Scared to Death (5 page)

Elsa clutches Renny and spins around.

Oh. Meg Warren. Thank God.

Ordinarily she wouldn't be thrilled to see her next-door neighbor, but today, Elsa practically throws her arms around the woman in sheer relief.

“Well, aren't you two a couple of nervous Nellies!”

“Hi, Meg.” To her own ears, Elsa's voice sounds an octave higher than usual. Renny cowers against her, saying nothing.

“Beautiful day, isn't it? What are you up to?”

“Not much. How about you? No work today?”

“I don't go in until five,” Meg tells her. “All nights this week. Half shifts.”

“Well that's nice. At least you get to enjoy the weather.”

“I can't enjoy it when I'm worrying about paying my bills and they're cutting my hours. Anyhoo”—she gestures with the shears in her hand—“I just stepped outside to snip some fresh basil for my salad. Would you two like to join me for lunch?”

“No, thanks, we—”

“Wouldn't you know something got into my herb
patch and trampled the bed? I'd blame my kids, but they're off spending a week with their father. You wouldn't happen to have any basil over there, would you?”

“I have dried basil in the kitchen, if you want to—”

“Lord, no!” Meg throws up her hands in horror. “Fresh basil or nothing—that's what I always say.”

It's not the only thing she always says. As she launches into one of her monologues, Elsa reminds herself that the woman means well.

But Meg Warren—a lonely, chatty divorcee—is one of those people who sorely lacks audience awareness. She tends to park herself in the yard or driveway and prattle on, with no regard to whether Elsa might have someplace to go, or has any interest whatsoever in Meg's bunions—one of her all-time favorite conversational topics. She blames the bunions—like everything else—on her deadbeat ex-husband, because she's on her feet all day as a Macy's cashier, her only means of support other than his frequently late alimony payments.

For a while there last August and September, Meg spent far less time talking about her feet and her ex, instead wanting to know all about the Cavalons—specifically, their experience with Jeremy.

“I just can't believe you never told me you had a child who was kidnapped and murdered!” she mused, after discovering—via the satellite news trucks parked at the curb—her neighbors' tragic past.

Karyn, who runs Tidewater Animal Rescue, where Elsa sometimes volunteers, said exactly the same thing.

They're not the only ones. In all the places they lived after Jeremy's disappearance, Elsa never told anyone about Jeremy—other than her therapists, of course. Not that she made new friends, ever—or even kept in touch with the old ones. Isolation was easier.

But now that she has closure, and Renny's here, maybe it's time to branch out, let people in.

She lets Meg talk for a few minutes more about the benefits of fresh herbs, until she inevitably segues down a familiar path.

“…and do you know I read that there are herbal remedies for bunions? Turmeric, for example, is—”

“Mommy?” Renny, mercifully, cuts in. “Can we go do something now?”

Ordinarily, Elsa would reprimand her for interrupting. Now she apologetically tells Meg they have some mother-daughter time planned, and they'll have to excuse themselves. After an extended good-bye, Meg leaves at last.

“Okay, so…want to swing?” Elsa asks Renny, gesturing at the cedar play set she and Brett bought last fall, right after they received their foster parenting approval. They were supposed to be shopping for a new washer and dryer, and they couldn't afford both, but somehow this seemed more important.

At the time, Elsa couldn't help but think how much Jeremy would have loved the towering playhouse topped by a lookout tower with a plastic telescope and striped awning. It was impossible—and felt so wrong—to imagine another child romping on the slide, swings, and climbing wall…

Then Renny came along.

“I want to build a sandcastle.” She tugs Elsa toward the sandbox. Molded of pink plastic, it arrived not long after she did—and already Elsa had gotten over the feeling that this backyard, like so many others over the years, should have belonged to Jeremy.

“A sandcastle. Great idea. I'll help you.”

Together, they remove the plastic cover and assemble the necessary tools: buckets, molds, shovels.

“We need water, Mommy.”

Elsa glances down at the pale yellow sleeveless shift she put on this morning, when she assumed they were going to the seaport. She should probably change into something more sandbox-friendly.

Then again, now that Renny's had a breakthrough, she doesn't dare risk losing momentum. Who cares if her outfit gets wet and dirty?

Maman would care.

