Preview of A Most Clever Girl
Preview of A Most Clever Girl by Stephanie Thornton
NOVEMBER 23, 1963
12:57 P.M.
The gun in Catherine’s Pucci handbag bumped reassuringly against her hip as she double- checked the address of the Connecticut apartment building.
The scrawled numbers refused to snap into focus until she blinked a few times; her eyes were still raw from yesterday’s news of President Kennedy’s assassination, from seeing photos of a tearstained Jackie Kennedy—whom Catherine sometimes glimpsed while giving tours of the White House—wearing that blood-spattered pink suit while Lyndon Johnson took the oath of office aboard Air Force One.
Yesterday had been the final straw.
One week ago, Catherine’s entire world had fallen apart. One day ago, the country.
But today, armed with a crumpled letter and the Smith & Wesson revolver her father had carried when he was shot down at the Battle of Saipan, Catherine was going to right some very old wrongs.
Two bullets, she thought to herself. One for her and one for me.
The building hunched in front of her was nondescript, shabby, and run- down; even the wood of the stairs underfoot felt rotten. Catherine—Cat to everyone outside of her mother, who had called her Cathy—had probably watched too much James Bond in Dr. No, but she’d expected a former spy to have a more impressive abode than this two-story mud-brown building with sagging gutters and peeling paint.
Probably fallen on hard times, she thought to herself as she knocked on the door of number 201, wishing she could break it down instead. She’s damned lucky she’s not in jail.
Cat waited, then gave a second sharp rap with the heel of her fist. She was about to start peering inside windows when a squat woman with snuff-brown hair cracked the door wide enough to reveal a rusted chain lock. She looked more run-down than the building itself, save for her painted red lips. Not just any red—vicious, violent, poisonous red.
“Hello, my name is Catherine Gray.” Cat smoothed the flip of her Jackie- esque bob, every rebellious blond strand lacquered into place with half a can of Aqua Net. Given the way the blood was pounding in her ears, she was impressed that her hands didn’t shake. “I’m here to see Elizabeth Bentley.”
The door slammed in her face.
Cat raised her fist again, this time ready to break the door down, but stopped at the unexpected rattle of chain. The door reopened, wider this time. The dumpy woman’s gaze swept the empty street, making Catherine wonder what—or who—he was looking for.
“I’m Elizabeth Bentley.” Her voice came out slightly nasal with that East Coast finishing school polish Catherine had grown accustomed to hearing after three and a half years at Trinity Washington University. Elizabeth Bentley’s face was the sort no one would notice in a crowd. The perfect face for a spy. The image was only marred by a small mole below her left eye and a scar that streaked beneath her lower lip.
This was the face of the woman who had destroyed Cat’s life.
It’s now or never . . .
In one swift movement, Cat aimed the Smith & Wesson revolver straight between Elizabeth’s eyes. The gun made a satisfying click as she cocked the trigger. “You ruined my life, you Communist bitch. And now you’re going to pay for it.”
She’d thought she’d be able to just pull the trigger, to end all this and escape the lethal undertow of pain. But when the moment came . . .
Cat hesitated.
Can I really end someone else’s life? Am I capable of that?
To Elizabeth’s credit, she merely blinked. Was she really so accustomed to staring down the muzzle of a gun? “Well, Catherine Gray, unfortunately, I ruined a lot of people’s lives. Why don’t you come in and we can discuss like civilized people what I did that was so heinous that you want to kill me?”
Whatever Cat had been expecting while she rehearsed this scene in her head on the train ride up from Washington, DC, a civilized chat was decidedly not it.
Except Elizabeth was already turning around, the open door an invitation to follow her.
Cat worried that perhaps Elizabeth was going for her own weapon, but the former spy merely looked back at her. “Are you coming? Or are you really going to shoot me?”
Cat could pull the trigger—at such close quarters she could hardly miss, despite the sudden tremor in her hands—and exact a quick and easy revenge. Except it was difficult to think with her heart beating in her ears and the foundations of her plan crumbling beneath her very feet. It might be easier to follow Elizabeth Bentley inside. Maybe inform this criminal exactly why she was here, and see if Elizabeth Bentley would confess to crimes that had led a twenty-one-year-old college student to her doorstep with murder on her mind?
Then Cat could shoot her. And be done with all of this. Right?
Gun in hand, Cat stepped over the threshold.
She’d half expected encoding machines or telegraphs inside, found instead merely a plain apartment decorated in every shade of brown. A clock ticked somewhere, and the lone decoration on any of the oak-paneled walls was a tacky wooden crucifix with a resin Christ nailed to the cross. A stack of leather-bound books tottered on a battered end table, and a long- haired ginger cat stretched out lazily on a mushroom- brown sofa as if he owned the place. The thing opened one eye, then howled piteously before rolling onto his back. “Hush, George Washington,” Elizabeth chided him. “Catherine here has a gun, and you don’t want to upset her with your caterwauling.” She turned to Cat, arms open at her sides as if giving her one final opportunity to take the easy way out. Talk or shoot?
When Cat didn’t move, Elizabeth gave a tiny nod. “It’s almost one o’clock, but I’ll put on a fresh pot of Folgers. Or I have gin, if that’s your preference. Pick your poison, as it were.”
