Scared to Death (16 page)

At last, the figure turns toward her.

The face isn't familiar after all.

This isn't going to go well
, is Meg's first thought when she sees the look in the stranger's eyes, and she braces for a tense verbal confrontation.

Then she spots the cold glint of the blade as it arcs toward her, feels the burning pain as it slices into her neck, chokes on the sudden hot gush of blood in her throat.

Meg Warren's final stunned, helpless thought, as she falls to the wet grass, is of her lapsed life insurance policy.

 

Lauren might not have known Marin Quinn for years as she has other friends, like Trilby, but she knows enough about human nature to realize something is seriously wrong today. The way Marin keeps chewing on her lip, toying with her hair, checking her cell phone messages…

She obviously isn't going to bring up whatever it is that's bothering her. Lauren has given her plenty of conversational openings as they sit in her living room sipping coffee and eating chocolate chip cookies.

Well, Lauren eats them. Marin has been nibbling the same one for the better part of an hour now, picking it up and putting it down, often without even taking a bite.

She's saying all the right things, but her mind isn't entirely focused on the conversation, which has meandered from kitchen renovation to kid-friendly summer movies to Lauren's upcoming meeting with the estranged former mother-in-law she never met.

Nick's mother had left him and his dad when he
was just a kid, and he never heard from her again—nor did he want to. But after he'd gone missing last summer, Lauren was afraid his mother, wherever she was, would hear about it in the press. With her blessing, the detectives on the case managed to track her down in Hawaii, where she's been living for years.

Now Nick's mother wants to meet her grandchildren. She's flying in tomorrow morning on the redeye, before Lucy and Ryan leave for sleepaway camp in the Adirondacks.

“Sounds like it's going to be an intense visit.” Marin fiddles with one of her gold earrings.

“I just hope it's a positive experience for my kids. They don't need any more stress in their lives right now.”

“Maybe you should keep this woman away, then. She hadn't even seen Nick in years.”

“She's still his mother—their grandmother.” Lauren changes the subject. “How are
your
girls doing with the move and everything?”

“We haven't talked much about it. I guess it won't seem real until this place is officially on the market.”

Remembering the media encampment in front of the Quinns' apartment building last year, Lauren can just imagine the barrage of nosy strangers—and even worse, undercover reporters—likely to descend on the Quinn household, posing as buyers.

“The whole world knows where Garvey lived. How do you know that people won't just show up to snoop around?”

“For one thing, they might know the building, but it's a high-rise with over two hundred and fifty apartments. They can't know which one is ours.”

I wouldn't be so sure about that
, Lauren wants to tell her…but then, if Marin feels secure after all she's been through, why instill paranoia?

“Plus, we bought the place under an LLC years ago, and my lawyer said it would be almost impossible at this point to trace it back to Garvey.”

“So even the Realtor doesn't know who you are?”

“Well,
she
knows—but she's a friend of my friend Heather's, and I trust her, and anyway, we have a confidentiality agreement in place for the sale. I'm sure it'll be fine.”

Really? Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?

Marin changes the subject, asking again about her kids and camp.

“I'm dreading letting them go,” Lauren admits, “but Dr. Rogel—he's the child psychiatrist—thinks it's best for them to get some distance and have a normal summer.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't listen to him and never let them out of your sight again, after what happened.”

After what happened…

That's how they refer to last summer's events: “what happened.”

It's as if neither of them can find the words to accurately depict the horror. Lauren's stomach churns as she remembers what it was like to come face-to-face with every mother's worst fear.

But it's over. Her children survived.
She
survived.

And they can't spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders. Nor should Marin Quinn.

Seeing her friend's fraught expression, Lauren feels another stab of concern. Something tells Lauren that Marin is on the brink…of something. Some kind of breakthrough, or maybe a breakdown.

I'm afraid for her. But I have no idea how to help her as long as she refuses to let me in.

 

Gotta love a woman who digs her own grave.

Granted, the freshly turned patch of dirt at the back of the property probably wasn't meant to conceal a corpse…

Probably?

Okay, it
definitely
wasn't meant to conceal a corpse. Apparently, she'd dug it in anticipation of planting all those fresh herbs in the nursery flats she'd left on the back steps.

Well, lady, now the seedlings are in the ground—and so are you.

The good man upstairs has even seen fit to water the new garden. A drenching rain is giving the new little garden a good soaking—effectively washing away the fresh blood, with the added bonus of keeping the neighbors safely in their houses.

Not that anyone in a surrounding yard can possibly see into this one—or into the Cavalons' yard next door, for that matter.

But there's always a chance that someone might come along, and then what?

Then things would get even messier. You'd need another grave, and this time, you'd have to do the digging yourself…

No, thank you.

Time to get in out of the rain.

 

“Next stop: Stamford, Connecticut…
Staaaaamford
, Connecticut will be your next stop.”

Hearing the announcement, Elsa glances at her watch. Less than an hour from now, the train will be pulling into Penn Station. Then she and Renny will really be on their own.

Not that they aren't technically on their own right now. Yet she can't help feeling relatively safe here. Nothing is going to happen to them sitting in a
brightly lit, crowded railroad car. Once they arrive in New York, though…all bets are off.

Needing distraction, Elsa tries to grab the magazine in the seat pocket. It's out of reach unless she shifts her position, which would disturb Renny, sound asleep with her head in Elsa's lap.

It was all she could do to calm her daughter's frayed nerves after her full-blown panic attack, with plenty of disapproving passengers looking on.

She looks around the car. A few people are sleeping, others tap away on laptops, and an older couple is playing cards on their tray tables. Across the aisle, a young man plugged into an iPod bobs his head slightly to an audible beat.

