In good weather, the view from the Gold Star Memorial Bridge high above the Thames River is striking: a picturesque Connecticut shoreline dotted with red brick, gray shingle, or white clapboard buildings; water bobbing with fishing boats, sailboat masts, and the occasional ferry or ship.

Today, however, as Brett drives across the bridge toward the New London train station, the world beyond the windshield is blanketed in dull gray to match his mood. He keeps a close eye on the rearview mirror. There are so few other cars on the rain-splashed road that he’s almost sure no one is trailing them.

Almost.

After seeing those pictures in the mail, Elsa was much too shaken to get behind the wheel herself. Brett wouldn’t have agreed to let her do it anyway. Not now.

As they huddled in the kitchen with the horrifying surveillance photos, they weighed every possible scenario…

But one.

Brett hates that he’s even capable of thinking it; hates the truth even more, but he has to face it.

Elsa herself might have sent the photos.

She wasn’t in any of them, and they were taken at times when she would have been alone with Renny.

Just as she was alone with Renny when that window was open after the nightmare, and when she found the footprint in the mud, and Spider-Man…

It doesn’t make sense, but…

What if some paranoid, delusional fragment of her brain just splintered off, and…

But why? Why would she—why would her brain—want to create the illusion that Renny is in danger?

He doesn’t understand, but then it wouldn’t be the first time. He didn’t understand how she was seeing and talking to Jeremy after he disappeared, but she was convinced he was really there. And he didn’t believe that she would actually try to kill herself even though she talked for months about wanting to die, and…

And this time, I know that anything is possible.

No, he’s not going to call the police. Not yet, anyway. That would just guarantee that they’d lose Renny, and for what?

If there is an outside threat, then the first thing to do is get Elsa and Renny to a safe place and assess the situation with Mike.

If there’s no outside threat, then he has to get Elsa the help she needs.

One thing is certain: No matter how fragile she is, she’d never, ever, ever hurt Renny or let anything happen to her.

They arrive at the station to find the red brick building nearly deserted. Brett hurriedly buys two tickets on the next southbound train, which happens to be running fifteen minutes late.

“Otherwise, you would have missed it,” the attendant informs him. “Guess this is your lucky day!”

“Guess so.” Brett’s smile is strained as he takes the tickets from her.

When he first suggested this morning that Elsa take Renny to New York, he’d been trying to humor her. A change of scenery would be good for her, he figured, and by the time she was ready to come home, her paranoia would have blown over. He never imagined that the situation would escalate the way it has.

Elsa rests her head on his shoulder as they wait beneath an overhang, watching the rain drip miserably onto the tracks. The platform, too, is sparsely populated: just a young businessman in a suit and an elderly woman dressed in so many layers you’d think it was February instead of June. Neither seems to pay any attention to the Cavalons. Brett notices that Elsa is keeping a wary eye on them anyway.

“You don’t have to worry,” he reminds her in a whisper. “Even you didn’t know you were going to be here until an hour ago, so the chances that someone could be lying in wait for you here are—”

“What if the house is bugged, though?” Seeing his expression, she adds quickly, “I know it sounds crazy, but we did talk about the train at home…”

Crazy.

Oh, Elsa…

“But really,” she goes on, “is it any more crazy than anything that’s already happened?”

He shakes his head.

Mike. He needs to talk to Mike about this.

As soon as he gets Elsa and Renny on the train, he’ll call Mike.

Maybe it was wrong not to go ahead and call the police, he thinks again.

But then he looks down at Renny—at her sweet, hopeful face, waiting for the train to pull in and carry her and Mommy away on an adventure—and he knows he can’t risk it. Not yet. There’s no way the agency is going to allow her to stay on with them under the circumstances. Not if someone is stalking them, and not if Elsa is losing touch with reality again.

Is it selfish of Brett not to want to give her up—even for her own good?

But who’s to say she’d be any safer anywhere else? If she is in danger, Brett refuses to believe that anyone in the world would fight for Renny the way he and Elsa will. They know how dangerous the world can be, and they would die for her, both of them.

I don’t care what the paperwork says or doesn’t say. We’re her parents, and we’re not going to let anything happen to her. And if Elsa needs help, I’ll get her help. But losing Renny—she couldn’t bear that.

He keeps his arm around Elsa and a protective hand on Renny’s shoulder as she excitedly watches the track for the train. She’s never ridden the rails and was thrilled, back at the house, when they told her of the change in plans.

