The Survivors Club

by Lisa Gardner

  “I don’t know. I betcha she was never raped. What do you think?”

  Griffin was quiet for a moment. “Would you like me to call someone for you, Mrs. Rosen? Maybe a friend or relative who could come stay with you for a while?”

  She waved her finger, falling forward, then getting a better grip on the door. “Not a reporter. I hate them! Phone ringing . . . all the time. Tell us about Eddie! What about that poor college student? Sylvia Blaire. Pretty Sylvia Blaire. Eddie’s dead, and still the women suffer.”

  “How about I call Miss Pesaturo or Ms. Hayes?”

  “Meg doesn’t know shit. She’s so young.” Carol sighed. She tilted her head to the side, her long blond hair sweeping down her shoulder. “Young and sweet and innocent. Do you think I was ever that young and sweet and innocent? I don’t remember. Even before Eddie . . . I don’t remember.”

  “Ms. Hayes?” he asked hopefully. No dice.

  “She hates me,” Carol announced. “I’m too broken, you see. Jillian only loves people she can fix. Improve yourself! Get with the program! Take control of your life! Jillian is really Oprah Winfrey. Well, she’s not black.”

  “Are you going to be all right, Mrs. Rosen?”

  “I can’t have children,” she said mournfully. “I bet Dan’s girlfriend can have children. I bet she can turn off the TV anytime she wants. I bet she’s never slept in an empty bathtub or compulsively checked all the bars on the windows. She’s probably never shot at Dan either. It’s hard to compete with that.”

  “Mrs. Rosen . . .” She was definitely drunk. He took another deep breath, then acknowledged that it didn’t matter. He still had a job to do, and frankly, her inebriation made his life easier. He said, “Does Dan ever talk to you about money?”

  “No.”

  “A home like this must be very expensive.”

  She singsonged, “New plumbing isn’t exactly cheap, you know.”

  “So things have been tight?”

  “‘Jesus Christ, Carol, someone has to pay for all this.’”

  “Very tight.”

  “Meg and Jillian think we should sell this house. I picked out almost everything in it. This door, I selected this door.” She stroked it with her hand. “This molding, I selected this molding.” She touched the doorjamb tenderly. “So much of it was gone before. Rotted out, yanked out. Replaced with cheap pine trim. I read books. Scoured old pictures of Victorian homes, talked to experts in historical restoration. No one could have loved this house more than I did. God, I wish it would just burn to the ground.”

  “Mrs. Rosen, we know Dan liquidated his brokerage account. Do you know where that money went?”

  She shook her head.

  “We’re going to have to look into that, Mrs. Rosen.”

  She smiled and leaned her head against the door. “You think he hired an assassin? You think he spent that money to kill my rapist?”

  “I would like to ask him that question.”

  “Sergeant Griffin, my husband doesn’t love me that much. Try the girlfriend. Maybe she also likes expensive old homes.”

  Griffin brought up his hand. Too late. Carol Rosen had already closed the door. He tried knocking, but she wouldn’t respond. After another minute, he returned to his car, where he sat behind the steering wheel and frowned.

  He didn’t like leaving Carol Rosen alone in her current state of mind. Last night she’d shot her husband, and that was before she’d learned about Sylvia Blaire.

  He picked up his cell phone and gave Meg Pesaturo a try. No answer. Next call, Jillian’s beach house. Also a dead end. Then he dialed her East Greenwich residence, where he finally got a person.

  “Hello,” Toppi Niauru said.

  Jillian wasn’t in, so Griffin told Toppi about Carol Rosen. She said that she and Libby would be right over.

  Carol’s historic house didn’t have wheelchair access, so Griffin hung out in the driveway. Forty-five minutes later, Toppi pulled up in a dark blue van. She opened the side door and operated the wheelchair lift to lower Olivia Hayes to the ground.

  Jillian’s mother had put on makeup for the occasion. She had her dark hair piled high on her head, and greeted Griffin with a kiss.

  At 5:00 P.M., he carried Libby up the front stairs while Toppi followed with her wheelchair. At 5:01, they all knocked on the door.