As she picks her way through overgrown pachysandra to reach the coiled garden hose against the wall of the house, Elsa can almost hear Sylvie Durand chiding her about mixing sand, water, and French silk. She'd undoubtedly have plenty to say about the pink striped top and orange plaid shorts Renny chose to wear this morning, too.

When she visited over Christmas, she voiced her disapproval over Elsa's habit of allowing her daughter to pick out her own clothes. When Elsa explained that it's important for children to express creativity, her mother's legendary blue eyes rolled back to her fake lashes.

“And it isn't important to learn to look halfway decent in public?” asked Maman, who favors fully accessorized designer outfits, complete with one of her trademark veiled chapeaux, often riding atop one of her elaborately coiffed auburn wigs.

Elsa long ago learned to accept her mother's limits. She is who she is. But sometimes, she simply has to be put in her place.

“Believe me, Maman, wearing plaid with stripes isn't the worst thing that can happen to a child.”

Yes,
that
shut her up—for the time being, anyway.

As she unspools a length of green garden hose, Elsa glances over the foundation shrubs. The rhododendron was in full bloom just a day or two ago, when she cut some fat pink blossoms to bring into the house.
Those that remain are droopy and faded. She read somewhere that you're supposed to deadhead them so that they don't go to seed. Maybe she should—

Elsa's random thoughts skid to a screeching halt.

A large, freshly snapped bough dangles from the shrub that sits directly below Renny's bedroom window…and a footprint is plainly visible in the dirt beside it.

A
ll morning and well into the afternoon, people have been coming and going at the luxury apartment tower across the street. Deliverymen, maintenance workers, and the well-heeled residents themselves.

Sooner or later, Marin Quinn or her daughters are bound to appear at the building's front doors, and when they do, they'll be easy to spot from here.

Sooner
would be much appreciated; the odor is becoming stronger as midday heat permeates the narrow alleyway between a pub and a sushi restaurant: stale beer and rancid fish. A few feet away, something scurries between the foundation and the row of metal garbage cans.

Not a creature is stirring…

Except for a rat.

Make that plural. How fitting that there are dozens, maybe hundreds of the filthy rodents here, just a stone's throw from the Quinns' fancy doorstep.

Fitting—and convenient.

Undaunted by human companionship, another rat brushes past, just as the doorman across the street tips his hat to a familiar-looking female exiting the building.

Ah, it's
her
. Perfect timing.

 

“But I didn't even hear the phone ringing,” Renny protests as Elsa swoops her out of the backyard and into the house.

“I did. You were too far away.” Elsa sets her on her sandy feet just inside the door and locks it behind them.

“What are you doing?”

“Answering the phone.”

“But it's not ringing!” Renny looks as though she isn't sure whether to giggle or worry.

“I know, I guess I missed it.”

“But—”

“I bet it was Daddy. I'll call him back.” She's already dialing Brett's number, keeping a wary eye on the yard.

As it rings, she sees Renny watching her. She reaches for the rainy day bin and hurriedly sets it in front of her. “Here, pick out something that you haven't played with yet.”

“But…I'm making a sandcastle.”

“I know, but—”

“Brett Cavalon's office.”

“Cindy, it's Elsa.”

“Elsa! How are you?”

“I need to talk to Brett right away. Is he there?”

“He left a little while ago for a meeting. He'll be back soon. Do you want me to have him call you?”

“Please. Tell him it's important.”

“Is everything okay?”

Pretending she didn't hear the question, she hangs up and turns back to Renny. “Come on, honey, we have to run a few errands.”

“But what about the sandcastle?”

“We'll get back to that later.”

“What? When?” Poor thing, she looks alarmed, and no wonder. Her mother is acting crazy.

Elsa grabs her keys from the hook by the door, along with a canvas tote bag hanging beside it. Embroidered in pink thread with Renny's name, it's filled with Barbie dolls and an elaborate collection of clothes, courtesy of her grandmother.

Maman would have preferred to start a collection of antique French porcelain dolls for Renny, as she had for Elsa, but Elsa put her foot down.

She offers the Barbie bag to Renny. “Here, take this to play with in the car.”

“I don't want that.”

“But you always take it with you when we go someplace.”

“Well, I don't want to go anywhere today.”

“I know, but we have to. Come on.” Juggling the bag with her keys and cell phone as she dials it, Elsa hustles her out the door.

Please pick up, Brett.

The phone rings on the other end.

Pick up!