Now, when a whistle sounds in the distance, Brett can’t decide if it’s too soon or not soon enough.

Renny bounces excitedly. “It’s coming! It’s coming!”

Elsa looks up at him and he kisses her forehead. “I hate that we have to leave you here.”

“Someone has to stay and figure out what the hell is going on.”

“Call me as soon as you get there.”

“I will.”

“You’ll be safe in your mother’s building.”

“I know. I’m not worried about us.”

“I’ll be safe, too.”

“You’ve got to talk to Mike.”

“I will.”

Brett releases her and swings Renny up into his arms as the train clangs into the station. “Have fun on the train and in New York, sweetheart.”

“I will, Daddy. I wish you could come with us.”

“So do I, but I have to go to work. When it’s time for Disney World, though—” He breaks off, his throat thick. He buries his face in her soft, dark hair for a moment, then smooths it as he sets her back on her feet.

Elsa is watching, tears in her eyes further smudging the makeup she never had a chance to remove. Once they’d decided they were going, she threw some things into a couple of bags, hurriedly changed into jeans, and they were on their way.

It’s unnerving, seeing her looking so haggard. He can’t help but flash back to the old days, after Jeremy, before Renny, when it was all Elsa could do to wake up in the morning…

“All a-bo-ard!” the conductor calls from his perch in the open door as the train rolls to a stop.

Elsa grips Renny’s hand and walks her toward the door. Brett picks up their luggage and follows, looking around to make sure no last-minute passengers have shown up. Coast is clear: The businessman and the older woman are boarding a few cars down.

The conductor takes the bags from Brett, greeting Renny with a jovial “Hello, there, young lady! Ready to go for a ride?”

Suddenly, Renny looks uncertain.

Brett’s heart sinks. She’s so small standing there, dwarfed by the conductor, the train, even the luggage.

“I don’t want to go!” She shakes her head, holding back.

Elsa tries to coax her, which only makes her dig in her heels, starting to cry. “I want Daddy to come, too!”

Brett pastes a reassuring smile on his face, tells her they’ll see each other again before they know it.

“Come on, Renny.” Elsa reaches for their daughter, her eyes meeting Brett’s. Seeing tears in them, he opens his mouth to tell her not to go. But then Renny is in Elsa’s arms, squirming and crying, and it’s too late: the two of them disappear onto the train, the doors close, and the train chugs away, leaving him alone on the platform.

He wipes his own eyes on the sleeve of the dress shirt he’s been wearing since yesterday morning. This is unbelievable. Did he really just ship his family out of town?

Pulling his cell phone from his pocket as he walks toward the steps, he pulls up his address book and presses the entry that bears Mike’s phone number.

 

Papa was an American businessman in Mumbai—then known as Bombay—or so he told everyone who asked. Maybe it was true. Maybe it wasn’t.

Jeremy probably didn’t ask. Mercifully, he doesn’t remember much about that time.

He does recall how relieved he was initially, after living on the streets, to wear clean clothes, and eat hot food, and sleep in a hotel bed—with Papa, who promised to get Jeremy home to his parents as soon as he could. And so Jeremy endured the nights in his bed, and the beatings that came whenever Papa didn’t like something Jeremy did or said.

After a while, there was a long, long airplane ride. He remembers that part clearly: it was terribly bumpy. Things were falling from the overhead bins and people were praying and the woman across the aisle threw up. Jeremy was afraid, clutching his Spider-Man with one hand and the seat arm with the other, until Papa pried his fingers loose and held his hand tightly.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Nothing bad is going to happen. We’re going home.”

It was a lie, of course—though not, perhaps, in Papa’s twisted mind.

Jeremy was still angry with Papa for all the things he’d done to him. Yet he found himself clasping Papa’s hand anyway, glad he wasn’t alone on that scary plane ride.

“I’ll take care of you,” Papa promised. “No matter what.”

And he did. When they landed, Papa bought Jeremy some food at the airport: a cheeseburger in a paper wrapper, French fries in a cardboard carton, a milk shake in a paper cup with a plastic lid and a straw.

Even then, even after all he’d been through, Jeremy recognized that the food was American. He knew he was home, and he was grateful to Papa for getting him there at last.

Papa put Jeremy into a car and drove out onto a highway. After a while, he glimpsed the ocean from the car window. The smell of salt air and the screech of gulls were familiar, and he knew for sure that his house was nearby.

Now, of course, he understands that it wasn’t the Atlantic Ocean, but the Pacific—three thousand miles away from the seaside town where he’d been raised before the kidnapping.