As if he senses Elsa watching him, he suddenly glances at her, gives a little nod, looks away.

Unnerved by the eye contact, she turns her head, focusing on the drab industrial landscape out the window.

What if…

No, that's ridiculous. He's just some college student. Yale, probably. Elsa saw him get on at the New Haven stop, wearing jeans and carrying a backpack.

Just because he glanced at her and Renny…that doesn't mean it's
him
—the man who's been watching Renny.

But he's out there somewhere. Who is he? How does she know he's not right here on the train?

Because that makes absolutely no sense, and you've got to stop doing this to yourself.

She's spent almost two hours now—once Renny was asleep, anyway—watching every movement around her, just in case. She can't help but imagine that whoever sent that package—and planted the Spider-Man and crept into Renny's room in the middle of the night—might be on this train.

But of course that's impossible. No one other than Brett—and most likely by now Mike, if Brett told him—knows they're even here. Certainly no one would think to look for them in New York City, and even if they did, it would be your classic needle-in-a-haystack search.

What about Brett, though? He's a sitting duck back at home—unless he finds out who's behind this, and whether it's a sick prank, or a true threat.

Elsa's thoughts drift to the past, and Jeremy. Clearly, there's some connection—or someone just wants her to think there is.

She's been going over all the people in their lives back then—the disgruntled teachers whose classrooms Jeremy disrupted; the frustrated therapists who couldn't reach him; the horror-struck members who were at Harbor Hills Country Club the day he went berserk.

Gazing at the sleeping child on her lap, Elsa can't imagine how she'd feel if someone attacked Renny the way Jeremy had attacked poor little La La Montgomery. A coddled only child, she'd been about the same age Renny is now. Elsa will never forget the horror of seeing that tiny form lying on the ground with her head bashed in.

They never went back to Harbor Hills after that day. She'll never forget the groundskeeper calling after them as they hustled Jeremy toward the car, “You'd better get that kid some help before he kills someone!”

Elsa scheduled an emergency appointment with Jeremy's psychiatrist, Dr. Chase, in Boston. He spoke with Jeremy at length about the incident, then called the Cavalons in for a consult.

Dr. Chase seemed to weigh his words carefully, yet they were no less chilling than if he had come right out and said,
Child abuse spawns serial killers
.

What he did say was that children who have suffered at the hands of sadistic adults are statistically more likely to grow up to be capable of violent, even deadly, behavior. He cited, as evidence, Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler, whom a colleague of his had once treated.

“There are a number of theories behind the link between child abuse and later violence,” he told Elsa and Brett, regarding them with clinical detachment, bearded chin propped on steepled fingertips. “The domination and isolation that go hand in hand with psychological and physical abuse can rob a child of basic human compassion and—”

“But not every abused kid grows up to become a depraved adult,” Brett interrupted. He sounded perfectly composed, yet Elsa could see the veins in his neck straining with tension.

“Absolutely not,” Dr. Chase agreed. “And any number of factors can come into play with those who do eventually resort to violent acting-out. For example, blunt force trauma to the head can cause significant injury to the pre-frontal lobe, which can make a person much more susceptible to aggression. Do you know if Jeremy ever suffered this type of injury?”

“My son was beaten relentlessly before we adopted him by people who were supposed to take care of him,” Elsa informed Dr. Chase, not the least bit composed as tears ran down her cheeks. “None of what happened to Jeremy before he came to us—or what's happening now because of it—is his fault.”

“No one is saying that it is, Mrs. Cavalon. I'm only saying that given Jeremy's history, we need to consider that he might be suffering a neuropsychological disorder, and that such deficiencies can lead to criminal behavior.”

Criminal behavior.

That was the first time Elsa realized that it might be too late to save Jeremy. The damage had been done long before he came to live with them as a four-year-old. She knew that, and yet she was determined to try to heal him.

She'll never know whether she'd have succeeded.

Maybe it's better this way, though. Not better to have lost him—but better not to have witnessed countless other tragedies inflicted by Jeremy's pent-up rage.

How can you even think that way? How can you presume that what happened on the golf course was some kind of omen? It's horrible.

Horrible. Yes. But it happens sometimes. The tortured child grows up to torture others.

Yet here she is, willing to take a chance again, with Renny.

 

Her name, not that it matters, is—or rather
was
—Meg Warren.

That's easy enough to discover via the stack of overdue bills on her kitchen counter.

Other details about her life become apparent during a quick tour of the house and her computer's Internet history: she works at Macy's, she has at least three kids living at home, and they're conveniently visiting their dad for a week, according to the wall calendar. She has no apparent social engagements planned for the coming weeks, and just one appointment, at the podiatrist.

After turning off the television, polishing off the remains of a snack Meg so thoughtfully prepared, and tidying up afterward, it's time to browse through the closets. They yield a bonanza of potential disguises, all of which fit into a large backpack hanging on the wall in a room that obviously belongs to a teenage boy.
Chances are it won't be readily missed now that summer vacation is here.

Really, this is all working out so very well.

The final order of business is to call in sick on Meg Warren's behalf. Her illness, naturally, will be something that comes with severe hoarseness, making her voice virtually unrecognizable by whoever picks up on the other end of the line.

And—ha—whatever it is must be going around, because wouldn't you know Roxanne Shields had the exact same thing?

“You sound horrible,” her coworker at the agency said when “Roxanne” called in sick the other day. “You need hot tea with honey and lemon.”

Yes, and at least a few days off to recover.

The call to Macy's on Meg's behalf goes just as well: “Feel better,” is the brief, impersonal response from the person who answers the employee line.