Hide and Seek (23 page)

He tipped his ballcap, a blue one that read “N.Y. Giants.” “Got to get back, plenty of work to do. You have a pleasant day, Mrs. Bradford.”

I watched J.C. make his way back toward the large estate house of the club.

Strange
, I thought.
Why wouldn’t he know about the lights? Or why would he lie to me?

I finally went back to the house determined to talk to Will that morning. It had to be done, however painful for both of us. This seemed like as good a day as any.

Jennie and Allie were toasting Pop-Tarts in the kitchen. They were both dressed. Jennie looked
ready for school
, which pleased me.

“Is Will up?” I asked, trying to make it sound as though it were not a big deal, nothing special.

“You just missed him, Mom,” Jennie said. “He had to go to the city on business. Said he’d be back around four.”

I groaned. Will was almost never out of the house this early. Just my luck.

This was the day
.

CHAPTER 84

W
ILL DIDN’T COME home at four that afternoon. He still hadn’t arrived at seven-thirty when we sat down for dinner.

Or at ten, when we went upstairs to get ready for bed. He never called to say he’d be late, or maybe that he wouldn’t be coming home at all.

I lay in bed with the lights off, but my eyes wide open. I was blaming myself, and I knew I shouldn’t do that. Will had been so incredibly romantic and sensitive in the beginning of our relationship, and then he had just switched it off. Completely.

I wondered if he was having an affair now, or maybe more than one. I guess I shouldn’t have cared about that, but I did.

I don’t know how I finally got to sleep, only that I did.

“Damn! Damn it to hell!” I heard.

Will’s curses woke me.
He was inside the bedroom. He was home
.

I could see him standing near the door, examining his toe. He’d stubbed it in the darkness.
Well, good. Serves him right
.

The bedroom door was half-open and light from the hallway silhouetted his body. His face remained in shadow.

He turned to look at me, but I pretended to be asleep. I held my breath. Then he crept out of the room.

He pulled the door awkwardly behind him. The door slammed shut. More of his stupid head games?
Damn him
.

I looked at the luminous face of the bedside clock: 12:45.

Where had he been tonight? Maybe I should get up and talk with him now, while the kids were asleep
.

I got up, walked to the window, and looked outside. I saw Will. What was he doing? Where was he going down there?

I put on my robe and left the bedroom. The hallway was dark. On his way out, Will had turned off the night light we kept on for Allie.

I hurried downstairs.

The lights were off in the living room and den. There was no sound, no movement.

Something seemed wrong to me! Why were the lights off?

What was he up to?

The downstairs rooms were dark and quiet too. There was no one in the kitchen, or in Mrs. Leigh’s room. Fridays were her night off, I remembered.

I went back to the foot of the stairs and peered up.
Nothing to see. Was Will back inside the house?

I started to climb the stairs again.

Halfway up, I saw something standing against the wall. My heart almost stopped. My legs nearly went out from under me.

It was the rifle! I’d finally found it.
In the middle of the stairway, where Will had left it!

My head was filled with loud noise. Chaos and confusion. None of this made sense to me.

What was going on?

Was Will upstairs again? What was he planning to do with the rifle? Where had it come from?

I started to run up the stairs. I reached the top step and stopped. At the far end of the corridor a line of light showed from beneath a door.

It was Jennie’s door. The light hadn’t been on just a few minutes before.

I was suddenly terrified that Will was in there.
He’s taking the children
, I thought.

I ran to get the rifle, then I hurried back. At least I had the gun now, not Will.

Had he planned to murder us all? Disturbed men did things like that. It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?

I had a flashback. Phillip!

I ran down the corridor and yanked open Jennie’s door. The rifle was ready, at least I thought it was.
I really didn’t know very much about guns. Next to nothing, actually
.

What I saw inside the bedroom drove me absolutely out of my mind.

CHAPTER 85

T
HIS IS THE day! Oh, Jesus God, Will!

Don’t shoot him. Don’t do it. Maggie, don’t!
a voice inside my head screamed at a deafening level.