When Papa pulled into a driveway and said, “Here we are, home sweet home,” Jeremy was taken aback. He didn’t recognize the house at all, and he started to cry.

Papa beat him for that.

Later, Papa showed Jeremy around and told him he would have his own bedroom. He even let Jeremy pick out the comforter from a catalog, and some toys and books for the shelves—but he never, ever let him sleep in his room.

No, Jeremy was forced to sleep with Papa every night, in a room where the shades were always down, even during the day; a room where terrible things happened to Jeremy. Things he didn’t understand, back then.

Now, years later, he grasps what happened to him. Now he knows all about abuse, and pedophilia, and the Stockholm syndrome: the psychological phenomenon in which kidnap victims develop benevolent feelings for their captors. He knows that he did what he had to, and he shouldn’t blame himself, and he doesn’t.

Papa was a sick and dangerous man. And Jeremy’s path never would have crossed his if not for them.

Elsa…

Marin…

Face it, Jeremy. They let you down.

The more he hears those words—spoken aloud, or echoing in his own head—the easier it is to believe them…whether he wants to, or not.

 

Marin was tempted to turn back when she hit bottleneck traffic on the northbound FDR, but that would be the easy way out. She forced herself to keep going, reminding herself—once again—to stay strong.

Now she’s moving along pretty well, finally heading north on the Triborough Bridge.

Wait—not the Triborough anymore, she reminds herself. Now it’s the Robert F. Kennedy.

She remembers Garvey’s reaction when the span was renamed a while back. Publicly, he called it a shameless Democratic photo op at the taxpayers’ expense, and was roundly applauded by his constituents.

Privately, he promised Marin that one day, a bridge or tunnel here in New York, or perhaps in Boston, would bear his own name.

Typical hypocritical, egotistical Garvey. To think there was a time when she’d been invigorated by what she convinced herself was admirable confidence and ambition.

Just remember—you weren’t the only one who was fooled by him.

Cold comfort now, though, to think of the thousands of people who believed in Congressman Quinn.

Ordinarily, Marin enjoys the skyline views as the highway curves away from the city. Today, however—the first time she’s been here in months—she can see nothing at all. The landscape is shrouded in mist. It feels like a bad omen.

She’s traveled this route out of the city hundreds of times over the years, heading to and from her home-town, Boston, or the nursing home in Brighton. But it’s been a while since she’s visited any of those places, and she feels a twinge of guilt thinking of her father.

John Hartwell’s condition has steadily deteriorated over the past year or so. Dementia, the doctors are saying, though he’s only in his late sixties. He’s been talking to invisible people, hearing things, seeing things.

Some days are worse than others.

Once in a while, when Marin calls to check in, the nurse will say, “Mrs. Quinn, your father is having a good day,” and she knows that’s a hint for her to come visit.

Bur her own good days are fewer and farther between than Dad’s; she’s never quite up to a spur-of-the-moment drive or the curious stares from the eavesdropping staff, let along having her father ask about her husband.

Dad has always adored Garvey, and until recently, frequently exercised bragging rights that his only daughter married into the illustrious Boston Quinn family. He liked to wait until someone—preferably, as many people as possible—happened to be in earshot before he’d ask, “How’s my son-in-law, the congressman?”

Marin felt obligated to explain to him, last September, what was going on with Garvey. But she waited until no one was around to overhear, and she left out as many of the details as possible. She knew her father didn’t really comprehend. Sure enough, he’d forgotten all about it by the next visit, and she didn’t bother to reiterate.

Today, as she bypasses the exit leading to Interstate 95 and New England, she promises herself that she’ll get back up to Brighton soon. Or someday maybe even to Groton, to meet Elsa Cavalon.

She wonders whether Lauren would think that’s a good idea. Then she wonders whether it’s even a good idea for her to visit Lauren in Glenhaven Park.

Maybe exposing herself to the scene of one of Garvey’s many crimes will be another healthy step in the healing process.

Or maybe, Marin thinks grimly, it’ll convince me to leave well enough alone.

 

“Please, Mommy…I want to get off!”

“I know, I know…shh, it’s okay.” As she tries to settle Renny into the window seat, Elsa wonders how on earth she could have thought the train was a good idea for a claustrophobic kid.

She wasn’t thinking when she made the decision—that’s the problem. Back at the house, reacting to the frightening series of photos, she was in full flight mode. Driving to New York seemed like a terrible idea. But maybe this is worse.

