The Survivors Club

by Lisa Gardner

  “No!” Molly was shocked.

  “Pooh doesn’t have any shoes,” Meg pointed out reasonably.

  Her little sister rolled her eyes. “Pooh is a bear. Bears don’t wear shoes, everyone knows that.”

  “Bears wear capes?”

  “Yes, pink capes ’cause pink is Barbie’s favorite color and her husband has to know that her favorite color is pink.”

  Purple, Meg thought idly. The color of royalty. His favorite color. Who was he? How did she know that?

  “I’m worried . . .” Her mother’s voice was rising down the hallway.

  “Now, honey—”

  “No! Don’t honey me! For God’s sake, Tom. The doctors told us her memory would come back shortly. Trauma-induced amnesia isn’t supposed to last this long or be this complete. But she doesn’t seem to remember anything. Anything. What if she’s doing worse than we thought?”

  “Come on, Laurie. You’ve seen her. She’s happy. So what if she doesn’t remember anything. Hell, maybe we’re all better off that she forgot.”

  “Or maybe she hated her life that much. You ever think of that, Tom? Maybe what we did . . . Oh my God, maybe we scarred her that badly!”

  “Shoes!” Molly squealed. She triumphantly dumped out her box of Barbie clothes and fished out a pair of bright red platform heels that had probably come with Barbie’s flower child outfit or a killer pair of jeans. Now Molly took Barbie out of Meg’s hands and used the shoes to finish up Barbie’s hot-pink wedding ensemble. Outfits that would not be appearing in a Mattel commercial anytime soon, Meg decided. But Molly was very pleased.

  “It’s time for the wedding,” Molly said with a big smile. “Dum-dum-de-dum, dum-dum-de-dum . . .”

  “I’ll marry you.”

  “No . . . no . . .”

  “It’s them, isn’t it? Well, fuck them! I’ll take you away. I’ll make you happy. Come on, Meg, sweet Meg, my precious little Meg . . .”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Don’t be scared. I won’t let anyone hurt you, Meg. Not anyone. Ever.”

  “I’m scared,” her mother was saying. “What if one day it suddenly comes back to her? Bang. Just like that. What if she’s not ready?”

  “The docs said if she did remember, then she’d be ready.”

  “Oh please, the doctors also said there was no reason for her to have forgotten this much. Face it, Tom, they don’t know anything. It’s amnesia. A brain thing, a mental thing. They’re making this up as they go along.”

  “Laurie, honey, what do you want?”

  “I want her to be happy! I want her to be safe. Oh Tom, what if we were the ones who had come home today to find Meg passed out from an overdose of sleeping pills? If the trauma of being so viciously raped is too much for a grown woman, what do you think it must be doing to Meg?”

  “Meg?” Molly asked.

  Meg blinked her eyes. Her sister’s pink-painted room came back into focus. She was sitting once more on the floor. Her little sister was beside her, peering up at her anxiously.

  “Meg doesn’t feel good?” Molly asked. She was still clutching Barbie in her right hand.

  “I’m, uh, I’m . . .” Meg touched her cheek. Her face was covered in sweat. Her skin had grown cold and clammy. “Just a little headache, I guess.” She smiled at her sister weakly, trying to get her bearings back.

  “Marry me.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Marry me.”

  Her stomach rebelled. For a moment, she thought she might be sick. And then suddenly, in the back of her head:

  “Fucking brat. Run home to your mommy and daddy. Go hide behind their narrow little minds and fucking suburban panacea. You don’t want my love? Then I take it back. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you . . .”

  “Meg?”

  “Just . . . a minute.”

  And then again from down the hall. “I don’t want her to end up like Carol. I couldn’t stand it if she ended up like Carol. Oh Tom, what if we’ve failed her?”

  “M-M-Meg?”

  “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you . . .”

  “The doctors still aren’t sure Carol’s even going to make it. Meg’s honestly grown close to the woman. What if she dies, Tom? What will happen then? My God, what will happen then!”

  Meg bolted off the floor. She stumbled out of Molly’s room.

  “M-M-Meg?”

  She careened down the hall.

  “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”

  “What if Carol dies, what if Carol dies . . .”