Jennie was on the bed, wearing short, white pajamas. Her long, bare legs were exposed. Her eyes were closed; she seemed to be breathing normally. There was a glass of milk on the night table, half-finished.

I took in every tiny detail, understanding nothing yet.

This was so bad. This was so bad
.

Will stood at the foot of her bed. He was dressed in khakis and a sport shirt. What he’d worn for his business meeting in New York? He looked too casual for business.
What was Will doing in Jennie’s bedroom?

“Maggie!” he said, as cool as could be. His film star persona. “I thought you were asleep. Were you trying to fool me?”

My heart was pounding so hard and fast it was difficult for me to breathe. “What are you doing in here?” I gasped out the words.
“What is going on?”

Jennie suddenly sat up, and rubbed her eyes. She looked frightened. “Mom? Will? What’s the matter? What’s happening? Is that a gun?
Mom
?”

Will smiled at the horrifying scene. It was the most scary and evil expression I had ever seen. I didn’t know the person I was looking at.
What was he doing in Jennie’s bedroom? I thought that I knew
.

“Jennie and I were just getting ready for some fun,” he said. “Care to join us in bed?
Ménage à trois?”

Ménage à trois?
I was too scared and stunned to speak. For a moment my body was paralyzed. My pulse was racing crazily. I felt my mind implode.
Will and Jennie? Oh, my God, no!

I raised the gun and aimed it at Will. I didn’t care about the consequences.

I couldn’t pull the trigger though. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t
.

“Get out of this house, and don’t you ever come back,” I said in a steady voice.

Will pushed past me and with his great speed rushed down the corridor. I could tell by the sound that he took the steps two at a time. He was laughing in a loud, braying voice, the kind you heard in horror movies.

I went after him, hampered by the unwieldy gun. I didn’t want to shoot him, just make sure he was gone—forever.
Gone from all of our lives
.

He went out the front door, and I ran after him. I could see little at first except the outline of overhanging trees, but I heard his footsteps retreating toward the back of the house.

I pitched forward. Hit my knee. Caught myself with one hand.

Suddenly I couldn’t hear steps anymore!

I pushed myself up. I listened intently, as I have never listened before.

I was frightened. I thought I might be going into shock. I felt cold all over. I was
freezing
cold.
I couldn’t forget seeing Will in Jennie’s bedroom. The look in her eyes
.

It was too quiet. I couldn’t hear Will, or see him either. What was he doing out here?

The moon had disappeared behind a cover of clouds. It was nearly pitch dark. I couldn’t stay outside. I knew I should get back in the house.

Perhaps he had tricked me. Gone back to Jennie. I didn’t know what to do.

I stood uncertainly, squinting my eyes and looking around, trying to penetrate the darkness. I remembered hiding in the crawl space beneath the house near West Point. My nightmare had completed a full circle.

Silence.

Darkness.

The cold. I was shaking all over again.

“You stupid, prying bitch! You betrayed me.”

With a roar, Will attacked from behind. His strong hands struggled to grasp my throat. I fought free from the stranglehold. He struck my face, a glancing but jolting blow. It brought me to my knees. I fought to get up. Couldn’t. Not even close.

Will swung his leg. With a powerful kick, he broke my rib, maybe several ribs. The pain was sharp, and unimaginable. The shock, the terror of that moment, was beyond belief.

I fell toward the hard, cold ground.

The rifle went off with a roar louder than any of my screams, louder than a clap of thunder. I rolled onto my stomach, then everything went black and I fell unconscious into the cold, wet leaves.

CHAPTER 86

I
DON’T KNOW.

I don’t know.

I honestly don’t know
what happened on that fateful night of December 17. Did I shoot Will? Did I lure him outside and then blow him away? They say I did. Am I guilty of murder? Two murders? And if two murders, why not three?

Are they right when they call me a killer? The black widow of Bedford?

Maybe I’ve finally gone crazy. It feels that way. It feels so awful, so unfair. But life isn’t always fair.

I woke in my own bed with my face buried in my pillow and an agonizing pain throbbing across my left side. I felt as though I’d been beaten with a work shovel. Everything was crashing loudly inside my head.

