Perfect Nightmare (15 page)

Chapter Thirty-one

N
eville Cavanaugh put the first of the garden’s lilies in a vase and set it gently on the breakfast tray. Even though Mr. Shields was still sleeping in the library, at least he seemed to have finally regained a little of his appetite. Perhaps if he rapped on the library door— But before he could finish the thought, let alone pick up the breakfast tray to act on it, the kitchen door opened and Patrick Shields himself walked into the kitchen.

And this morning he wasn’t wearing his pajamas and bathrobe. Rather, he was freshly showered and shaved, wore a pair of loose-fitting white linen trousers and a black polo shirt, and was looking fitter and more chipper than Neville had seen him in months.

Since the day before Christmas, in fact.

Wherever Patrick had gone two nights ago, Neville thought, it must have done him a lot more good than he himself would have thought possible.

“Good morning, Neville,” Patrick said. “Think I’ll eat in the conservatory this morning. It’s such a beautiful day.”

Neville took the tray to the conservatory, where the remains of his own breakfast still littered the table. He set the tray down and then began to tidy up.

Patrick Shields picked up the newspaper that Neville had taken to reading himself since his employer had shown little interest in it in months.

Neville set out his employer’s breakfast, then piled his own dishes on the tray and waited for the paper. Patrick glanced up at him.

“I think I’ll just read it, today, thanks.” His eyes went back to the story Neville himself had been reading half an hour earlier. The story about the girl who had disappeared, Lindsay Marshall. “Have you heard anything else about this girl?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Neville responded as he dusted crumbs off the table. “Just what I’ve read in the paper.”

“Claire knows the girl’s mother,” his employer replied. “Said we actually met once at a fund-raiser. What a horrible thing.”

“I can barely imagine what they must be going through,” Neville murmured.

Again his employer glanced up, his lips compressing into a hard line. “No,” he said. “I suppose you can’t. But I can.”

Neville felt himself flush as their eyes met once again. Then he picked up the tray and left the room, and Patrick, alone, turned back to the paper and focused on the story. It had been almost a week, with no word. The girl’s family was frantic, and understandably so.

Unlike Neville Cavanaugh, Patrick could more than imagine what they must be going through.

He knew exactly what they were feeling.

And then, as he read the story one more time, he remembered the words spoken two nights earlier by the man who had lost his twins.

Find someone else who’s hurting as bad as you are, and try to give them a hand.

Picking up the phone Neville had left on the table, Patrick dialed information, asked for the number of the Camden Green police department, then waited while the connection was made.

Moments later he’d gone through several people before the person he was seeking finally came on the line, his voice flat. “Sergeant Grant.”

“Sergeant Grant, this is Patrick Shields.”

“Mr. Shields,” Grant said, his voice immediately losing its neutral tone. Though he hadn’t actually spoken to Patrick Shields since they were children, the policeman was as aware of who Patrick was—and what had happened to his family—as everybody else in Camden Green. “It’s been a while. How are you holding up?”

“I’m getting along,” Patrick replied. “Thank you for asking. But I’m not calling about myself. I’m wondering about the Marshall girl. Has there been any progress on the case?” He heard the sergeant hesitate. “I’m thinking I’d like to try to do something for her parents,” he explained. When Grant still made no reply, Patrick told him, “I think I know how they must be feeling.” Another silence, and now Patrick wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have called. “I guess maybe—” he began, then forced himself to go on. “I thought perhaps if I posted a reward . . .” His voice trailed off, and once again he wondered if he’d made a mistake, if he should just keep to himself after all.

Then Andrew Grant responded. “You never know,” he said. “Sometimes rewards bring out new leads. That’s very generous of you.”

“Then consider it done,” Patrick said. “Do you think ten thousand would help?”

“It would sure get me calling,” Grant replied. “You’ll have to run that by the family. They’re the ones who’ll have to decide. But if they go along with it, it’s fine with me.” Now it was Patrick who was silent. “Is there a problem with that?” Grant asked when the silence went on too long.

“I—Well, I think I’d prefer the source to remain anonymous. So if you wouldn’t mind, perhaps you could inform the family?”

“I understand,” Grant said. “Of course. I’ll get back to you.”

Patrick clicked off the phone, set it down on the table, and took a blueberry muffin from the basket Neville had left. As he broke it open and spread butter on its steaming halves, he looked out the window toward the Sound.

It was, indeed, a beautiful day.

I
n the kitchen, Neville Cavanaugh quietly set the extension phone back in its cradle.

Chapter Thirty-two

W
hen will I learn? When will I ever learn?

When I’m patient—when I’m in control—things happen exactly as they are supposed to happen.

