Megan MIRANDA: The Perfect Stranger

If she herself was anything more than a story, with gaps that she left for us to fill in ourselves. Never telling me anything real, letting me fill in those blanks with my own story. Appealing to something so basic, so needed – that I wanted to find another person like me, who was strong, who had made it. I had constructed her in my own likeness.

There was a twitch above her eye, and her gaze darted quickly to the side, and I took inventory of the room – all the things she could be looking at. The knives, the base of the candlestick, the stakes beside the fireplace. I knew what she had done to Bethany. I had seen her not even flinch when she’d taken a knife to Aaron’s arm so many years ago. If she hadn’t killed that man years earlier, she’d at least gone along with it.

And for the first time, I was afraid of the woman before me.

Paige could see that there was something wrong with Emmy. But I was too blinded to her. She was, I believed, the person I wanted to be. Capable of anything. I had let her too close, it was true, but she had let me come so close as well.

“Kyle’s probably up by now,” I said.

“So? Time to go, then?” I felt her excitement in the air, that she was gaining the upper hand again.

I shook my head. “No, I left this address for him this morning with your name. Sent him a picture of you getting out of the car a few minutes ago.”

She shook her head. “No, Leah. You didn’t.” Because wasn’t that the Leah Stevens she knew?

I held up my phone for her now, showed her the string of responses from him. The fact that he was calling the local police. The What were you thinking . The Hold on, I’m coming .

A sound escaped her throat, and she looked around the room.

“Leah,” she said, “what did you do?”

“I gave you a head start,” I said. “It seems only fair after all you’ve done for me.”

This house was her beginning and her end. The thing she was working back toward. The only way she could get there – without Bethany, without James Finley, without me. I saw her stare at it longingly, then set her jaw, a version of her stripped bare.

“You have to take nothing with you when you go,” I said, repeating the words she’d spoken to me years earlier. “That’s how to do it, right?”

She blinked once more at me, as if truly seeing me for the first time. And then she was gone.

It’s when she runs that I know the truth from the fiction. It’s when I’m finally sure – of her, of me.

She left the front door open in her rush. Her footsteps raced to the side of the woods. She didn’t even have her coat.

I knew she didn’t stand a chance.

I could feel the net closing around her even now, before the police arrived.

Even if she got away today, began to make her way as someone else, her face would be up on news programs. These pictures on the mantel would identify her. A paper trail, exposed. She would no longer be a ghost.

I brought her to life. Like I promised to do all along.

I KNEW KYLE WOULDsay this was reckless of me, that I acted on impulse, coming here first all alone, stepping inside her house, and confronting her. Why not watch from the woods, call it in, once I was sure it was her?

But he didn’t know – I owed it to the anonymous girl I’d hidden away years earlier.

Part of me needed to see whether I would believe her now. Whether I could see the truth from the story myself.

And if I’m honest, there was another part of me that wanted her to know I was the one who had done it. To be standing face-to-face with her when she realized what was happening. I wasn’t the Leah Stevens she thought I was.

I had been the one to shake the truth free this time. The thrill as I watched it finally rise to the surface, unstoppable.

Thank you to everyone who helped guide this project from idea to finished book:

My agent, Sarah Davies, for all the feedback, advice, and support along the way. I’m so fortunate to have you in my corner.

My editor, Karyn Marcus, and the entire team at Simon & Schuster, including Marysue Rucci, Richard Rhorer, Jonathan Karp, Amanda Lang, Nicole McArdle, Marie Florio, and Sydney Morris. It’s such a pleasure working with you all!

Thanks also to Trish Todd, Sarah Knight, and Kaitlin Olson, whose early feedback helped give shape to this idea.

A huge thanks to Megan Shepherd, Ashley Elston, Elle Cosimano, and Romily Bernard, for all the feedback, brainstorming sessions, and encouragement on this project.

And to my family, for all your support.

© CHRISTINE WATLEY PHOTOGRAPHY

Megan Miranda is the author of the national bestseller All the Missing Girls . She has also written several books for young adults, including Fracture, Hysteria, Vengeance, Soulprint , and The Safest Lies . She grew up in New Jersey, graduated from MIT, and lives in North Carolina with her husband and two children. The Perfect Stranger is her second novel of psychological suspense.

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