Authors: Wendy Corsi Staub

Live to Tell (31 page)

Public contempt is nothing compared to the rest of it: grieving her firstborn; helping her surviving children cope with the realization that their father is a criminal; looking Garvey in the eye through protective prison visitor’s room glass and telling him that she’ll never forgive him.

With a sigh, Marin turns away from the railing. Still no hint of sunrise on the eastern horizon, but it will appear any moment now, and the day will be underway.

In the master bedroom she once shared with Garvey, Marin smooths the coverlet on her side, arranges the European throw pillows, strips out of her nightgown, and hangs it on a hook in her walk-in closet.

Beside it, Garvey’s closet door remains closed, as it has been for months now. His expensive suits and shirts, shrouded in dry cleaners plastic, are presumably still inside, along with dozens of pairs of Italian leather shoes and French silk ties.

What is she supposed to do with any of it? Burn it? Give it away? Save it? For what? For whom?

She has no idea, and so his clothes hang on in a dark limbo.

Sort of like I do.

In the bathroom, Marin showers, brushes her teeth, and blow-dries her hair.

Same routine every morning, and yet, today will be different. Still a living hell, but June has arrived. Finals are over, as are the latest round of lessons and extracurricular activities that consumed the weekends. The school year that began in the immediate aftermath of Garvey’s downfall has come to an end.

This morning, instead of heading over to their private school off Fifth Avenue, Caroline and Annie will be here at home with Marin.

That means she’ll have to hold herself together from dawn until long after dark. No crying. No ranting. No swallowing a couple of prescription pills and crawling into bed in the middle of the day to capture the sleep that evades her in the night.

Maybe it’s better that way.

When she sleeps, she dreams.

Dreams of a little boy with big black eyes, and he’s calling for her.

“Mommy…Mommy, please help me…”

Not dreams—nightmares. Because she can never help him. Nobody can.

It’s too late to save Jeremy.

And maybe, Marin thinks, staring at her haggard reflection in the bathroom mirror, too late to save herself as well.

Brett yawns audibly, promptly evoking a dark glance from his wife. He belatedly covers his mouth and resumes a riveted expression. Too late.

“You’re not even listening to me.” Elsa’s tone is more weary than irritated, and she reaches for her mug of coffee.

“I’m listening. I’m just tired. It’s five in the morning, and we didn’t even have to be up for another—”

“There’s no way I can sleep now.”

Maybe not, but
he
certainly could. In fact, after he’d dutifully gone through the entire house clutching a baseball bat, checking closets and under the beds for prowlers, he’d had every intention of climbing right back under the covers. He saw no reason to lose another moment’s sleep. Even Renny had gone from frantic to drowsy, allowing Brett to tuck her back in with reassurances that there were no monsters.

Not in this house, anyway.

And the man—the monster—responsible for Jeremy’s death is behind bars.

“It was just a nightmare,” Brett had told Renny—and he tells Elsa the same thing now.

“But the window was open.”

“Maybe you just thought you’d closed it.”

She gives him a
look
. One that says,
I’m not crazy.

He knows that, though there was a time when he’d thought…

No, he’d never thought Elsa was actually crazy.

But back when Jeremy was newly missing, he’d sensed that she was so distraught she might harm herself. He’d done his best to keep it from happening, and when it did—when she nearly died—he’d blamed himself.

From that moment on, he’d vowed to save his wife. From therapy to medication, from rehashing the tragedy to sidestepping the topic, from avoiding children to considering parenthood again—he’d do whatever was necessary to help Elsa recover.

Now, after a decade and a half of torture, she’s finally healing—or perhaps, healed.

Renny’s arrival in their lives has given her a sense of purpose again.

And yet, watching his wife with their soon-to-be-adopted child, Brett worries. She’s so protective of Renny, almost…paranoid.

Who can blame her? Their first child was kidnapped. Murdered.

But that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again.

It doesn’t mean there really was someone in Renny’s room in the dead of night.

“I think we should call the police,” Elsa announces and Brett looks up, startled.

“You’re not serious.”

“I am.”

“Elsa, the press is finally off our backs. Do you really want to stir it all up again?”

“The press doesn’t have to be involved. I’m just talking about calling the police and—”

“And you don’t think it’s going to get out somehow that the mother of Jeremy Cavalon thinks someone is prowling around her new kid’s bedroom?”