  Meg got the toilet seat up. She leaned over . . .

  Nothing. She’d never eaten lunch. She’d forgotten about dinner. Her stomach rolled and rolled and rolled, but there was nothing present to throw up. She moved over to the sink. Turned on the cold water. Stuck her head under the faucet and let the icy flow shock the distant images from her brain.

  Minutes passed. Long, cool minutes while the water sluiced over her sweaty skin and dampened all the voices in her head. Cool, cool water bringing blessed nothingness back to her brain.

  When she finally looked up, her parents were standing in the doorway. Her father appeared his usual stoic self. Her mother, on the other hand, had one arm wrapped tightly around her stomach, while her right hand fidgeted with the gold heart dangling around her neck.

  “Meg honey?” her mother asked.

  Meg straightened. Strange voices, faint rumblings returned to the back of her mind. Like faraway scenes, threatening to come closer, closer, closer.

  Meg found a towel and used it to methodically blot her face.

  “You okay, sweetheart?” her father asked.

  “Just a little queasy. All that time in the hospital, you know.” She offered a faint smile.

  “I’m sure Carol will be all right,” her mother said briskly. Her right hand was now furiously twisting the dangling gold heart.

  “Sure.” Meg turned off the faucet. Rehung the towel. Ran a comb through her long brown hair.

  “If there’s anything you need . . .” her father tried.

  “I’m fine, Daddy.”

  “We love you, sweetheart.” Her mother this time.

  “I love you, too.”

  What were they doing? Saying so many words, but none of the ones that mattered. Lies. She had never realized it before, but sometimes love produced lies. Big lies. Whopping lies. Gigantic lies, all packaged prettily and offered up with the best of intentions. Protection through falsehood. That’s right—a suburban panacea.

  Her parents were still standing in the doorway. She was still standing at the sink. No one seemed to know what to do.

  “I, uh, I have a wedding,” Meg said.

  “A wedding?”

  “Barbie and Pooh Bear. Didn’t you get the invite?”

  “Oh, Molly’s marrying off Barbie again.” Her mother finally relaxed. Her hand stilled around her neck. “The hot-pink dress?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Red platform shoes?”

  “The kid’s got style.”

  “Well, by all means.” Her mother moved to the side, gestured for Meg to pass. “We wouldn’t want to stand in the way of true love.”

  “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”

  “Okay then.” Meg pasted the smile back on her face. She made it down the hall, where Molly sat uncertainly in the middle of her room, still clutching Barbie on her lap.

  “Let’s have that wedding!” Meg said with forced cheerfulness.

  Molly looked up at her and positively beamed.

  Hours later, the Pesaturo family went to sleep. One by one, the tiny rooms of the tiny home went dark. Meg turned off her own light. But she didn’t go to bed. She went to her window. She stood in front of her window.

  “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”

  She stared at the night outside her window, and she wondered at the darkness waiting for her there.

  Those rich chocolate eyes. That gentle lover’s kiss.

  “Davi
d,” she whispered, then licked her lips and tried out the name once more. “David. Oh no. David Price.”

  At midnight, Jillian finally left the hospital. Carol had yet to regain consciousness. Her stomach had been pumped, her body purged. Now she lay peacefully beneath stark white hospital sheets, her long golden hair a halo around her head as a heart monitor beeped in rhythm to her pulse and a respirator pumped air into her lungs.

  Coma, the doctors said. She had ingested nearly 125 mg of Ambien, or twelve times the recommended dose. Combined with the alcohol, it had shut down her system to the point where she responded only to painful stimuli. The doctors would test her again in the morning, see if she began to pull out once the levels of sleeping pills and alcohol in her bloodstream came down. In other words, they would poke and prod at her poor, peaceful body. See if they could inflict enough pain to jar her back to life.

  Dan remained in the room. He had pulled up a chair next to Carol, where he had finally fallen asleep with his head on the edge of her bed, his hand cradling her wrist. From outside the ICU door, Jillian had watched a nurse drape a blanket around his shoulders. Then Jillian had turned to go.