  At 5:10, they stopped knocking, and Griffin took down the door with his shoulder. At 5:11, they found Carol sprawled on the rug in front of the blaring TV, her hand still clutching the empty bottle of sleeping pills.

  Griffin started CPR, Toppi called for an ambulance and Dan Rosen, with his usual sense of timing, finally came home.

  CHAPTER 26

  Carol

  JILLIAN ARRIVED FIRST. SHE FORCEFULLY SHOVED HER WAY through the pack of reporters clogging the hospital parking lot, then bustled through the emergency room doors.

  “Goddamn vultures!” she cried as the electronic doors finally slid shut, but not before some earnest reporter shouted out, “Ms. Hayes, have you ever thought of committing suicide?”

  Meg and her family were shortly behind Jillian. A uniformed officer had located their vehicle outside Vinnie Pesaturo’s home and passed along the news. Arriving in the hospital parking lot, Vinnie shouted, “Outta my way, you rat bastards,” and the reporters, recognizing an armed man when they saw one, let the family through.

  The moment they were inside the ER, Meg homed in on Jillian. “Where is she? Is she okay? What have you heard?”

  “I don’t know. We need a doctor. There. You in the white coat. What can you tell us about Carol Rosen?”

  “Jillian! Over here. Jillian!”

  Jillian and Meg turned in time to see Toppi waving at them from the other side of the waiting room. Next to her sat Jillian’s mother. Next to Olivia, sat Sergeant Griffin.

  “Why is your mother here?” Meg asked.

  “Is that really the Olivia Hayes?” her father breathed.

  “I’m going to kill Sergeant Griffin,” Jillian said.

  They rushed across the emergency room, where Toppi rose to meet them. “How is she? Is she going to be all right?” Jillian’s hands were shaking. She didn’t even realize it until Toppi reached out and clasped them in her own.

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “Oh God—”

  “Her husband is talking to one of the doctors now. Maybe he’ll know something soon.”

  “What happened?”

  “It looks like she overdosed on sleeping pills. Maybe some alcohol as well.”

  “Oh no.” Meg now. She had started to cry. “I didn’t realize . . . I mean, I knew she was upset, but I didn’t think . . .”

  “No one could know,” Jillian said, but the words were automatic, lacking genuine conviction. They were Carol’s friends; they’d seen her just this morning. Maybe they should have known. Meg’s mother put an arm around her daughter’s shoulders.

  “And where was the husband during all this?” Uncle Vinnie boomed.

  Toppi shrugged and looked at Griffin. He said simply, “Out.”

  “Figures,” Uncle Vinnie snorted.

  “I can’t take this,” Jillian said. “I’m going to find a doctor.”

  She headed for the receptionist’s desk, and wasn’t surprised when Griffin followed.

  “How could you?” she railed at him the moment they were out of earshot of the others. Her hands were still shaking. She felt sick to the bottom of her stomach with worry for Carol.

  “How could I what?”

  “Get my mom involved in all of this!”

  “Oh don’t you start!” Toppi had just caught up with them, and she barreled into the conversation fiercely. “Look at her! Glance over your shoulder and just look at her!”

  Jillian thinned her lips mutinously, but did as she was told. Her mom now had Meg’s father and uncle literally at her feet. The two men were talking animatedly. Her mother was smiling.

  “She looks pretty good to me,” Griffin said.


  Jillian stabbed his overpumped chest with her finger. “You are not allowed to speak.” Then she turned back on Toppi. “She’s fragile—”

  “She’s fine.”

  “EMTs put her on oxygen just last night!”

  “She had a shock.”

  “And finding Carol on the floor of her home wasn’t shocking?”

  “Probably, but I imagine it was still worse for Carol.”

  “Oh!” Jillian was so mad she yanked on her gathered hair. “I don’t want her involved!”

  “Too late. She’s your mother. She’s involved.”

  “She’ll just worry more.”

  Toppi snorted. “She was already worried. This finally gave her something to do.”

  “Toppi!”

  “Jillian!” Toppi mocked. “Look, I’m being serious now. When Sergeant Griffin called, I asked your mom what she wanted to do. She didn’t hesitate for a second. Carol is your friend. Libby was delighted to help her in any way we could. And it’s a damn good thing, too.” Toppi’s voice finally quieted. “I know she wasn’t around much when you were a child, Jillian. But you’re not a child anymore. You grew up. Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe she did, too?”