Still, the alternative would have been…what? A commuter flight between Groton–New London airport and New York is half an hour at most—Maman always flies in when she visits, sans luggage, of course—but Renny trapped in the cabin of a tiny plane several miles above the ground? Forget it.

Staying at home, waiting for someone to snatch Renny away? Not an option.

Brett wanted to drive them to Manhattan himself, but Elsa talked him out of it.

“I’d feel safer going to New York on public transportation,” she told him. “Someone might be lurking around here, waiting to follow our car. But there’s no way anyone can follow a train.”

He looked at her for a long time before saying, “Someone could follow us from here to the train station, and it wouldn’t be very hard to figure out where you’re going from there.”

“But even if they saw us get on a southbound train, they wouldn’t be sure where we were getting off. It could be anywhere from Old Saybrook to Washington, D.C.”

Again, he gave her a probing gaze before nodding.

She was right, of course. Unless whoever was following them managed to hop on the train, too…and then follow them through the city to Sylvie’s doorstep…and then—

No. She refuses to let her mind go there. Everything is going to be okay.

But it wasn’t okay before, with Jeremy…

That’s why it has to be okay this time.

“Mommy! I don’t like this!”

“Here…do you want to sit in the aisle?” Elsa had given her the window, thinking she’d feel less trapped if she could look out. But maybe it only makes her feel boxed in.

She stands to let Renny slide over into the aisle seat…but Renny keeps right on sliding.

“Renny!”

Elsa chases after her, catching up at the end of the car.

“There’s no doorknob!” Panicking, Renny claws at the closed door that leads to the next compartment. By chance, her hand hits the flat panel that unlatches the door. It slides open and she lurches forward into the vestibule between the cars, nearly crashing into an older woman carrying a cardboard tray from the snack bar.

Elsa grabs onto flailing Renny and apologizes to the woman, who stands back against the bathroom door, raised on her tiptoes like there’s a rodent on the loose.

“Mommy, open the door and let me off,” Renny begs, pointing to the exit where they boarded less than five minutes ago.

“I can’t do that, the conductor has to open it when the train stops.”

“I want it to stop now!”

Elsa pulls her back, worried this door, too, might open somehow and Renny would be thrown from the speeding train.

Beside them, the older woman purses her dry, pink-lipsticked lips, probably thinking that Renny is an out-of-control brat who needs a good spanking.

Oh, lady, Elsa thinks, helplessly holding her frightened daughter fast against her. If you only knew.

 

The moment she walks into Starbucks, Caroline wishes she hadn’t come.

She’d been thinking she could just get lost in the crowd, but there is no crowd today. As she steps up to the counter, she realizes she’s already been recognized by the baristas. Not as Garvey Quinn’s daughter, but as the girl who had the rat in her purse.

After a brief, whispered consultation with her coworkers, a pale, fashionably ugly goth girl approaches the register. “Do you want to talk to the manager?”

“What?” Caroline frowns. “No, I wanted to order something.”

The girl’s pierced eyebrows shoot toward her squared-off, too-short black bangs. “Really?”

“Umm…yee-aahh,” she says in an isn’t-it-obvious? tone, and asks for a tall coffee.

“Just coffee?”

“Right. Make it black.” She’s never had black coffee—or any coffee—in her life, but when Jake shows up, she doesn’t want to be drinking one of those milk shake drinks again. She may not be in college yet, but she’s not a little kid.

There are plenty of empty tables to choose from today. Caroline sits at one closest to the door, facing it, then decides that makes her look too expectant. She moves to a more distant table, sits with her back to the door, and realizes that Jake could very easily come and go without either of them seeing each other. She switches to the opposite chair, facing the door, so that she’ll spot him when he walks in.

If he walks in.

Something tells her that he will.

 

For a long time after he landed in California, Jeremy saw no one but Papa. It wasn’t so bad, other than at night, or when Papa had to punish him for something. When things were going well, he got to eat candy all the time, and watch as many movies and cartoons as he wanted—only on video, though, and later, on DVD.

It took him years to even comprehend that there was such a thing as live television—let alone to speculate why Papa might refuse to let him watch it.

Maybe it was, like everything else the man did, about control.

Or maybe Papa was afraid he’d catch a glimpse of himself on the news.

Or maybe he worried that Jeremy would stumble across some crime drama—an episode about pedophiles or missing kids—and it might trigger something in him.

Who knows?

