Kiss Her Goodbye (27 page)

“Are you sure about that, Ma'am?”

“I thought he said this is where he'd be.”

“Because there
is
a banquet in there . . .”

Hope flickers once again.

“. . . for the Daughters of the American Revolution Good Citizenship awards.”

Hope is extinguished.

Deep down, she knows she should have given up when she pulled up to the restaurant and failed to see Kurt's car. Between the parking lot and the door, her brain conjured up all sorts of possible reasons: he's late, he's come and gone, he got a ride with someone else, he's decided to skip the banquet and surprise her at the high school gym, he's sick, he's hurt, he's dead.

If only he were dead, damn him. Being a widow would be better than being divorced . . . wouldn't it?

If she were a widow, people would offer sympathy rather than pity.

Stella doesn't want pity.

She doesn't want sympathy, either.

All she knows for certain is that she's already lost him. She swallows the painful truth with an enormous lump in her throat.

“Ma'am?” the hostess asks. “Are you all right?”

Stella nods, unable to speak. If she tries to speak, she'll cry, and she can't cry here. She turns her back on the stranger's sympathy—damn it, on her
pity
—and heads blindly toward the exit.

Outside, the cold November night wind whips her hair across her eyes. The strands stick to the few tears that manage to escape and are blown dry in place as she makes her way to her prized Volvo station wagon.

Will she even get to keep the car?

The wayward thought is followed by another, far more disturbing one: Will she get to keep the girls?

What if Kurt insists on dual custody?

Frantic fear takes its place alongside sorrow and humiliation.

Slides behind the steering wheel, closes the door to shut out the wind. In the silence, she heaves a vehement whisper. “I hate you.”

The wrath is directed toward Kurt as much as it is toward herself. How did she become this person? This frumpy, put-upon, cheated-upon suburban housefrau? What the hell happened to the beautiful, confident blonde with a lifetime of endless possibilities ahead?

Bowing her head in despair, she jabs her key into the ignition. What now?

Not just for the rest of her dismal life, but in the immediate future? Where the hell is she going to go now?

Should she drive around aimlessly, looking for her husband?

Should she go to the school and chaperone the dance?

No. She can't do either of those things. She isn't ready to face her coworkers or the students or the loud music; she certainly isn't ready to face Kurt.

Despite her fantasies about confronting him earlier, she has no idea what she'll say to him now that his suspected duplicity is a reality. Will she ask him for an explanation, or a divorce? Will she pretend to believe him if he denies an affair? Will he even bother to deny it?

Again, she finds herself grasping at straws, searching for another explanation for his behavior. Terminal illness? Money problems? Embezzlement?

But deep down, she knows. What else can it be? When a suburban husband becomes withdrawn, disinterested in his wife, starts sneaking around and lying, there's only one reason.

It's got to be another woman.

Utterly, emotionally drained, Stella starts the engine and heads in the only direction she can possibly go right now: toward home.

 

 

“Okay, this time I mean it. Good night, girls.”

“One last kiss?” Michaela begs, as her sister's protest is lost in an enormous yawn.

“Just one.” Smiling, Jen plants a final kiss on each twin's forehead, then slips out the door, leaving it ajar.

They sure are cute. A handful, but cute.

She stops to go to the bathroom, then spends a few minutes wiping the purple globs of toothpaste out of the sink and mopping up the water that splashed on the floor.

It's amazing how exhausting it can be to get two little girls into bed. Checking her watch, she realizes she's been up here for a good twenty minutes—maybe even a half hour.

What the heck has Erin been doing downstairs all this time?

Come to think of it, Jen is surprised she didn't come up looking for her, asking if she can
pleasepleaseplease
order a movie or
pleasepleaseplease
eat the candy apples. Then again, she wouldn't be surprised if Erin just went ahead and did one or both of those things. She isn't the type to obey the rules, especially when they're set by a peer.

As Jen steps out of the bathroom, she stops to listen in the hallway. All is quiet in the room down the hall. Good. Maybe the girls are so worn out they'll go right to sleep.

She can hear the music blasting from the television set and realizes Erin has settled on MTV. Which is great, but it's too loud.

“Hey, Erin?” she calls, reaching the first floor. She raises her voice over the familiar opening strains of Mercury Rev's new video. “You want me to make some popcorn? I bet Mrs. Gattinski won't mind. I'm kind of hungry, too.”

No answer.

Coming into the family room, Jen finds no sign of Erin, and the remote lying on the carpet in front of the couch.

She sighs. The least Erin could do if she drops something is pick it up. She bends to retrieve it, lowers the volume, and sets the remote on the coffee table. Erin must be in the bathroom under the stairs. She straightens a couch pillow that's precariously perched on the arm of the couch.

She hears a faint rustle of movement somewhere behind her.

“You want popcorn?” she asks again, turning toward the kitchen, expecting to see Erin there.

The kitchen, located past the counter that separates it from the family room, is empty.

“Erin?”

Silence.

But not the kind of silence that means a room is deserted.

No, it's the kind of silence Jen used to sense when she and her brothers played hide and seek in their old house. There were plenty of nooks and crannies where they could conceal themselves, but of course, she was familiar with every one of them.

She still remembers how she'd check the potential hiding places one by one, even though she always ultimately perceived, walking into a room, whether or not she was alone there. She'd either sense the emptiness, or she'd sense the stealthy, watchful presence of somebody hovering nearby, witnessing her every move as she searched—or merely pretended to, for Riley's benefit.

