She Loves Me Not (32 page)

She looks up to see Jenna and Leo standing behind her. They look smaller than usual, the little brother clinging solemnly to his big sister's hand.

Christine nods. “There might be a fire somewhere.”

It isn't a lie, exactly. There's a fire in her swollen throat, and in her feverish, aching head.

But she knows what the sirens mean.

The police are racing against time to rescue Leslie from David Brookman.

He seemed so sincere, as though he only wanted to save Rose.

Showing Christine and Leslie that old photo of Bill Michaels, making them believe that he was the one threatening Rose's life . . .

“Christine? Where's Mommy?” Leo asks.

“Aunt Leslie said she'd be at our house, but she wasn't. Is she okay?” Jenna wants to know.

“I'm sure she's fine,” Christine tells these two shaken children, who have already lost so much.

Then she gathers them into her arms.

T
he gun trembles in Rose's hands as she grasps it in front of her, elbows awkwardly bent in imitation of a pose she's seen in countless movies and television dramas.

For the first time tonight, Bill falters. She can see it in his twitching jaw, though his voice is even as he asks, “What are you doing, Angela?”

She is silent, glaring at him, swallowing audibly as she moves one thumb over the gun, wondering how to cock it, wondering if the sound will frighten him.

His eyes narrow. He is watching her intently.

Dammit. Does he know? Can he tell?

Oh, Sam. Why didn't I let you teach me how to shoot . . .

Or at least, how to make it look like I can?

Help me, Sam.

Jenna and Leo need me.

I need to see them grow up.

“You're not going to shoot me, Angela.” He takes a step toward her.

She fights the waves of fear washing over her. “Yes, I will.”

“I'll bet that gun isn't even loaded.”

She swallows hard. “Are you willing to take a chance and find out?”

He shrugs, takes another step toward her. “What do you think?”

Her hands clench the gun.

Please don't let him come closer.

Please don't let him find out.

Her swollen throat constricted by apprehension, she manages to say, “I think you'd better stop where you are, or you'll be sorry.”

“Oh, I won't be sorry, Angela. You're the one who will be sorry.”

Don't let him move.

Please.

Bill raises a hand, reaching for the gun.

Please, Sam, help me.

“Give me the gun, Angela.”

“My name is Rose.”

“Give me the gun.”

“Get back or I'll shoot.”

“You can't shoot a weapon that isn't loaded.”

His gloved fingers come closer.

She flinches.

Closes her eyes.

With a menacing laugh, Bill plucks the gun from her hand.

Rose steels herself for the inevitable . . .

And a shot rings out.

“A
re you all right, Ms. Larrabee? Did he try to hurt you in any way?”

“No!” Leslie looks in desperation from Officer Shanley's concerned face to David Brookman's infuriated one.

“I wouldn't hurt her! I wouldn't hurt anyone!” David protests vehemently, as handcuffs are placed around his wrists by Shanley's partner. “For God's sake, I'm trying to save her sister-in-law from a killer.”

Neither officer says anything.

Leslie's thoughts are spinning. If David is telling the truth, Rose is in danger. If he isn't, she is the one who was in danger . . . and she should be grateful to these lawmen for rescuing her just in time.

But there will be time to thank them later. When she knows for certain that Rose is out of harm's way.

“Is anybody checking my parents' house?” she asks urgently. “My sister-in-law is there.”

“We'll send somebody over. There's been an accident out on Sunrise Highway and all of our officers are—”

“You've got to get somebody there right away,” David interrupts emphatically. “If I'm telling the truth and I'm innocent, you'll have her blood—and a couple of orphaned kids—on your hands.”

“You think we're going to let you walk away while we go chasing off to investigate based on your advice?” Officer Shanley flicks his gaze back to Leslie, shifts his tone to reassuring as he says, “Like I told you, we'll send somebody over. But I'm sure your sister-in-law is okay. There's no threat to her now that we've got him in custody.”

Leslie exhales shakily, praying to God that the policeman is right . . . and that David Brookman is lying.

