Scared to Death (12 page)

Now that all the personal stuff is gone, no one crossing the threshold would ever guess that the notorious Quinns live here.

For that matter, no one looking around Mom's bedroom would ever find evidence that she's involved with some guy.

Caroline figures the only place she might be able to find incriminating information is on Mom's phone, and of course she's taken that with her.

She slouches back down the hall to her own room—also devoid of her favorite photos and mementos and reminders of Daddy that were on prominent display, until Mom made her remove them. The room looks so
generic now, like it could belong to anyone. The less time she spends hanging out here, the better.

Now what? The whole day stretches emptily ahead. Too bad none of her friends is around, and there's absolutely nothing to do.

You could always go back to Starbucks.

Ha. As
if
.

Then again…what about Jake?

She never had a chance to say good-bye to him, never gave him her number. The rat incident happened right after he asked her about meeting her at Starbucks this afternoon.

He doesn't even know her last name, so he'd have no way of finding her if he wanted to. And she doesn't know his last name, either. There are dozens of Jakes and Jacobs at Billington alone; there are probably hundreds of them at Columbia.

Looks like she's never going to see him again, unless…

What if he shows up at Starbucks today, hoping she'll be there?

He never mentioned a time, but he did say afternoon. That's a five-hour window…but what else has she got to do?

Sitting around a rat-infested—or not—coffeehouse hoping to run into some guy is pretty pathetic…but then what about Caroline's life these days isn't?

 

The rainy drive back from Massachusetts has left Elsa with a queasy stomach, courtesy of too much gas station coffee, or sheer exhaustion, or nerves—probably all three. All morning, she's been dreading the quick stop at home to pack up some things for herself and Renny, certain that once she crosses the threshold, she
won't want to leave again—and knowing that it's necessary.

But now that she's here…

I can't wait to get out.

The house just doesn't
feel
right.

It's nothing she can put her finger on, really. She walks quickly from room to room. Everything appears just as she left it yesterday: rainy day bin in the kitchen, a couple of finished jigsaw puzzles on the coffee table,
The Little Mermaid
DVD case beside them.

Still, she feels violated. Someone could have been here in their absence, snooping around.

From Renny's room, she can see Brett beneath the rain-spattered window, looking for the footprints and the broken branch.

In the master bedroom, she goes straight to the nightstand, where she keeps the tiny key, dangling from a strip of blue satin ribbon. If anyone was rummaging through the drawer and found it, he wouldn't have to look far to figure out what it's for.

She kneels in front of the cedar chest at the foot of the bed, fits the key into the lock, turns it, lifts the lid.

The contents, at a glance, are undisturbed. The linens are neatly folded.

Beneath her own things lie the items she rarely looks at: her wedding veil in its protective wrap, lace doilies handmade by Brett's grandmother, a preserved baby dress that had been presented to Maman by the great Coco Chanel herself when Elsa was born…

And then there are the little-boy clothes, the ones she can barely see because her eyes are flooded: Jeremy's worn dungarees, his T-shirts, the red sweater he'd worn that last Christmas…

Elsa braces herself as she digs her way to the bottom of the chest. If it isn't there…

But it is.

Choking back a sob, she picks up the Spider-Man figurine she'd found lying in the grass the day Jeremy disappeared.

“Mommy?”

Renny is in the doorway.

Keeping her back to her, Elsa drops the toy back into the bottom of the chest and hurriedly wipes her eyes.

“I'm going to go pick out the clothes I want to bring to Mémé's house,” Renny tells her. “How many dresses do you think I need?”

“Wait, first you need to put away the puzzles and other toys you played with yesterday,” Elsa tells her, conscious that Brett is right under her bedroom window. “Oh, and you can choose some things to bring with us while we're away. Come on, let's go see what we can find.”

“Okay.” Renny skips down the hall. Elsa hurriedly puts the chest back together and locks it. As she returns the key to the bedside drawer, she reminds herself that she needs to pack the keys to Maman's apartment, before she forgets.

