peter and Patricia. Sounds nice together, don’t you think?’
‘Uh—’
‘Here we are.’ He angles to open a door on the left side of the hallway.
White bathroom, not huge, compact. A showerhead on the wall over a bathtub. A toilet, a freestanding sink. Security bars on thewindow, which is pretty standard for Pittsburgh, although not usually on the second story.