“New kid? Brett, how can you—”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”

New kid. As in replacement for old kid.

God. Brett rakes a hand through his hair. That’s not what he meant at all.

“If you honestly want to call the police,” he tells his wife, “go ahead. You know I would never take a chance with Renata.”

He sees Elsa’s nose wrinkle slightly, and he knows why. Neither of them is very fond of their daughter’s given name—probably because it was bestowed by her abusive parents. They shortened it, with Renny’s blessing, soon after she came to live with them last fall. But sometimes, when Brett means business, he refers to her as Renata.

“Don’t make yourself nuts with this, Elsa.” Brett reaches out and pats her thin shoulder. “Everything is fine. Renny is fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“There’s always something to worry about when you have a child.”

“Yes, but not…not like that. Not what you’re thinking.”

Elsa just looks at him. She can be stubborn.

So can he. “Look, there’s no reason to call the police because a window was open.”

“How did it get open?”

“Maybe Renny sleepwalked and did it herself.”

Elsa tilts her head. Clearly, she hadn’t thought of that.

Brett hadn’t either, until it popped out, but who knows? Maybe it’s true. And if it’s not, there are countless other explanations for the open window. Explanations that don’t involve a prowler creeping around their daughter’s bedroom.

Brett presses on. “Elsa, think about it. The adoption isn’t even finalized. You don’t want to risk it, do you? A police report is going to go on the records.”

Something else she hadn’t thought of.

Brett glimpses a spark of uncertainty in her dark eyes. He’s winning her over. Good. And yet, what if…?

No,
he tells himself firmly.
Just like you told Elsa—and Renny, too—there’s nothing to worry about. Nothing at all
.

The car is parked on a quiet waterside street several blocks from the Cavalon home—a perfect spot, near the marina. Fishermen, rising in the wee hours to pursue the day’s catch, often leave their cars here.

It would have probably been a good idea to have some poles and a tackle box in the back seat, just in case someone came along.

Oh, well. Next time.

The engine turns over with a quiet rumble and the tires make a faint crunching sound on the gravelly road.

Mission accomplished.

Almost.

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…

What the heck is the rest of it?

Not even a mouse…

Oh, the next line is,
The children are nestled all snug in their beds…

Ha. Isn’t that fitting? Renny Cavalon certainly was nestled all snug in her bed just a short time ago.

Then she opened her eyes, took one look, and screamed.

No wonder.

That hideous rubber mask—now tucked safely into the glove compartment—would scare anyone to death, looming over them in the dead of night.

Night…

’Twas the Night Before Christmas…

That’s it!

It wasn’t a nursery rhyme after all; it was a storybook.

Is Elsa planning to read it to Renny when the holidays roll around?

Ha. Come December, Renny will be long gone.

Just like Jeremy.

About the Author

New York Times
bestseller
Wendy Corsi Staub
is the award-winning author of more than seventy novels. She lives in the New York City suburbs with her husband of seventeen years and their two children. Learn more about Wendy at
www.wendycorsistaub.com
and also at
www.wendystaubcommunity.com.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

Praise
for
Live to Tell
and Wendy Corsi Staub

“Clever, well-written, and riveting. Wendy Corsi Staub is a master storyteller!”

New York Times
bestselling author Brenda Novak

“
Live to Tell
is Wendy Corsi Staub at her best. A superbly crafted plot and characters who immediately draw you into the story makes this subtle yet terrifying thriller a must read.”

Beverly Barton,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Dead by Midnight

“In this intense follow-up to 2008’s
Dying Breath,
just as self-described psychic detective Lucinda Sloan is helpless to stop a monomaniacal serial killer, readers will be helpless to stop turning pages until the end.”

Publishers Weekly
on
Dead Before Dark

“Staub’s books, filled with emotion and terrifying details, are impossible to put down.”

Romantic Times
BOOK
reviews

“Heavily plotted from page one … builds suspense … focused and believable.”

Kirkus Reviews
on
All the Way Home

Other Books by Wendy Corsi Staub

L
IVE TO
T
ELL

Coming Soon

S
CARED TO
D
EATH

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

LIVE TO TELL
. Copyright © 2010 by Wendy Corsi Staub. Excerpt from
Scared to Death
copyright © 2011 by Wendy Corsi Staub. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

First Avon Books paperback printing: March 2010

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