Even magic happens.

Things fall into place seemingly without any effort on my part at all.

But when I’m impulsive—and today I was impulsive—disasters happen.

I barely escaped one this afternoon, all because I was both impatient and impulsive, which is the worst combination.

The odd thing is, I’m still not entirely sure how it happened. I found myself in the neighborhood of the house I saw in the newspaper, but I have no memory of going there. No conscious memory, at any rate, though I suppose if someone were to dig deep enough into my psyche—well, never mind!

The point is, I would never have gone there without the proper preparation, without the proper planning, without thinking the entire event through.

And yet, when I found myself in the general vicinity, I was seized with a sudden desire to see the house right then. I couldn’t wait until the time was right.

Then, to compound my error, I threw caution to the wind and parked across the street from the house, though at least I had the sense to park two doors down.

It should have been harmless, of course. All I wanted to do was take a quick look.

Get a general impression.

Find out if the feeling that came over me when I found the advertisement was genuine.

I must have been insane.

Worse, I was stupid—totally stupid.

The house, though, was perfect. Small and tidy, with a lovely border of flowers along the walk.

But it was the aura I felt most strongly. It was almost a visible thing, enveloping the house with a wonderful feeling of love and tenderness, though I also sensed a mild undertone of sadness—perhaps even of tragedy.

Instinctively, I liked the people who lived there, and deep in my soul I knew that someone who lived there had a role to play for me. Yes, there was a reason the house spoke to me even from that tiny ad in the newspaper, and when I was actually there, gazing at it, it spoke even louder, more clearly, calling out to me.

I should have left then.

I didn’t.

And then the first thing happened: a small truck coming down the street swerved away from me and the driver blasted his horn as if it were my fault that he almost hit me, when it was obvious he hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going. He missed me—by perhaps a fraction of an inch!—then slammed on his brakes and backed up until his windows were even with mine. Then he proceeded to glare at me, again as if it were somehow my fault! Without thinking, I slid down in my seat in an automatic attempt to avoid being seen, but of course to him I looked like a coward, and he took a good, long look at me. A moment later he stomped on the gas and his tires screeched as he raced around the corner.

I should have left then and there and crossed this house—and its occupants—off my list of prospects, but before I could even start my own car, another car pulled up directly in front of the house.

First, a young girl—an absolutely adorable child—got out of the car. Tiny and sweet, perhaps five years old, wearing a little pink dress with matching bands around her ponytails. She ran up the walk and up the steps to the front door and waited.

Then her mother got out of the car, and I knew! I had not been wrong. Tall and lithe, with an easy grace, I knew in an instant that my instincts had once again proved flawless.

The mother said her good-byes to the driver of the car, closed the door, and started toward the front door of the house. Then, in a second stroke of bad luck, she stopped to pull a weed from her beautifully tended flower bed.

When she did, she must have felt the intensity of my gaze, for she turned her head and looked directly at me.

Her eyes are brown—dark, dark brown—just as they have to be.

There was no way I could avert my gaze, and our eyes met. For a moment I felt a perfect connection with her, but then she straightened up and hurried her daughter into the house.

And turned to look at me one more time before following her daughter inside.

I stayed where I was for another seventy-seven seconds, knowing it was better to act as if I were waiting for someone than to drive immediately away. But when I finally started the car and pulled slowly away from the curb, I saw the curtain in the house move.

I know she watched me leave.

This is not good. This is not good at all.

S
tuff!

Everywhere she looked, Ellen Fine saw
stuff.
Nothing valuable. Nothing she even wanted. In fact, she couldn’t remember where it had all come from. But there it was, the accumulation of five years in this tiny house, now piled on the floor in a mound that seemed to be getting bigger instead of smaller. She’d already filled three garbage bags with junk that was being consigned to the dump, and nearly a dozen boxes had been filled with Emily’s toys, shelves of books, and stacks of file folders.

For a moment she almost wished she’d married Emily’s father—at least then she would have had someone to help her sift through everything and make the hundreds of tiny decisions about what to keep and what to throw away. Of course, if she’d married Danny, this little cottage would have been far too small for the three of them. And in the end, she was sure, Danny would have wound up taking off with Brenda Lansky anyway, and nothing would have been any different than it was right now.

Danny—along with Brenda—had vanished, and with them had gone the monthly support checks for Emily. Which made perfect sense when Ellen thought about it; after all, Danny certainly couldn’t be expected to support his daughter and his girlfriend, too, could he? So now she was moving back to Missouri, back in with her mom and dad, because she simply could no longer afford Long Island.