  Toppi walked back to the group, where Meg was now leaning her head against her mother’s shoulder and Libby was flipping rapidly through her picture book to the apparent delight of Tom and Uncle Vinnie. Jillian turned back to Griffin. “Don’t say it,” she warned.

  “Haven’t muttered a word.”

  “She’s wrong, you know. Toppi’s the one who doesn’t get it. I know my mom has changed. But I’ve never had a father, and I no longer have a sister. Libby . . . She’s all I have left.”

  At the receptionist’s desk, no one would help her. She wasn’t family, and in the eyes of medical protocol being a fellow rape victim didn’t count. They knew who Jillian was, of course. The nurse in charge was even kind. And then for the first time, Jillian realized the full implication of where they were. Women & Infants. One of Providence’s best hospitals and where each one of them had been at least once before . . . On those nights, that night, the night.

  She turned away, no longer so steady on her feet. Of all the strange bonds . . . And then she suddenly realized that she couldn’t lose Carol. She just couldn’t. Carol had to survive and then it would be Jillian, Carol and Meg again, sitting in the back room of some restaurant, and arguing or laughing, or being petty or being genuine, but certainly helping one another cope.

  She had started the Survivors Club with so much purpose, but maybe at the end of the day, the group had worked even better than Jillian had thought. Because standing here now, she couldn’t imagine not seeing Carol. She couldn’t imagine even a week going by without it being her, Carol and Meg.

  “Sit,” Griffin said quietly. “Wait.”

  “I can’t sit. I don’t know how to wait. That’s my whole problem.” Her fingers had closed around his sleeve. She didn’t know when that had happened. “Oh God, I just want to know that Carol is all right.”

  A door on the left suddenly swung open; Dan Rosen walked through. His features were ashen. His dark hair stood up in a rumpled mess on top of his head, while his left arm stood out prominently in a white sling. He wore a tan jacket with a gold tie, as if he’d once been on his way to work. Now he didn’t seem to know where he was.

  Jillian took one look at his face and felt the world tilt again beneath her feet. “Oh no . . .”

  “Mr. Rosen,” Griffin said quietly.

  “Huh. What?”

  “Dan?” Jillian whispered more urgently.

  He finally seemed to register their presence. “Oh. Hello, Jillian.”

  “Is she? Please, Dan?”

  “They’re pumping her stomach. Treating her . . . an activated charcoal slurry, I think the doctor said. She took all her Ambien. Booze, too. Not good, not good at all. Ambien plus booze equals a coma, that’s what the doctor said.” Dan looked at Griffin shakily. “He said . . . he said if you hadn’t gotten to her so soon, she’d probably be dead.”

  “She’s been drinking?”

  “I guess. And her throat . . .” His fingers touched his own. “Her esophagus is . . . aggravated. I think that’s how the doctor said it. And her back teeth show signs of erosion. From bile, he told me. When she makes herself sick.”

  It took Jillian a moment. “Bulimia?”

  “He thinks. So my wife, it appears, spends her free time eating too much and maybe drinking too much and then making herself sick. Over and over again. I swear I didn’t know.” He looked at them, still dazed. “Jillian, did you know?”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “You should’ve, though.” Meg had come over while they were speaking. Now she had her hands placed authoritatively on her jean-clad hips while she regarded Dan with an imperious stare. “We were her friends, but we only saw her once or twice a week. You lived with her. How could you not know what she was doing?”

  “I’ve been . . . working.”

  “Meg,” Jillian tried. She was too late.

  “Working?” Meg said. “Or playing with your girlfriend?”

  “What?” Dan’s head popped up. “What?”

  “Oh don’t play innocent with us.” Meg was on a roll now, and everyone, including Sergeant Griffin, was watching with great interest. “Carol told us all about it. Your pathetic excuses of late-night meetings and overburdened workload. She called your office, you know. She knew you weren’t really there. That night she was raped—she knew what you were really doing.”

  “Carol thinks I’m sleeping with another woman?” Dan asked in a strangled voice.