In the kitchen, Renny is putting her toys back into the rainy day bin. She's excited about the impromptu weekend in New York—even though Elsa and Brett explained to her that her grandmother won't be at home.

Renny is full of sightseeing ideas—and some of them, to Elsa's dismay, sound like New York, Sylvie Durand style. Pretty impressive, considering they haven't seen Maman since her Mother's Day visit last month—when, fresh from a few days in Manhattan, she regaled them with tales from the city.

Now Renny wants to see Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale's, Tiffany's…

“Tiffany's?” Elsa asked incredulously.

“For breakfast. Mémé told me about it.”

Breakfast at Tiffany's
. Of course. It was Sylvie Durand's favorite movie, and back then, she traveled in the same circles as its leading lady. When Elsa was growing up, Maman's highest—and most frequently paid—compliment was that Elsa looked just like Audrey Hepburn. Later, when she was modeling, the resemblance wasn't lost on her booking agents, who cultivated her chic, sleek, gamine style.

She might as well wait until they get to New York before she straightens out Renny's misguided impressions. She has a lot to do before they leave, and she definitely needs to grab a quick shower—a
real
shower, as opposed to the earlier one that left her eyes still rimmed with old makeup and her hair limp from cheap shampoo.

In the grand scheme of things, it's such a minor detail, but maybe it'll help her to feel more
normal
.

As if anything could possibly feel normal right now.

Her eyes go to the hook beside the door, where she always keeps Renny's tote bag to grab when they're on their way out.

The thought of someone touching it, desecrating it…

Spider-Man
. Who would have known? Who would want to remind them of something so painful?

Turning away, Elsa opens the top drawer of the kitchen desk. As she pulls out the set of keys to her mother's apartment, she remembers how she'd laughed when Brett, Mr. Organization, had fastened an identifying tag to the ring.

“It's a Louis Vuitton keychain, Brett. Do you actually think we're going to forget whose keys they are?”

“You never know,” he told her, but even he had to grin.

Elsa tucks the keys into her purse. Then, remembering that she left wet laundry yesterday, she heads toward the utility room off the kitchen. The washing
machine is on its last legs, but at least this time it completed the spin cycle.

As she opens the dryer to transfer the load of clothes, she hears the door open and Brett calling her name.

“I'll be right there! I just have to—”

“Elsa—right now. C'mere.”

Uh-oh. That doesn't sound good. Abandoning the laundry, she returns to the kitchen. Seeing the look on her husband's face, she turns immediately to her daughter.

“Renny, why don't you go into your room and pack your clothes?”

“You said put the puzzles away first.”

“That can wait. Go ahead.”

As Renny disappears down the hall, Elsa whispers, “Did you see the footprint?”

“No, it must have washed away.”

She was afraid of that. “What about the—”

“The branch. I saw it. But Elsa…”

She realizes, then, that he's holding something: a manila envelope. “What is that?”

“It just came in the mail. You need to see this.”

 

Marin could tell Lauren was surprised when she took her up on the invitation to visit her in Glenhaven Park today. She herself was perhaps even more surprised.

But after spending yesterday mired in emotion, between packing away—and throwing away—all those mementos, and dealing with the girls' endless arguing, topped off by the rat experience…it was as if Lauren had thrown her a rescue ring, and she'd instinctively grabbed it.

Once she'd said yes, she felt as though she were standing at the base of an enormous mountain with no idea how she was going to climb it.

The only thing to do, she realized, was stop thinking about it and start moving. As quickly as possible, for that matter, hoping she'd gain enough momentum to keep on going.

She's made it out onto the rainy street and is all but running toward the parking garage a block away when it happens.

“Hey, look, it's that lady!” she hears someone say. “The one whose husband—”

Suddenly, a camera flashes in front of her.

Blinking, she hesitates for a split second, wondering whether to keep going, or turn around and head back home.