Jen has that same acute awareness now. Only this isn't a game.

Is it?

“Erin?”

This isn't the comfortable old house in Indiana. This is a brand-new house, a strange house full of dark, unfamiliar hiding places.

Jen tries to swallow and realizes her mouth has gone dry.

 

 

“I want to go over and see the falls now!” Riley announces as they leave the restaurant.

Kathleen's heart sinks. She knew it was coming. They never get away with a trip to the Como without driving over to look at Niagara Falls down the road.

But she's been feeling increasingly uneasy all evening. Right now, all she wants to do is get home to check on Jen. She should never have let her stay home alone tonight.

“You know what, Riley?” she says before Matt can speak. “Mommy is feeling a little too tired to see the falls tonight. Why don't we come back tomorrow, in the daylight?”

“But I like to see it at night!” Riley protests in dismay.

“Yeah, we want to see the lights,” Curran chimes in.

“Are you okay, Kath?” Matt asks, touching her sleeve.

“I'm just worried about Jen,” she admits in a low voice.

“You have your cell phone on, right?”

Kathleen nods.

“You told her to call if she needed us, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“She's fine, Kathleen. Let's just take the boys over to see the falls, and then we'll go home.”

They've reached the car. Matt presses the key remote to unlock the doors.

“Please, Mommy?” Riley cajoles, looking up at her.

“All right,” she agrees, pulling her cell phone from her pocket. “But I just want to call Jen and make sure she's okay.”

Matt nods, opening her door for her. “I'm sure she's fine, but go ahead.”

Sitting in the passenger's seat as Matt starts the engine, Kathleen dials their home number.

“Well?” Matt asks, hand poised on the shift.

“It's busy. She must be on the phone.”

“Guess she's feeling better,” he says with a wry shake of his head.

“What if she's not? What if . . . ?”

“What? She's talking to one of her friends, Kathleen. Trust me. She's fine.”

She nods, her stomach churning. If the boys weren't in the backseat, all ears, she would tell Matt the truth right now.

“Can we go to the falls now?” Curran asks hopefully.

“Sure. Let's go.” Matt steers out onto Pine Avenue.

Kathleen stares out the window, trying to quell her nagging fear and the unsettling realization that she didn't even go upstairs to kiss Jen goodbye before they left. The boys were already waiting in the car, and Matt rushed her out the door.

Kathleen shakes her head, trying to rid herself of the terrifying thought, but it persists.

 

 

“Come on, Erin, this isn't funny,” Jen calls, walking slowly toward the kitchen. “Where are you? I know you're hiding.”

No answer.

Then she spots the apples.

They're sitting on top of a wooden cutting board on the otherwise spotless counter top. There are curls of reddish-green peel on the board, and the round core is there, too, neatly removed with one of those apple corers. One apple is cut into neat wedges, and so is half of another. The remaining peeled semicircle of that one sits waiting to be sliced.

It's as though somebody—Erin, of course, for who else would it be?—were interrupted in the midst of the chore.

“Erin? God, this is really stupid. Come out.” Jen's voice sounds unnaturally high.

Trying to calm her racing pulse, she goes over to the counter and inspects the sink. The red-handled apple corer is there, white bits of fruit flesh clinging to the stainless steel cylinder, a stray seed lying in the sink beside it.

She leans over to look again at the cutting board . . .

And freezes, struck by a sudden realization.

Where's the knife?

Again, she peers into the sink.

No knife.

Heart pounding, she opens the dishwasher, quickly scans the entire contents. There are only butter knives here.

Where's the paring knife?

Oh, please, where's the knife? And where is Erin?

She calls her friend's name again, her thoughts careening wildly.

This has to be some horrible, sick joke Erin is playing. She probably thinks it's just so hilarious to scare the daylights out of wimpy Jen. Or maybe she's doing it to be mean. To get her back for stealing Robby away.

Robby.

Robby's dead.

What happened to him? Jen wonders frantically. Did he accidentally OD? Or was he in trouble with some other drug dealers?

Or was it something else. Something—

Suddenly, Jen's ears pick up on a muffled sound. The slightest rustle. It seems to come from the darkened hallway.

“Cut it out, Erin. I know you're there.”

Nothing.

“Erin?” Her tone is hushed so that the twins won't hear her, yet it borders on high-pitched hysteria. She takes a step closer to the hall. Then another step. “Please, Erin, where are you?”

No answer.

Jen squeezes her eyes closed, longing for her father's reassuring proximity, longing to make one phone call and have him show up at the door a split second later.

But Matt Carmody is miles away.

She's here alone in a strange house.

Alone in a strange house with Erin and two small children.

She never finishes the thought.

Her senses explode as the sudden whoosh of moving air hits the back of her head and neck.

Something—
someone
—swoops in, and the world goes black.

 

 

It doesn't occur to Stella until she pulls onto the cul de sac that she isn't going to be able to drive Jen home tonight. The girls will already be in bed.

Well, Sarah Crescent is right around the corner. She can watch Jen from the window until she gets to Cuttington Road, and she'll tell her to call the second she gets home, just so that she knows she's arrived safely.

Stella hates to do it, but what choice does she have?

Anyway, this is the safest neighborhood around. What's the worst that can happen here?