Grace Clayton (Perfect Stranger)

Grace Clayton (Nicki Aycox) was a villainess from the 2007 film Perfect Stranger. She was an old childhood friend of journalist Rowena Price, with her first apperance of the movie having her catch up with Rowena at a subway after spotting her leaving a bar, Rowena leaving in a huff after learning her story about Senator Stephen Sachs engaging in affairs with his male interns, despite his anti-gay platform, had been kiboshed.
At the subway, Grace chided Rowena for not returning her phone calls, deducing that she had been working on the Senator Sachs story and promising that she didn't tell anyone. Grace then offered Rowena a story about wealthy advertising executive Harrison Hill, detailing to Rowena how she had started a relationship with Hill online that became an affair; one which (possibly unbeknownst to Grace) resulted in her becoming pregnant. During Grace's confession, Rowena asked about her boyfriend, Chuck Freeman, with Grace justifying the affair by stating that they were fighting a lot more lately.
Grace finally revealed that Hill had abruptly cut off contact with her after asking her to move to New York, and in response to Rowena asking what Grace wanted from her, ranted that you couldn't just try to forget people and pretend they never existed. As Rowena prepared to leave on the subway, Grace handed her copies of her emails with Hill, asking her to read them and giving her regards for her mother. Grace was later found drowned in a river, with Rowena identifying her body due to her face having been deformed by debris. While the film's events have Rowena investigating Hill out of suspicion that he killed her to keep her from exposing his infidelity, the film's conclusion revealed that Rowena was her true killer, with the revelation also leading to Grace's posthumous reveal as a blackmailer.
Rowena's backstory revealed that as a child, her mother caught her father in the midst of preparing to molest her, with the latter promptly killing him before having Rowena help her dispose of his body. Grace witnessed Rowena and her mother burying the body, and began blackmailing Rowena in adulthood with her secret. The revelation also brought to light how Grace's rant against Hill's abrupt end to their affair was a thinly veiled rant against Rowena as well, with her statement about "burying people and pretending they never existed" being a callous dig at Rowena helping her mother bury her father's body. Wanting to end Grace's blackmail, Rowena met with Grace and gave her a beer laced with belladonna, knocking her out and allowing her to take some blood and hair from Grace before putting belladonna in her eye and drowning her former friend in the river, using the blood and hair in a plot to frame Hill for Grace's murder.
==Trivia==
*Nicky Aycox also appeared on Criminal Minds as serial killer Amber Canardo and is best known for recurring on Supernatural as the evil Meg Masters.
==Gallery==
Grace Clayton Corpse.png|Grace's deceased and deformed body
Category:2000s
Category:Adulteress
Category:Blackmailer
Category:Blonde
Category:Callous
Category:Corpse
Category:Femme Fatale
Category:Knocked Out
Category:Live Action Villainess
Category:Offscreen Death
Category:Villainous Reveal
Category:Woman Kills Villainess
Category:Demise: Drowned
Category:Fate: Deceased