Home sounds better—but she's closer to the parking garage.

And anyway, is she really going to let a couple of shameless, camera-wielding strangers ruin her plans? That would be pathetic.

No. No way.

Holding her head high, Marin picks up her pace once again, heading for the parking garage.

 

Stepping out onto the sidewalk, Mike hears a cheerful, familiar “Hey, Mike-
ey
!”

“How's it going, Joe?”

The Sicilian butcher, in his usual smoking spot—leaning against a globed lamppost in front of the shop—shrugs. “Aches and pains. I'm getting old.”

“Yeah, who isn't?” Mike figures Joe is about a decade older than he is, probably in his mid-fifties. He likes to complain good-naturedly about his mother, his wife, his kids, his grandkids, all of them sending him to an early grave, he claims. But Mike doesn't buy a word of it. What he wouldn't give to have a family. His own parents are both gone, and so is his brother.
None of them lived to see Mike get married—or divorced.

“You going somewhere, Mikey?” Joe asks, waving his cigarette like a pointer to indicate the duffel bag over Mike's shoulder.

“Yeah. The airport.”

“Where you headed? Long weekend? Or a vacation?”

Mumbai. Some vacation.

“Yeah,” he tells Joe again. “Just for a coupla days.”

Joe pushes himself off the lamppost, grinds out the cigarette with his heel. “You take care of yourself.”

“I always do, Joe.” Mike gives him a wave and steps off the curb.

Suddenly, the sound of a revving engine explodes in his ears. Startled, he looks up, and is stunned to see a car roaring toward him. For a split second, the driver is visible through the windshield—looking right at him, Mike realizes in horror.
Aiming
right at him.

The last thing he hears before it hits is Joe's horrified “
Miiikkee-eeeyyy!
”

 

Elsa stares in horror at the contents of the envelope, spread before her and Brett on the kitchen counter.

Photographs.

Of Renny.

They appear to have been taken with a long-angle lens, and recently.

Renny in the supermarket. Renny at the beach. Renny licking an ice cream cone in their own backyard, the photo snapped through the trees with their house in the background.

Her embroidered tote bag is over her shoulder in most of the shots.

“Whoever took these pictures,” Brett tells Elsa in a
low voice, “knew that Renny hardly ever leaves home without that bag. He knew it wouldn't be long before we stumbled across Spider-Man.”

Elsa nods, unable to speak. She'd been wondering why the toy would have been hidden away in the tote rather than left right out in the open for them to discover more readily.

Now she knows.

Placing the toy in Renny's bag sends a far more ominous message.

And those pictures…

Someone is watching…again.

She finds her voice at last. “Brett…we have to go to the police.”

“We'll lose her if we do.”

“I'm afraid that if we don't…” She swallows hard, forces herself to say it, “We'll lose her anyway.”

 

Hurting Mike Fantoni was never part of the plan—not even after it became clear that people would have to die. But it was absolutely necessary. There's no telling what he knows—and what he might do with the information.

It's pretty obvious the Cavalons met with the detective last night. Why else would they have driven to Boston and left their car parked for several hours in the North End, just a few blocks from Fantoni's address?

The moment the GPS registered that the car had stopped in that particular location, it made perfect sense.

Of course, in their time of need, they'd turn to the private detective who'd devoted all those years to their case, and ultimately led them to Jeremy.

Well…not really. Mike Fantoni had led the Cava
lons to Jeremy's
trail
—a dead end, in the most literal sense.

Or so they believe.

But if anyone could have dug up the truth, it was Mike.

Such a shame to think of him lying in the middle of Hanover Street in a pool of his own blood.

Really, of everyone who's ever been involved—he's one of the good guys. And if anyone could have saved Jeremy…

But then he didn't, did he?

No one saved Jeremy. Not even Mike.

That's all right. He doesn't need any of them. Now he knows that there's only one person in the world he can count on, someone who will never let him down like the others have, one by one, over the years.