All Jeremy cared about back in the early days was that he could watch movies and cartoons to his heart’s content. Immersing himself in familiar fictional characters was an escape from his frightening new reality.

After a few weeks—months?—Papa started to take him out shopping, or to get something to eat. The first time, he told Jeremy that if he said a word—one single word—while they were out in public, he would be sorry.

A nice man at the Chinese restaurant at the food court in the mall was handing out chunks of chicken on toothpicks. He put one into Jeremy’s hand as he and Papa walked by, and Jeremy thanked him.

Not one word, two words: “Thank you.” Jeremy spoke them automatically—and paid dearly for them later.

It was the last time he ever spoke to anyone in public when Papa was around.

Papa always introduced Jeremy as his son, said he was painfully shy. No one ever questioned the relationship.

After a while, Jeremy himself started to believe it. In an enormous world filled with strangers, Papa was all he had. He stopped asking questions, and his old life faded away at last.

 

The rain has stopped by the time Brett turns onto his block after dropping Elsa and Renny at the station. He groans as he turns into the driveway and spots his next-door neighbor walking through her side yard with a shovel. Meg Warren isn’t the type to simply wave and retreat.

Sure enough, by the time he’s parked the car, she’s coming across the wet grass, dragging her feet a little, as always. He learned the hard way never, ever, ever to ask about her limp.

“What are you doing home at this time of day, Mr. Brett?” she asks cheerfully as he steps out. She always calls him Mr. Brett, in a cutesy, singsong voice. Once, she asked if that bothered him. It probably shouldn’t, but it does. He told her it didn’t, of course. Meg means well, as Elsa likes to say.

“I’m actually on my way to the office, but I had to stop home to shower and change first.”

“Really? I saw that you were home a little while ago. But then you went out again, with luggage.”

He sighs inwardly.

“And you weren’t here overnight.”

“No. Not overnight,” he tells her, hoping she can’t see the tension in his jaw. All he wants to do is go into the house, draw the shades, and wait for something else to happen.

But that’s not an option. His secretary called his cell phone a few minutes ago as he was driving back from the station. When it rang, he snatched it up, assuming it was Mike, who hadn’t answered when Brett called him.

“Lew’s looking for you,” Cindy said. “What should I tell him?”

“Remind him that I called in earlier—I said I’ll be in at noon.” He’d lied about having to accompany Renny to a doctor’s appointment this morning.

“He knows…he said to tell you it’s past noon and they already rescheduled the conference call twice. Now it’s at one. You need to get here, Brett.”

He bites back the urge to tell Cindy that he’s not coming in at all. That might just push Lew over the edge. Anyway, maybe it’s better to go into the office, do the conference call, and tie up some loose ends in case he really does have to take some time off.

“Tell Lew I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Really?”

“Twenty.”

There’s no way, he acknowledges now, glancing at his watch. Maybe he can get there within the half hour, though, if he hurries.

“I noticed that the house was dark all night,” Meg is saying. “You guys always leave the outside lights on when you’re not going to be home. And you know, Elsa didn’t even mention that you were all going someplace when I saw her and Renny outside yesterday.”

Wow. That Meg really doesn’t miss a trick.

“It was a last-minute thing,” he tells her, and nods toward her muddy shovel, needing to change the subject. “So what are you up to? Burying dead bodies in the petunia patch?”

She laughs like that’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. “No! I just dug a new bed out back. The ground is nice and soft from all the rain. I’m moving my herb garden. Like I was telling your wife, someone trampled it.”

“Really? Because—” He thinks better of saying anything about the footprints in their own yard. Why even drag her into it?

Because she sees everything, he reminds himself, so maybe she saw…something. If there was something to see.

“Because…what?” she prompts Brett.

“Ah, I was wondering whether you’ve noticed anyone hanging around our yard when we’re not home.”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know…anyone who shouldn’t be here, I guess.”

“Why? Did something happen?”

Brett weighs how much to admit, and decides on as little as possible. “There were some footprints in our yard, and we thought maybe kids were cutting through. If anyone got hurt on our property, we’d be looking at a lawsuit, so…”

“You mean my kids? Because they’re not even around right now. They’re with their father this week, and—”

“No, that’s not what I—”

“—believe me, if I ever caught them sneaking around in your yard, I’d have their keisters in a sling.”

Brett murmurs an appropriate reply, almost relieved he’s put her on the defensive regarding her kids, rather than have her start asking questions he’d rather not answer. “Well, I’ll let you get back to moving your herb garden,” he tells Meg.