In my mind I tumbled and tumbled but couldn’t stop the images of violence and horror from coming at me.

Who had fired the rifle?

Jennie
, I thought.
I’ve got to get to Jennie. And Allie
. I was conscious of a great buzzing noise. At first I thought it was in my head, but then realized it came from outside.

Why were there voices outside my house? What in the world was going on?

My eyelids felt unnaturally heavy. Pain, like a razor cut, was behind them. Another kind of pain, particularly sharp, knifed into my ribs.

I forced my eyes open, then quickly closed them. The light was too bright.
Who had turned the lamp on?

I heard footsteps on the stairs. Will!

I tried to sit up but couldn’t.
A flaming yellow bolt crossed my vision like heat lightning, like a bold graphic on MTV
.

Again I opened my eyes.

I could barely see the heavyset black man in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie. He was standing by the side of the bed, looking down at me. He seemed seven feet tall. His horn-rimmed glasses appeared too small for his giant head.

He was
staring
at me. An odd look on his face.
What was he doing in my bedroom? Or was I in a hospital? This felt more like a hospital actually
.

“You’re Maggie Bradford?”

I tried to nod, tried to understand what could possibly be going on,
wherever I was
. Maybe I was having a flashback.

“We found you outside, carried you up here,” the man said. He passed some sort of badge before my face. A gold and blue insignia.

“I’m Emmett Harmon, Chief of the Bedford Police.” His solemn voice boomed inside my head.
The Chief of the Bedford Police?

Oh, dear God. What’s happened? Jennie? Allie?

“What are you doing here? Please, where are my children?” I whispered. My throat was raw and ached when I talked.

“Maggie Bradford, you’re under arrest for the murder of your husband, Will Shepherd. You have the right to remain silent.”

BOOK FIVE

Trial & Error

CHAPTER 87

“
M
S. NORMA BREEN?”

“Yes. Who is this I’m speaking to?”

“My name’s Barry Kahn.”

“You don’t say. My, my. The
singer
Barry Kahn?”

“The same.”

“I think you’re terrific! Your songs are anyway. What can I help you with?”

“It’s not for me that I’m calling. We need your help.”

“We?”

“Nathan Bailford and I.”

“Nathan! How the hell
is
Nathan?”

“Up to his ears in the Maggie Bradford defense.”

“Yes. I’d heard he took it on. Tough duty.”

“We’d like to hire you for our team. Nathan says you’re the best investigator he knows.”

“I’m very good, but what difference does it make? Isn’t this case pretty open and shut? That’s what I hear.”

“We don’t think so, not at all. Nathan thinks it’s anything but open and shut.”

“You could have fooled me. The media has her drilling the son of a bitch, blowing his head off.”

“There’s more to it than that, believe me there is. You interested in finding out what?”

“He was shtupping someone else?”

“We’ll never know. Probably. But Maggie wouldn’t kill him for that.”

“Abuse?”

“Far as I know, he hit her once. No, I’m sorry,
twice
. She wouldn’t kill him for that either. She’s a good person. Just like in her songs.”

“Then why’d she do it?”

“That’s what we’re hiring you to find out, Ms. Breen. We’re not entirely sure that she did.”

“You need a defense, or you want the facts?”

“We need a defense.”

“Ah. My thanks for your honesty. I like that in a famous singer.”

“But we’re sure the facts will lead to the defense. Maggie’s not a killer.”

“Only of husbands, it seems. Didn’t she shoot hubby number one? I
do
believe I read that in the funny pages.”

“That’s never been proved. She was never tried for it. She was originally charged with second-degree murder, but it didn’t stick.”

“And her live-in? Patrick O’Malley?”

“An accident. O’Malley had a heart attack.”

“I thought she confessed to the murder.”

“The police claim what they have is a confession. Maggie was confused and disoriented when they brought her in. You can understand that.”

“The press are already trying her. She’s sure losing in their court. The first one with a handgun, the next on a boat, this one with a rifle.”