R
ose opens her eyes just as the man who calls himself Bill Michaels falls to the floor at her feet.

Stunned, she can only gape at the blood pouring from a wound somewhere on his torso.

It doesn't make sense.

He's holding the gun.

But the bullets are still in a locked box on the top shelf of her closet.

Too frightened to even touch them, she didn't dare try to load the weapon.

She merely dropped it, unloaded, into the pocket of her coat.

Just in case.

In a stupor, she stares down at Bill, still clutching the useless gun in his hand . . .

And realizes that he's surrounded by broken glass . . . and that the blood is gushing from his back.

E
ven Leslie doesn't believe him.

David can plainly see the doubt in her expression as she stands frozen in the falling snow, staring at him.

And the cops . . .

He turns his head toward them and glimpses something far more potent than doubt in their eyes. Blatant malice bores into him, filling him with utter helplessness.

Rose Larrabee is destined to join Isabel and Olivia in death, and there's not a damned thing he can do about it.

Perhaps she's already dead.

Even if she isn't, she's already entered a doom-tainted limbo no different, really, than the condemned state in which Angela lingered for days.

Yes, and David's decision to pull onto the shoulder when he heard the screaming sirens was as lethal to Rose Larrabee as his decision to pull the plug was to Angela.

But Angela was already gone. No matter what you tried to tell yourself in the hospital, you knew she was gone the moment you saw her.

Rose might not be. Not yet.

But the clock is ticking.

And nobody's helping her.

David knew, when he saw the police car in the rearview mirror, that they were coming after him. He also knew that it would be futile—even deadly—to try to outrun them on the slick roads.

Thus, his own fate—and Rose Larrabee's—were sealed.

He lifts his resigned gaze to meet Leslie's tormented one. The wind gusts, sifting grainy snow into his face.

David is powerless to manage more than two futile words.

“I'm sorry.”

Shrouded in silence, jaw clenched, she turns away.

W
ith a curse and a blast of arctic air, Ben bursts in the door, looking like the abominable snowman.

He stops short, catching sight of Christine on the couch with the children on her lap. “What's going on? Babysitting again?”

“Yes,” Christine says simply.

“You're sick. You shouldn't be—” He breaks off, shaking his head, and silently drapes his coat over the doorknob.

“Why is that man so mad at us, Cwistine?” Leo whispers loudly.

“He's not mad at you, sweetie.”

“He's mad at Christine,” Jenna explains.

Yes. Yes, he's mad at Christine.

Pointedly ignoring the comment, Ben holds up a bag. “I got your medicine. I had to drive all the way over to Patchogue to find a pharmacy that was open, but I knew you really needed it.”

“Thanks.”

She wants to tell him that it's too little, too late.

She wants to tell him what's going on with Rose, and Leslie.

She wants to tell him a lot of things.

But that will have to wait.

For now, she just holds Rose's children close and prays harder than she ever has before as her husband, oblivious, walks up the stairs.

F
ramed in the shattered storm door, his hair and lashes fringed in white, Scott Hitchcock breathlessly asks, “Rose, are you all right?”

She opens her mouth to reply, but all that escapes is a strangled sob. She looks down in time to see Bill's eyes roll grotesquely upward as he emits one last rattling breath.

Then Hitch is opening the door, pulling her out into the snow, clasping her tightly against his strong chest with the hand that isn't holding the gun.

“Hitch . . . where did you get the gun?”

“It's mine. I keep it in my truck so that—”

“But the roads are so bad. You don't drive the truck in bad weather.”

“I drove it in to the Bronx this morning. I thought I'd be back long before the snow started. I called my voice mail from the road and got Leslie's message about the pipes, so I came straight here, and when I came up the walk I saw— Oh, hell, Rose, if I hadn't shown up when I did . . .” His voice is gruff, his cheek resting on her hair. “Who
is
he?”

“I worked with him. At the bookstore.” She closes her eyes, not wanting to glimpse the bloodied body at their feet. “He thought I was Angela.”