It rings again as she opens the back door for Renny, who reluctantly climbs in.

“You've reached the voice mail of Brett Cavalon…”

Elsa's heart sinks. “Brett, Renny and I are going…”

Where are they supposed to go? What are they supposed to do?

“…someplace,” she tells his voice mail. “I'm not sure where. Please call as soon as you get this.”

She hangs up. Seeing Renny obediently strapped into her booster seat, Elsa tosses the tote bag onto the backseat, climbs behind the wheel, and starts the car. They have to go. They can't stay here alone, knowing someone really was prowling around in the night.

Are you sure of that?

A broken branch, a footprint.

Yes. She's positive, sick-to-her-stomach positive that someone was in the bushes beneath the window—the one Renny had said the monster climbed through.

Someone really was in her room last night.

Every time Elsa allows that thought to fully form, a wave of disbelief sweeps it away.

Maybe you're wrong. Maybe…

But…

A broken branch. A footprint.

Please don't let it be happening again. Please, God…

 

Caroline Quinn glumly sips a gigantic frozen Starbucks coffee drink that tastes like a milk shake and probably has a gazillion calories. She really didn't want it, but she had to order something. And she really doesn't want to be here, but she has to be somewhere, right?

Somewhere other than home, where Annie's being a nosy little pain in the butt as usual, Mom has a depressing plan to clean out the basement storage unit in preparation for the move, and the cleaning ladies are making such a ruckus that you'd think they were expecting the president for dinner.

There was a time when such a concept wouldn't be all that far-fetched. But now that Congressman Quinn has become Inmate Quinn, the era of high-profile dinner guests is over—at least for now. Someday, she's certain, Dad will straighten out this whole mess and come home. Until then, it's going to be a long, lonely summer, and she'd better figure out where she's going to spend it, because anything is better than being at home. Even sitting in the crowded neighborhood cof
feehouse with nothing to do but eavesdrop on the world's most boring conversations.

“So then I told him…”

“Oh no, you dih-unt!”

“Oh yeah, girl, you
know
I did!”

The two women seated at the table to Caroline's right, close enough to touch, erupt into ear-splitting laughter once again.

“Mo' whip cweam, Mommy!” demands the bratty little kid at the table to Caroline's left, also mere inches away.

“Is that how we ask for something, Dakota?”

“Mo'!”

“You need to say please.”

And you need to say “cream,” not “cweam,”
Caroline wants to put in, fed up with the doting mother and bratty kid with the cowgirl name that seems downright stupid here in Manhattan.

Wincing as Dakota lets out a shrill “
Noooooo
,” Caroline fumbles to unzip her shoulder bag on the back of her chair. She already checked inside for her iPod, and it wasn't there. Normally, she doesn't leave home without it, but she was pretty desperate to escape earlier. She feels around inside the bag, thinking maybe the iPod will magically appear now that she's desperate for headphones to block out the kid.

“Whip cweam, whip cweam, whip cweam
…” Dakota rhythmically bangs the table with her fists.

“You're my little drummer girl, aren't you?” her lame mother croons, and one of the women to Caroline's right, in the midst of an exuberant fist bump, elbows her in the arm.

“Oops, sorry about that, hon.”

“It's okay,” Caroline mumbles, and glances around for an empty spot far, far away from these annoying
people. Not only are there no vacant tables, but the line at the register snakes almost back to the door.

She supposes she could always get up and go…but where?

Not home. Not yet.

Shopping?

If Dad were still around, she'd have a pile of cash and probably at least one of his credit cards in her wallet. He always told Caroline to get whatever she needed—or wanted, for that matter. But those days are over for the time being, and she's never felt so alone in her life.

To the rest of the world, her father was a public figure, revered or abhorred, depending on the timing, the press, or the party affiliation. But to Caroline, he was just Daddy—the center of her world, the person who made her feel so important, so loved, so special, that her friends had called her Daddy's Girl for as long as she could remember. She took it as a compliment—whether or not it was intended that way.

Oh, Dad.

As always, Caroline feels her eyes begin to sting as she pictures him, sitting in a jail cell somewhere…

And all because of me.

Why is she the only person in the whole wide world who understands that Garvey Quinn did what he did out of love? Even Mom doesn't seem to get it. Obviously she, unlike Dad, wasn't willing to do whatever was necessary to save her daughter's life.