“Oh, I’m finished for today. I’ll dig up the plants over the weekend. The ones that didn’t get crushed, anyway.”

“Yeah? Where are they now?” he asks as casually as possible.

“Right over there.” She points to a small garden plot along the dividing line between their two yards—almost directly adjacent to Renny’s bedroom window.

Brett nods thoughtfully. “Well, if you do see anyone around, let me know.”

“And you do the same, there, Mr. Brett.”

“Believe me, I will.”

 

Glenhaven Park is one of those picture-perfect, leafy suburban towns that look like the set of a television drama series. Even a lifelong city girl like Marin is wistful, driving past big old houses with front porches and hanging geraniums, set back along brick-paved streets that are shiny from this morning’s rain.

What would it be like to live here?

For a brief, deluded moment, she imagines that things would be different now if she and Garvey had chosen a simple, low-key life here, because nothing bad could ever happen in a place like this.

Oh, come on. Who are you kidding?

Look at what happened to Lauren here.

Anyway, Garvey is who he is. He would have been a monster anywhere. Married to him, no matter where she lived, her life would have eventually been disastrous.

She turns onto Elm Street and looks for the painted lady Lauren described over the phone. There it is, about halfway down the block: a tall mustard-colored Queen Anne Victorian with brick red gingerbread trim.

Her heart pounds as she pulls up in front. She can’t help but think of Garvey, pitilessly shattering the lives of the children who live here, just as he shattered his own children’s lives, and Marin’s.

I shouldn’t be here. I need to go.

But before she can act, she hears someone calling her name through the open car window. Looking up, she sees Lauren waving from the wraparound porch.

The few times they’ve come face-to-face, it’s been over lunch in the city—private booths in restaurants where no one would recognize either of them. Lauren has worn skirts, jewelry, makeup. Today, she descends the porch steps in sneakers, jeans, and a T-shirt, her long, reddish-brown hair caught back in a casual ponytail.

Marin immediately relaxes a bit, despite feeling overdressed.

“Hey, you made it!”

“Yeah—after a narrow brush with the paparazzi,” she tells the one person she knows who’s also been there, done that.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. Someone snapped my picture on the street. I don’t think it was really the paparazzi, though—just someone who recognized me.” Not that that’s much better. Plenty of amateur photographers sold candid shots to the press last summer when the news first broke.

“Oh, Marin—I thought that had died down. It has here.”

“Well, you don’t run into thousands of people when you step out your door.” Marin gestures at the quiet street.

“Not usually, no.” She smiles.

Marin reaches back for a Saran-wrapped platter on the passenger’s seat. “This is for you.”

“Cookies? Are these homemade?”

“Yes, but I can’t take credit. My daughter Annie loves to bake. Now that school is out, we’ve got cookies coming out of our ears, so…”

“Ryan will devour these in five minutes flat. I think he’s about the same age as Annie.”

“She’s almost fourteen.”

“Ryan’s thirteen.” Lauren leads the way up the porch steps, adding somewhat stiffly, “Lucy’s fifteen. Sadie’s only five. She’s at Splashdown today; Ryan and Lucy are at school. So you won’t get to meet any of them yet.”

Marin hopes her relief doesn’t show. Not that she has anything against Lauren’s kids. But she doubts she’s ready to handle meeting them so soon, and she’s willing to bet they feel the same about her—if they even know she’s here.

The conversational ball is in Marin’s corner, and she tries to think of something to say. What happened to the easy conversational flow she and Marin share over the phone, and whenever they meet on neutral ground?

At last, she asks, “School is still in session?”

“Just finals. Public schools go later than private. So your older daughter is…?”

“In private school. So is Annie.”

“No, I meant her name—is it Caroline?”

“That’s right. Very good!” Marin tries for a light tone, deciding maybe she’s just uncomfortable talking about the kids—hers, and Lauren’s.

Maybe Lauren is, too, because there’s an awkward silence as she opens the screened wooden outer door. Marin can hear rainwater dripping from the gutters above the porch.

Stepping into the high-ceilinged foyer, she’s greeted by the smell of vintage wood and fresh paint. She takes in the old-fashioned wallpaper, the floral draperies, and the ornate woodwork on the stairway, crown moldings, and half-closed pocket doors off to one side.

It’s magnificent; the kind of house you often see preserved in touristy New England towns, with guided tours and a brass plaque by the door.