Not even this tiny little cottage in Smithton, which wasn’t even half as nice as Camden Green, just a couple of miles farther out Route 25A.

Today was Goodwill and garbage day, and Saturday would be estate sale day. That was a laugh, thinking of this tiny house as any kind of an “estate.”

What wasn’t a laugh was that she was having second thoughts about the “estate” sale, which would be a “selling off everything I have left in the world” sale, with all kinds of people tramping through her house, making her ridiculous offers for what little furniture she had. And she would take the offers, because she couldn’t afford to ship anything back to Missouri, where her parents already had a houseful of furniture. But the truth was, it wasn’t the loss of her furniture that was bothering her. Instead, it was the idea of all those strangers tramping through the house. And even that wouldn’t have bothered her until this morning, when someone had been sitting in a car across the street and down the block, watching Emily and her.

She felt the eyes on her as soon as Marla Williams dropped her off, and for a second she’d almost asked Marla to stay. But then she’d decided she was being silly, that whoever was in the car probably wasn’t watching her at all.

So she’d said nothing.

And felt the eyes tracking her right up to the front door of her house.

She’d pretended to pull a weed and looked at the man in the car, and for an instant their eyes met and she felt a cold terror go through her. She’d turned away and gone into the house, and in about a minute he drove away, leaving her still shaken from that brief moment when their eyes had met.

Her first instinct had been to call the police, but even as the thought occurred to her, she dismissed it. What was she going to say? That there had been a man in a car who looked at her? She’d sound like a loony tune. Besides, she couldn’t even remember what the man looked like. Of course, he’d been in his car, but the weird thing was, even though she’d looked directly at his face, she couldn’t recall a single thing about it. Whether his cheeks were fat or sunken, or his lips thin and his nose thick, or vice versa.

In fact, she couldn’t even remember the color of the car, let alone the make, model, or year.

So much for calling the cops.

After that, she’d tried to dismiss the whole incident from her mind, but that had been no more possible than remembering what the guy had looked like, especially since that cold feeling of terror she’d felt when their eyes met was still with her.

What had he wanted?

And what if he came back?

What if he came to her estate sale and walked right into her house?

She told herself she was being silly, that absolutely nothing had happened or was going to happen. But no matter how long she argued with herself, she couldn’t shake the creepy feeling she had. Maybe she should just cancel the estate sale and let the open house happen on Saturday and Sunday with all her ratty furniture still there. Then she and Emily could simply pack whatever they wanted into her little Honda and drive back to “I told you so” land, and the heck with the furniture. Maybe the agent would be able to sell the house for enough to give her a new start, and she wasn’t going to get that much for the furniture anyway.

She picked up a worn, floppy-eared rabbit with a yellow ribbon around its neck and a yellow bow sewed to one of its ears. Emily hadn’t touched this rabbit in a year or more. She tossed it into the Goodwill box and picked up the next item for evaluation. A music box. She turned the key, trying to remember where it came from, but no music came out.

Broken.

Garbage.

Emily came down from her bedroom with an armful of books. “These, Mom.”

Ellen took the picture books from her daughter. “Oh, honey, this is too many books to take to Grammy's. Besides, these are too young for you—why don’t we give them to some little kids who don’t read as well as you do?”

“No,” Emily said. “I want them.” Then she picked the rabbit out of the Goodwill box and hugged it to her chest.

Ellen sighed. If Emily had never seen the rabbit, it would never have been an issue, but now it would be. “Emily, honey, everything that we take has to fit into our car. We’ll get new stuff in Missouri. Better stuff.”

“I need Mr. Spanky,” Emily said, hugging the rabbit.

“Honey—”

“
Daddy
gave him to me.”

Ellen gently put the books into the Goodwill box and let Emily keep the rabbit. Since Danny had vanished, he had become a god in Emily’s eyes, and even though she was sure a time would come when Emily would see him for exactly what he was, that time was not yet at hand. For now, she was not going to interfere with her daughter’s idea about her perfect father.

“Okay, honey, if Daddy gave him to you, you can keep him, but the books have to go.”

Emily turned without a word and carried the rabbit back up to her room, climbing the stairs exactly the way she’d climbed the front steps earlier.

The memory of the man in the car—blessedly absent for the few moments she’d been talking to Emily—leaped back into the forefront of her mind, and she suddenly knew that it hadn’t just been herself the man in the car had been watching.

It had been Emily, too.

And with that realization, all thoughts of the estate sale vanished.

After the open house, they would come back just long enough to pack their bags, and then she and Emily would be gone.

Gone from Smithton, and gone from the memories of Danny and what might have been but hadn’t, and gone from this house. And gone from the man in the car.