  “Oh come on—”

  “I’m not. I swear I’m not. I wouldn’t do that to Carol. My God, I love my wife!”

  “You’re never home!” Meg cried.

  “I know.”

  “You’re never at work!”

  “I know.”

  “Then where the hell are you?”

  Dan didn’t answer. He simply looked stricken. And then another voice spoke up from across the hushed waiting room.

  “Foxwoods,” Uncle Vinnie announced. “Danny boy’s not a cheater. He’s a gambler. And if you don’t mind me saying, he’s a really bad one, too.”

  Next to Jillian, Dan Rosen nodded his head miserably. “I love my wife,” he said again. Then he turned away and slammed his one good hand into the wall.

  “You’re going to have to tell me everything,” Griffin said to Dan ten minutes later. He had commandeered an empty exam room in an attempt at privacy. Of course, Jillian, Meg and the rest of their entourage had immediately followed him and Dan into the room, and were now looking at them both as if they had every right to be there. Griffin considered kicking them out but figured what the hell. Vinnie Pesaturo obviously had relevant information, and Jillian and Meg seemed to be the interrogative equivalent of brass knuckles. All they had to do was look at Dan, and he gave up the store.

  “I never meant to hurt Carol,” Dan started off weakly.

  “You know, Dan, she did shoot you.”

  “That was an accident! I should’ve announced myself the minute I got home. It was late . . . She gets nervous after dark.” His lips twisted. “After what happened to her that night, can you really blame her?”

  “Yes, that night. Let’s talk about that night.” Griffin took out his Norelco Pocket Memo, turned on the minirecorder and got serious. “You told the police you were working late.”

  Dan hung his head.

  “I gather you told your wife the same?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you weren’t really at work?”

  Dan didn’t look up. Vinnie smacked his arm. “For God’s sake,” the bookie said. “Stop being such a whiner and stand up for your wife.”

  Dan shot the bookie a look, but seemed to get ahold of himself. “I, uh, I was at the Foxwoods casino.”

  “You lied to the police?”

  “Yes.”

  “You
do that a lot?”

  “I was embarrassed! It was bad enough to be gone when my wife needed me. But then, to have to admit that I was sitting at a blackjack table while she was being viciously assaulted . . .” He groaned. “My God, what kind of husband does a thing like that?”

  Griffin let the question hang, which was answer enough. “So you lied to the police, and you lied to your wife. All to cover up one night at the gaming tables. Do you gamble a lot, Mr. Rosen?”

  “I don’t know. Is four, five days a week a lot? Is liquidating my business a lot? Is second-mortgaging my home?” Dan’s face gained some color. He looked at Griffin hotly, as if daring him to state the obvious.

  “You tell me,” Griffin said quietly.

  That quickly, Dan folded again. His shoulders slumped. His chin sank against his chest. “I think . . . I think I have a gambling problem.” And then, “Oh God, Carol is going to kill me!”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “I don’t know. Three years, maybe. I went to Foxwoods one night with some friends. Business associates, really. And I . . . I had a really good night. Seriously.” Dan’s features perked up again. “I quit the blackjack tables ahead ten thousand dollars. And back then, ten thousand dollars . . . Wow. I was just about to open my own law firm, and God knows the house needed some kind of something. Ten thousand bucks helped out. Felt good. Easy money.”

  “Uh huh,” Griffin said knowingly.

  Dan smiled thinly. “Exactly. So I opened my own law practice, except instead of taking with me five loyal clients, I only took three. Money was tighter than I thought, and things got off slower than I thought, and health care cost more than I thought . . .”

  “You started taking on debt.”

  “I didn’t want to tell Carol. We’d talked about me starting my own practice so many times. She wasn’t as sure. That house, those mortgage payments, my God. But it was my dream. I had to have my own practice. Trust me, I told her. Trust me. So she did.”

  “But you got behind in payments. And then you . . . ?”

  “I remembered Foxwoods. Ten thousand bucks. Easy money, right? I’m a smart man, I’ve read all the books on blackjack, memorized the odds tables. Hey, it’s not like betting on horses. That’s pure luck. Now blackjack, that takes strategy.”