Last year, while snooping through her parents' files, Caroline discovered that she'd been born with a rare genetic illness. Only a transplant could save her—and Dad made it his mission to find a donor, at any cost.

He loved me so much.

Taking a hard gulp of her frozen drink, Caroline
winces. Head freeze. She puts down the cup and presses her cold fingertips against her temples, closing her eyes.

The thing is, it wasn't like that boy, Jeremy, meant something to Dad. And it wasn't like Dad actually
killed
him.

No, it wasn't like that at all.

Caroline isn't sure, exactly, what it
was
like, because no one will tell her. Mom did her best to shelter her and Annie when the news first broke, and Caroline was so shell-shocked, she didn't even care about the details. By the time she did care, she found out that the press still didn't have the whole story. She tried snooping through her parents' files for information—which was how she'd learned last year about her own rare illness, and a lot of other stuff her parents apparently didn't want her to know—but found nothing. And Mom still wasn't talking.

“You're better off not knowing,” she told Caroline.

What kind of bullshit is that? She's better off not knowing why the one person in the world who loves her enough to die for her is—

“Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?”

Caroline looks up to see a guy standing beside her table with a steaming cup of coffee.

“Um, yeah. I am.”

The guy doesn't look the least bit fazed by her sarcasm. “I meant is anyone sitting in the empty seat?”

“You mean you don't see him?”

“See who?” He follows her pointed gaze across the table.

“My friend George.”

Now
he looks fazed, raising an eyebrow at the empty chair, then at Caroline. “Uh, no. I don't see him.”

She sighs, shaking her head. “No one ever does.”

“Okay, well, uh…thanks anyway.” The cute guy starts to back away, obviously convinced she's some kind of nut.

Caroline bursts out laughing. “Relax, dude. I was kidding.”

“You were?”

She nods, reaches out her sandal-clad foot, and pushes the empty chair in his direction. “You can take it.”

“Thanks.” He looks around, obviously trying to figure out where to drag it. In the meager surrounding floor space, there are half a dozen tables, at least twice as many people, plus a couple of baby carriages.

“You can just sit here, if you want,” Caroline offers. “I'm getting ready to leave anyway.”

“Yeah?”

No, but…
“Yeah.”

“Thanks.” The guy sits down, smiling at her. He's got great teeth. So white. Caroline wonders if they're bleached.

She really should get going.

She sneaks another peek at him.

He's totally laid back, with a surfer kind of appeal: casually shaggy, sun-streaked hair, a natural-looking tan you don't typically see in Manhattan, even in the summer, and a Rip Curl T-shirt. He's the antithesis of Caroline, with her creamy complexion and dark hair salon-styled in a long, chic fringe that cost even more than her two-hundred-dollar jeans.

But then again, she
did
learn to surf last summer, out east in the Hamptons. And anyway, opposites attract…isn't that what they say?

Surfer Boy smiles at her.

Yeah. She'll get going in a minute.

Maybe two.

 

“I want to go home, Mommy,” Renny says yet again from the backseat. “I want to make my sandcastle.”

“I know, we will—but not just yet.”

Jaw set, Elsa drives on, wishing Brett would hurry and call her back on her cell phone.

Driving around and around the most well-populated local areas, it's all she can do to maintain her composure for Renny's sake. Hands clammy on the steering wheel, she keeps an eye on the rearview mirror. She's pretty sure the coast is clear so far, yet her heart is pounding as if someone is following—no, chasing them.

When at last her phone rings, she's stopped at a light on U.S. 1. Startled by the sound, she jerks her foot off the brake for a split second. The car moves—less than an inch toward the bumper of the car ahead of her, but still…

You shouldn't be behind the wheel in this state.

She looks around for a place to pull over, reaching for the phone with a trembling hand. “Hello?”

“Elsa! Are you all right?”

Brett. Thank God.

“We are, but…” She darts a glance over her shoulder. Renny meets it with a head-on, inquisitive stare.

“What's going on?” Brett asks worriedly. “Where are you?”

“We're on U.S. 1.”

“On U.S. 1? Why?
Where
on U.S. 1?”

“Long Hill Road”—she looks around—“by the Sunoco.”

Darting a glance at the dashboard gauge, she sees that the needle is almost on E. She hadn't even thought to check it until this moment.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

What if they had run out of gas? She and Renny would have been sitting in the car like bait in a trap…