“Who?”

“Somebody named Angela,” she murmurs, pressing a trembling hand over her heart. There it is, the familiar, rhythmic beat, faster than usual, but reassuring all the same.

Rose tilts her face skyward. She can see nothing but fat, swirling snowflakes drifting down from a black sky.

She closes her eyes, whispers softly to the heavens, “Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” Hitch replies, right here on earth.

Epilogue

“M
ommy? I'm hung-wee.”

Feeling a tug on her satin bridesmaid's gown, Rose glances down to see Leo, looking like a miniature version of Sam in his black tuxedo.

“I'm not surprised—you didn't eat your meal.” She wets her thumb and wipes a lipstick smudge off his cheek. Who knew it would be so challenging to keep the ring bearer presentable until the photographer leaves the reception?

“I don't wike wob-sto.”

“Everyone likes lobster, lion-boy.”

“Not me,” he says, scowling up at Hitch. “And my name isn't wion-boy. That's a dumb name.”

“Leo,” Rose says in a warning tone.

“I'm going to go see if the wedding cake is choco-wat,” Leo says, and scurries across the dance floor.

Rose looks up at Hitch. “Sorry about that.”

“No big deal. Someday he'll love me again. He's just jealous. He thinks I'm trying to steal his mommy away. And maybe he's right,” Hitch says, and pulls her closer, whirling her around the dance floor as the orchestra plays “The Way You Look Tonight.”

It's been six months now since the man Rose knew as Bill Michaels tried to murder her.

His true identity was Justin Everhard III, the scion of a West Coast billionaire who drowned when he fell from his yacht off the coast of Catalina Island. The irony is that Rose vaguely remembers reading the account in the newspapers back when she was in college, and feeling sorry for the man's teenaged son, who was the sole other passenger on board the yacht when the accident happened. The father's body was never found, but after a few years he was officially declared dead . . . just in time for Justin Everhard III to inherit a vast trust fund.

Nobody will ever know whether Justin Everhard II was murdered by his son . . . or whether a similar fate befell Angela Brookman.

David Brookman is convinced that the jet-setting drifter was behind his wife's so-called hit-and-run accident. Given his confession to killing Sam, Rose believes David is right. There just isn't enough evidence for the police to reopen either investigation as a homicide. Nor is there a reason to.

Justin Everhard III currently resides in his family's mausoleum. Apparently, they don't believe he killed anyone. Or, as David explained it, they probably believe it . . . but he's still one of them. For the Everhards, like the Brookmans, appearances are everything.

“I just don't understand that,” Rose told David.

“You can't possibly, Rose. You're from a different world. You're lucky.”

She might be from a different world, but she and David Brookman have been on the same path these last six months. It has taken Rose a long time to come to terms with the fact that Sam's death wasn't accidental. Learning to accept the same thing about Angela, David was there to support her every step of the way.

One day, not long ago, he showed up on her doorstep with a gift-wrapped box, saying,
“It's something I thought you should have.”

Inside, Rose found a snow globe.

As she shook it, watching the fluffy white flakes whirl around the angel behind the glass, David told her,
“It was Angela's. I know she'd want you to have it.”

“Whenever I look at it, I'll think of her. And of you,”
Rose told David, touched by his warmth.

But it's Scott Hitchcock whose friendship has gradually, tentatively transformed into something deeper.

Leaning her head on his shoulder, Rose gazes over the crowded dance floor, smiling when she spots her new brother-in-law spinning a giggling Jenna. The layers of tulle in her pink organza flower-girl dress twirl prettily around her legs, and she looks astonishingly tall.

She's growing up, Sam,
Rose silently tells her husband.
She's growing up, so is Leo, and I'm . . .

Well, I'm growing up, too. And I'm going to be okay.

“Hi, Mommy! “Jenna cries out as Peter spins her past.