  The night was cold, a sharp slap against Jillian’s cheeks. She still wore her suit from this morning, no coat, no scarf. She hunched her shoulders beneath the tailored blue jacket and shivered as she walked. The parking lot was nearly empty this time of night. Certainly no reporters anymore. In the news world, Carol’s suicide attempt was already old. Been there, done that. As of six this evening, the hot story had become Tawnya Clemente’s lawsuit against the city.

  God, Jillian was tired.

  At her car, she went through the drill. Peered through the windows at the backseat. Glanced at neighboring cars to make sure no one loitered. Unlocked her door with her left hand. Held her canister of pepper spray in her right. Preparedness was nine-tenths of the battle. If you don’t want to be a victim, then you can’t act like one.

  She got straight into her Lexus, immediately locked all the doors, then finally started the engine. She glanced again at her backseat. Nothing but empty, shadowed space. Why did she have chills running up and down her spine?

  She got her car in reverse, turned to back out and nearly screamed.

  No. Eddie Como. No. It was all in her head, all in her head. The backseat was empty, the parking lot was empty. She turned back around, shoved her automatic in park and sat there shaking uncontrollably, the fear still rolling off her in waves.

  Panic attack, she realized after a moment, trying to regain her breath. In the beginning, she’d had them all the time. It had been a bit since the last one, but then again, today had been a bad day. First Sylvia Blaire. Then Carol.

  Oh God, Carol . . .

  Jillian rested her head against the steering wheel, and suddenly started to cry. Second time for her in one day. Had to be a new record. She couldn’t stop, though. The sobs came up from the dark pit of her, angry and hard and desolate, until her stomach hurt and her shoulders ached and still she choked out rough, bitter tears. This is why she didn’t cry. Because there was nothing dainty or tragic about her grief. She cried like a trucker, and afterward she looked like a disaster, with red, blotchy cheeks and mascara-smeared eyes.

  What if Sergeant Griffin saw her now? The thought made her want to weep again, though she didn’t know why.

  She could call him. He would probably take her call, even though it was after midnight. He’d probably even let her go on and on about her sister and the ache that wouldn’t ease and the grief that knew no end. He would listen to those things. He seemed to be that kind of guy.

  She didn’t pick up her cell phone, though. Maybe she wasn’t that kind of woman, the kind who still believed in Prince Charming. Or maybe she was, but Meg was right and she wasn’t ready to stop punishing herself for her sister’s death.

  Or maybe it was all a bunch of psychobabble bullshit, and the bottom line was that she just wasn’t ready. She did still miss her sister. She did still ache. And she did hold too much in and she did suffer too much guilt. And now she was worried about Carol, and as always she was worried about her mother, and then there was this thing with another poor dead college student and who knew what was really going on out there in that pitch-black night?

  Shit. Jillian put her car back in drive. She got out of the dark parking lot.

  At home, outside lights fired up her home like a suburban landing strip. She’d had three new spotlights added first thing this morning and God knows her neighbors had probably put on sunglasses just to go to bed. Good for them. May that be the worst tragedy they ever had to face.

  Jillian drove by the patrol car parked down the street. The two officers sitting inside nodded at her. She waved back. So Griffin had kept his word as well.

  She pulled into her garage with the normal drill. Car doors still locked. Gazing out the rearview mirror and watching the opening until the garage door had closed all the way. Checking out the shadowy depths of the garage for other signs of intruders. The coast appeared clear. She finally unlocked her car door, and entered her home.

  Toppi had left her a plate covered with plastic wrap on the kitchen counter. A chicken sandwich in case she was hungry. Jillian put the plate in the refrigerator, poured a glass of water and made the rounds. Doors still locked. Windows secure. Nothing out of place.

  The house was quiet this time of night. Just the ticking of the hallway clock, and the occasional fluttery snore from behind Toppi’s bedroom door.

  One A.M. now. Jillian should go to sleep. She kept prowling the house, driven by a compulsion she couldn’t name.

  Had she failed Carol? In the past, Carol and Meg had accused her of carrying too much guilt. Then, just this afternoon, Griffin had implied she took too much responsibility for things. No one could keep everyone safe.