This one looks lived-in, though—kids’ shoes scattered near the doormat, a baseball cap draped over a newel post, and a pile of books and spiral-bound notebooks on the bottom step, obviously waiting to be carried up.

“You’ll have to excuse the clutter,” Lauren tells her, bending to scoop up a stray tennis ball. “Between the kids emptying out their desks and lockers now that it’s the end of the school year, and being under construction, I can’t seem to keep it under control.”

“You’re under construction?”

Lauren doesn’t reply immediately, and when she does, Marin realizes that it’s going to be impossible, here on the Walsh family’s home turf, to avoid awkward moments and the subject of what happened last summer.

She shouldn’t have come. Why is she here? Why didn’t she at least take something for her nerves before she left home? That’s what Heather would have advised, had Marin told her where she was going.

But the pills can make her sleepy, or loopy—in no condition to drive. It’s been long enough, as it is, since she was behind the wheel.

“I had the kitchen gutted,” Lauren tells her.

The kitchen. Of course. That’s where it happened—the final bloody showdown.

“Want to see?”

Marin really doesn’t, but she says, “Sure,” anyway.

Maybe it’ll be cathartic, she tells herself as Lauren leads the way toward the back of the house.

“It’s been a long time coming…we really needed a renovation. Old houses, you know…”

“Right,” agrees Marin, who doesn’t know at all. She’s never lived in an old house, not even growing up in the Back Bay, where her nouveau riche parents were content living in a modern condo—a far cry from the stately Quinn mansion just a few blocks away.

Lauren’s kitchen is large—by Manhattan standards, anyway. She gestures at a stepladder pulled up to a window, drop cloths draped on the floor beneath it. “When you called this morning, I was about to paint the woodwork.”

“And I interrupted you. Sorry.”

“Oh please, it was a welcome interruption. I think I chose the wrong color. Here…” Lauren pries the can open with a screwdriver and holds it out. “Autumn Mist looks more like dog poop, doesn’t it?”

“It’s not so bad.”

“Really?”

“No. I was being polite. Definitely dog poop.”

Lauren joins her in a laugh, and Marin feels a little better.

It isn’t so bad, being here, in this house, in this kitchen. She’d been expecting a rush of emotion, or at the very least, an aura of bad vibes.

Maybe it would be different if she’d visited before, or if the place hadn’t been renovated. As it is, she’s merely a bit uncomfortable. But really, she feels that way everywhere she goes these days—which is why she really doesn’t go anywhere anymore.

“Guess I need to go back to the paint store.” Lauren replaces the lid and pounds it down with the screwdriver handle.

“So you’re doing all this yourself? Choosing colors, painting?”

“Pretty much.”

“I’m impressed.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Lauren looks more closely at her. “You’re not kidding. Trust me, it’s not that big a deal.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin with a project like this.” She and Garvey have always used professional decorators, professional painters, professional everything. Now that he’s gone…

“When you move into your new place, I can help you, if you want.” Seeing Marin’s expression, Lauren quickly adds, “Not that I’m any good at it. I mean, don’t feel obligated. I just thought—”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just—the move. Every time I think about it, I get a little worried about doing it alone.”

A little worried? She’s scared to death. But somehow, seeing what Lauren has accomplished, she feels almost ashamed to admit it.

“Hey, if I can do this”—Lauren sweeps a hand around the kitchen—“you can do that. You can do anything. You’re stronger than you think.”

“I’m not so sure. I mean, I know I’m an adult, but I’ve never really been on my own. I went from my parents’ house to college to Garvey.”

“Well, I was on my own, for years before I got married, and I was terrified when Nick left. Half the time, I’m still terrified.”

“You don’t seem like you are.”

“Neither do you.” Lauren pats her arm. “But you’re going to be okay. Just think…the worst is over.”

“I wish I could believe that. Right now, I wake up every day feeling helpless—and sometimes, I get overwhelmed by this sense that something horrible is going to happen any second, and…”

“That’s probably a panic attack, Marin—due to post-traumatic stress. Are you seeing anyone?”

“No! I’m still married to Garvey, even if—”

“No.” Lauren is smiling faintly. “That’s not what I meant. Listen, my kids went through this after—you know.”

She knows. After her husband had them kidnapped, and commissioned their father’s cold-blooded murder.

“Panic attacks—a constant feeling of impending doom—that’s what you’re feeling, right?”

Marin’s instinct is to deny it, and yet—isn’t that what she just said? That she feels as though something horrible is going to happen?