Rose has to admit, he cleans up nicely, dashing in his black tails. And he's obviously madly in love with Leslie. Rose will never forget the look on her sister-in-law's face when the Triple A tow truck deposited Peter on Shorewood Lane, holding a bouquet of limp, frostbitten flowers and a black velvet box.

“I told you I had a surprise for you,”
he said, and he sank down on one knee right there in the snow.

He'd had the emerald-cut diamond ring on lay-away since Christmas. It was the reason he had been working so much overtime. When Leslie didn't come home the night before, he decided to dash over to the mall to pick it up and surprise her.

“Mommy! Look at me dancing!”

Rose laughs and waves at Jenna, noticing that Peter is keeping a watchful eye on his bride as she waltzes by with David, laughing at something he's saying.

Lithe, lovely Leslie could have stepped out of a fairy tale in a white silk gown and illusion veil. She was able to afford the dress of her dreams, thanks to David. He insisted on paying for the entire reception, insisted on lobster over chicken, and roses over daisies in the bouquets and centerpieces.

“It's the least I can do,”
he kept saying, brandishing his checkbook, a gesture that wasn't lost on Christine Kirkmayer.

Searching the room for her neighbor, Rose spots Christine chatting amiably with Sam's parents. Newly slender and newly single, Christine has been a godsend for Rose and the children—and claims that they're the same for her, as she adjusts to life without Ben.

Christine doesn't like to talk about what went wrong in their marriage, confiding only that they didn't want the same things. She's become quite fond of saying
life is short, and I don't want to waste a minute of it.

Neither do I,
Rose thinks, content in Hitch's arms as the orchestra finishes the song and the bandleader takes the mike to call all the single women out to the dance floor.

“Go on,” Leslie says, pushing Rose to join them, waving her bouquet above her head.

Rose groans, looks to Hitch for a reprieve, but he merely laughs and raises his palms helplessly, shaking his head.

“Come on, Mommy!” Jenna pulls her out onto the floor to stand beside a giggling Christine.

There's a drum roll from the orchestra.

A grand flourish from Leslie, with her back to the crowd.

And then the bouquet sails over her head . . . right into Rose's reluctant hands.

Leslie turns, laughing, pointing at a mirror as she calls, “I cheated, Rose. I saw your reflection and I aimed right at you.”

“Mommy!” Jenna squeals. “You won! If you're a bride, can I wear this dress again?”

“That's a healthy sign,” Christine says low in Rose's ear, before David materializes at her side to ask, “How about a dance as a consolation prize?”

Rose watches them glide away. It would be wonderful if David and Christine wound up together. They're both lonely, and David would make such a wonderful father . . .

She feels a tug on her hem.

She looks down to see Leo standing there, accompanied by Hitch. His face is smeared with brown goo.

“I was wight,” he says solemnly. “The cake was choco-wat, just like Aunt Wes-wee pwomised.”

“Oh, Leo, let me take you and clean that off,” Sam's mother says, hurrying over to take his hand. She smiles at Rose and Hitch. “Don't forget, the children are staying overnight with Poppy and Grandma, so you two can stay at the reception as late as you want.”

Rose gives her a little hug, grateful they're back in town for the summer.

They couldn't bring themselves to go back to their house, after what happened. So they sold it and bought a small cottage right around the corner from 48 Shorewood Lane.

These days, Rose is never lonely, and rarely alone, unless she wants to be . . .

With Hitch.

She smiles as he lifts the bouquet she's holding, inhaling deeply. “Mmm. Roses always were my favorite.”

“Is that so?”

He nods, grinning. “You know, Rose, they say if a person saves your life, you owe them the rest of it.”

“Is that what they say?” She lets her eyes twinkle up at him.

“Something like that.”

As he pulls her into his arms, she thinks of Sam, knowing this is what he'd want for her . . .

And of Angela, remembering a promise she made long ago, in her letter to David.

I said I'd take good care of this heart of ours. But there was a time when I thought it was irrevocably broken . . .

Rose sighs contentedly, knowing that a little piece of her heart will always belong to Sam . . . and that the rest of it is whole again at last.