  It was her job, though. For as long as she could remember. Libby had led the wild life. Jillian held things together. Baby Trish required stability. Jillian made them a home. Her mother’s health declined. Jillian took her in as well. They were her family, she loved them and with love came responsibility. So she did everything she could for them. She just never let them get too close.

  Just as she had done with Carol and Meg.

  For the first time, it occurred to her—was she feeling guilty that Trisha was dead, or was she feeling guilty that she had not loved her more when she was still alive? All those summers with Trisha racing along the beach and Jillian alone beneath an umbrella. Why hadn’t she run out into the sand? Why hadn’t she splashed through the waves with her sister? What had she been so afraid of?

  Strong, responsible Jillian who had never had a serious relationship. Independent, serious Jillian who focused on work work work, all of the time. Proud, lonely Jillian who marched through life as if it were a battlefield and she didn’t want anyone taking her prisoner. Not her mother. Not her sister. Not Eddie Como and not the Survivors Club.

  Poor, stupid Jillian who, at the age of thirty-six, still knew so little about what was important in life. Griffin had been right before. Trisha had loved her. And it shouldn’t have taken Jillian nearly a year to remember that.

  Jillian moved into the hallway. She thought of Trisha again, and the days that would never be. And then she thought of her mother, and all the years still to come. Proud, fierce Libby tapping, tapping, tapping. Sad, silent Libby who so longed to visit her daughter’s grave. Jillian walked down to her mother’s bedroom. She pushed in the door. She spotted Libby, lying upon her bed, bathed in the icy blue glow of a night-light. Libby’s eyes were wide open. She’d been watching the door and now she stared straight at Jillian.

  “You’ve been waiting for me to come home,” Jillian said softly, with genuine surprise, genuine wonder.

  Her mother’s finger tapped the bedspread.

  “You wanted to make sure that I got home safe.”

  Her mother’s finger, rising and falling on the bedspread.

  Jillian went farther into the room. “You can
rest now. I’m home, Mom. I’m . . . safe.” And then, a heartbeat later, “And I love you, too, Mama.”

  Her mother smiled. She held out her arms. And for the first time since she was a little girl, Jillian went into her mother’s embrace. And it didn’t hurt so much after all. All of these years, all of these miles later, it finally felt right.

  While the clock ticked down the hall. And the spotlights lit up the house. And the uniformed officers sat in their patrol car, waiting to see what would happen next.

  CHAPTER 30

  Griffin

  FOUR A.M., WEDNESDAY MORNING, DETECTIVE SERGEANT Roan Griffin drove to state police headquarters in North Scituate. He was early. Very early. Good thing, too. He had contact interviews to review, witness statements to consider and detective activity reports to analyze. Then he needed to prepare a time line of events. Oh, and he wanted to produce a chart, filling in the recent findings on their key suspects. That ought to make Lieutenant Morelli happy.

  Yep, Griffin had gotten a whole five hours of uninterrupted sleep last night. No new rapes, no new shootings, no new lawsuits. Now he was feeling downright chipper. He should’ve known better.

  Walking into the Investigative Support Service building, he was immediately greeted by the uniform on duty. Griffin nodded back, then proceeded down the narrow, yellow-lit hallway to Major Crimes. The ISSB, a flat, dull-brown 1960s building that could’ve passed as any government office, was divided into a series of wings. The Criminal Identification Unit took up the back right corner of the building, with one large office space for the five CIU detectives to share and a series of smaller rooms to house their toys—the lie detector room, the two Automatic Fingerprint Information System (AFIS) rooms, the significantly sized evidence-processing room, the photo lab.

  In contrast to the CIU suite, the Major Crimes detectives were granted a small corner in the front of the building, where they had five gray cubicles crammed into one blue-carpeted space. Of course, they considered themselves to have the nicer room. The ten-foot-high drop ceiling only had a fraction of the yellow water stains found in the rest of the building. Plus, the detectives kept their tidy desks free of paperwork and openly displayed nicely framed family photos. A few detectives had brought in plants over the years, and now massive green vines draped cheerfully down the cubicle walls. All in all, the place could’ve been an accountant’s office—if accountants had a back wall covered with “Most Wanted” photos and a front wall bearing a white board with homicide notes.