“Seriously—you need a good shrink.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because…”

Because why? Because everyone in Manhattan knows who she is? Because she can’t bear the thought of admitting the truth about these frightening episodes to a total stranger? Because Garvey didn’t believe in shrinks?

“There’s nothing wrong with needing outside help, Marin. My sister lives in Manhattan, and she got me a bunch of names there back when I was looking for a family therapist who could treat all four of us. I wound up sticking with someone here, but if you want, I could—”

“No. No, that’s okay. I’m okay. Really.”

She hates the way Lauren is looking at her, as though she can read Marin’s mind. Maybe she can, because she says, “A shrink isn’t the only place to find peace after what you’ve been through, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can lean on your friends, or you can go to church…”

“Church? You’re kidding, right?”

“No. I’ve been going lately, with Sam. It helps.”

“That’s great, but…I don’t think it would help me.”

“I wouldn’t have thought it would help me, either. But then I realized I never prayed so hard as I did when my kids—when their lives were hanging in the balance. And those prayers were answered.”

That might very well be true.

But how many others—including Marin’s own—haven’t been?

“I’m fine,” Marin tells her. “Trust me, I don’t need a shrink, or church. All I need is time, and everything will be just fine.”

Case closed.

 

I may not be able to pay my cable bill next month, Meg thinks as she settles on the couch in her basement family room, but at least I’ve been home to watch Oprah every day this week.

Not only that, but the kids aren’t even around to drive her nuts. Feeling vaguely guilty for not missing them, she reaches toward the decidedly guilt-free array of healthy snacks she prepared for the occasion. Low-fat Pringles, reduced-fat Oreos, mini rice cakes spread with peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, and a bag of Jelly Bellys, which she recently discovered have always been nonfat, same as marshmallow fluff.

“That stuff’s not good for you,” her teenage know-it-all daughter—who clearly knows very little—would probably say.

Grabbing a stack of Pringles from the can, Meg waits for the endless array of commercials to give way to Oprah. Floor wax, support pantyhose, line-reducing face lotion…

And I can’t buy any of it, even if I wanted to.

Munching moodily, she thinks about the stack of overdue bills sitting on the kitchen counter. She’s managed to pay the most important ones this month—the mortgage, the electric bill—but most of the others, like the orthodontist and her life insurance policy, will have to wait. As she told one of the girls at work last night, it’s not as if Dr. Lichtman is going to come over here and rip the braces off her youngest son’s teeth, and it’s not as if Meg’s going to drop dead tomorrow.

Sooner or later, she’ll get her regular hours back. That, or she’ll win the lottery. She plays Power Ball every chance she gets, fantasizing about all the things she’ll do if she wins even a small jackpot.

First and foremost, of course, she’ll have the bunion surgery. It’ll be covered by insurance, but she can’t afford to be laid up for all the time it’ll take to heal unless she has some other source of income. Then—

“Today, on Oprah…”

Meg sits up expectantly. It’s about time. As she reaches for a rice cake, a shadow crosses the small window high in the wall behind her. She looks up, startled, just in time to see a pair of denim-clad legs stride past.

One of the kids, she thinks absently—before remembering that the kids are out of town with their father.

Her next thought is of her trampled herb garden, and it’s enough to make her put down the rice cake and jump up off the couch. She hurriedly climbs the steps to the kitchen, licking the peanut butter and marshmallow goo off her fingers, and goes straight to the door overlooking the side yard.

Sure enough, someone is there, apparently having cut through the Cavalons’ yard and into her own. A kid, obviously, wearing a big black sweatshirt with the hood up.

“Hey!” Meg calls, determined to give him a piece of her mind.

He goes absolutely still, but doesn’t turn around.

“What are you doing?” She descends the steps to the yard, careful not to trip on the flats of herbs she bought from the nursery, or the shovel leaning against the rail.

Why is he keeping his back to her?

He must be someone she knows—maybe one of her oldest son’s friends. He’s fallen in with a couple of troublemakers lately.

“I can call the police on you, you know,” she tells him as she strides across the grass toward him. “You’re trespassing on private property!”

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.

Meg was kind enough to leave her car keys right on the counter, so disposing of her little Toyota will be a breeze. With any luck, it’ll take a couple of days, at least, for anyone to realize something’s happened to Meg Warren—and chances are, they’ll never think to start their search here at home.

By that time, the nightmare next door at the Cavalons’ will be in full swing, and a missing middle-aged woman will be the least of the local police department’s worries.