“No coffee, no gin. I don’t want anything from you.” Certainly not a glass laced with poison, which Cat wouldn’t have put past this woman who once took orders from the NKVD. “Except a confession.”
Elizabeth sighed, gestured toward the Formica table inside the thimble-sized kitchen. “Do you mind if we sit? Standing is hell on my knees these days.”
The last thing Cat wanted to do was to sit across from this woman in some cozy tête‑à‑tête, but she heard her dead mother’s voice inside her head. Manners, Cathy. And respect your elders.
Except she didn’t owe Elizabeth Bentley one iota of respect. She gestured with the gun toward the kitchen. “Let’s get this over with.”
And then I’ll shoot you.
Elizabeth settled into a floral vinyl-upholstered chair—brown, of course—and tugged on the garish suntan-hued pantyhose she wore under her brown rayon dress that was better suited to World War II fabric rations. The woman was plain as mud, not even a stitch of jewelry save for a golden ring studded with a ruby on her left hand. Quite the juxtaposition to Cat, who wore a black button‑up jumper dress on the cutting edge of fashion—the only black dress in her closet—out of mourning for President Kennedy, her one splash of color a scarlet ascot at her throat.
Elizabeth sat, folded her hands before her. “Why don’t we start with you telling me exactly what I did to ruin your life.”
Cat, refusing to sit, remained standing at the kitchen door. She didn’t say a word, merely retrieved from her pocket her mother’s final letter, which she’d discovered two days ago while sorting through Joan Gray’s belongings in a neighbor’s garage, their house having been sold— unbeknownst to Cat until that horrible week—to pay an ever-increasing mountain of bills. That innocuous piece of flowered stationery had sent a fresh shock wave through Cat’s previously calm life. Joan Gray had fought a good fight, but she’d done it alone. And in the end, she’d lost.
And now, Cat was alone.
Cat tossed the bombshell letter on the table. “Read it.”
Elizabeth Bentley frowned when she had to reach across the table for the letter, apparently more perturbed by the breach of etiquette than the gun still pointed at her. She perched a set of unfashionable reading glasses on her nose, and her eyes flicked back and forth over the paper—it seemed to Cat that she read the entire thing at least three times before she finally folded the glasses back up.
“My condolences,” she said. “I can see why you sought me out.”
“My entire life has been a lie.” Rage seethed at the edges of Cat’s words, protecting her from the dark maelstrom of grief that churned beneath. “Because of you.”
“And that’s why you’ve come to kill me.”
“Your life for the one you stole from me.”
“That seems fair.” Elizabeth rubbed the scar on her chin. “Although I’m not sure a jury would necessarily agree. Life in prison is a long sentence for someone your age.”
Cat tapped the chamber of the revolver. “Two bullets,” she said. “Yours. And mine.”
A deep V formed between Elizabeth’s brows. “Your solution does seem terribly permanent. Also, as a patriotic American, I’d like to remind you about my right to a fair and speedy trial.”
“Patriotic?” If Cat had been closer to Elizabeth she would have laughed in her face. As it was, she fisted her hands and leaned over the table. “You were a goddamned Russian spy, Elizabeth, the furthest from a patriot as they come. All I want is to hear you admit your guilt so I can kill you.”
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes until Cat couldn’t help the shiver that rippled up her spine. “Here’s my counter to your proposal.” She set aside her reading glasses and pushed the letter back toward Cat. “You hear my side of the story—the real story, from start to finish—and then you can decide my fate, and your own. Judge, jury, and executioner, if you will. For both of us.”
Cat hesitated long enough that Elizabeth shrugged. “I’ve found that the best way to keep from drowning in grief is to find a distraction.” She retrieved a golden cigarette lighter from her skirt pocket. Cat waited for her to light up—the apartment smelled of stale smoke, and there was already an overflowing ashtray on the table—but instead Elizabeth only flicked the lighter a few times, causing sparks but no flame. Click click click. “Consider my story a distraction.”
“A distraction from the truth, you mean? I read enough old articles trying to track you down to know that you lied in your testimony to the Senate. And to the press. And God knows where else.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of shades of truth? That’s the problem with being an accomplished liar—no one believes you even when you are telling the truth.” Elizabeth sighed, pointed toward the sink, silently requesting permission to move. At Cat’s nod, she shuffled to a drawer, hands up in that universal gesture of don’t shoot. “Spy stories are rarely encumbered with something as mundane as the truth, but just in case you feel tempted to doubt me,” she said—then handed a slim pile of old envelopes from within to Cat, all bound with a frayed piece of twine—“here’s proof that although I am a Communist and I was a spy for Russia, there’s far more to my story than just that. Namely that I’m a patriot blessed with the gift of making spectacularly shitty decisions.”
Cat fingered open the first envelope to find a letter typed on official FBI letterhead and marked in capital letters: PERSONAL.
Excerpted from A Most Clever Girl by Stephanie Marie Thornton Copyright © 2021 by Stephanie Marie Thornton. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Preview of A Most Clever Girl by Stephanie Thornton
