Whitney realized that Epstein, while declaring his love for these women, had not declared his innocence in their deaths. The two things would seem contradictory to most people, of course. But was Epstein most people? Had he managed to blank out his responsibility for his wives’ deaths? Was that why he was such a persuasive tragic figure, one on one, because he no longer remembered that he had caused his own bereavement?
“Whitney, Whitney, Whitney,” he said. “I have brought you here today because I know you are not the woman you claim to be.”
She should really get her purse. “I should really get my purse.”
He shook his head. “Take my hand, Whitney.”
She did, realizing that it was the first time they had touched in any intimate way. As recently as a day ago she would have been at least curious about physical contact with Epstein. Now she wanted to snatch her hand and run. But where would she go?
“Whitney, you are not alone in this world. You are not without resources.”
Oh, dear. “I really need my purse.”
Don Epstein shook his head, placing his hands between hers, kneeling before her.
“Kneel with me, Whitney.”
“The ground looks awfully damp—” He jerked her down the ground.
“Pray with me, Whitney. Absolve me, Whitney. I feel I can tell you the truth. I am responsible for Mary’s death.”
“Oh, I can understand why you would feel that way—”
“No, Whitney. I killed her as surely as if I pulled that trigger myself. Will you pray with me, Whitney?”
“Um, sure.”
Tess, dozing, was awaked by her daughter’s nightly gymnastic routine and a comfortably familiar hollow feeling in her stomach. Who was supposed to be bringing dinner tonight? Lloyd? Mrs. Blossom? She had forgotten to ask Crow when he left for work. How late was it? Late enough that when she opened Dempsey’s crate, the dog insisted on relieving himself in the chamber pot. Great.
Finally, there was a discreet knock, then the door opened, a sharp rat-a-tat of high heels on the wooden floors. Ah, that would be Mrs. Blossom. No, her mother, because Mrs. Blossom never wore heels. Esskay and Miata, shut up in the bedroom, scratched and whined, then settled back down. Would it be Afghan food? Tess recalled telling Crow that morning that she craved kaddo borawni, the Helmand’s pumpkin appetizer. She sighed in happy anticipation.
“Mom?” she called out.
“No,” said the woman in the green raincoat.
In her hand she held what would appear to be a black and violet flashlight to the untrained eye. But Tess’s eye happened to be trained by the endless stream of catalogs she received at her office. It was a taser, a small one. But even the small ones had ranges of up to twenty-five feet.
“What’s the matter, Carole?” she said. “Couldn’t you find one in green?”
Chapter 14
So you’re alive,” Tess said.
“Yes, and trying to make a new life for myself.”
The woman in the green raincoat, seen up close, was as pretty and girlish as Tess’s first impression of her. Too girlish, little girlish, all but stomping her foot in frustration.
“You were the eBay seller.” She watched as Carole moved briskly around the room, lowering the shades. Cautious, but unnecessary. There were no lights on the houses to either side of Tess’s, no one around to see or hear what was about to happen. What was about to happen? “Not Don, but you. You have Annette’s jewelry. You have your sister’s jewelry. Which means—”
“Which means what, exactly? I took the items down. There’s no record anymore.”
“I cached them,” Tess lied.
“Really?” Carole Epstein looked mildly impressed. Then she picked up Tess’s laptop from her cluttered bedside table, held it high above her head and dropped it to the floor. In his crate, Dempsey yipped, but tentatively.
“Shut up,” Carole said.
Tess considered her options. No matter the taser’s range, Carole wasn’t going to settle for stunning her. She meant to kill her, and would press it against her neck again and again until the job was done.
“It won’t look like a heart attack,” she told Carole. “There will be bruising, maybe even a burn mark. You won’t fool a good medical examiner.”
“Who cares? You’re the one who’s been harp, harp, harping that I’m the victim of foul play. People will think the real killer did you in because you wouldn’t shut up.”
“But they won’t blame Don Epstein. I happen to know he has a pretty good alibi for tonight.”
“Really?”
“He’s on a date.”
Carole paced, glancing at the items in Tess’s room. “I’ll turn over some furniture, take a few things, make it look like a robbery. I’ll be in Mozambique long before anyone thinks to look for me.”
“Mozambique?”
“It’s a good place to disappear,” Carole said. “If you have enough money. No extradition treaty with the U.S. And Don was pretty generous when I told him I wanted out. True, he didn’t know that I was taking even more than he agreed to give me, but Don was always generous, except when Annette got her hooks into him. Oh, the sweet little widow. She wasn’t so grief-struck that she didn’t do her best to get Don to cut me off, which was not part of the plan.”
“You killed Annette.”
“I would have, if the staph infection hadn’t beat me to it. She had a sweet tooth, so I started bringing her muffins loaded with antibiotics.” She wanted to start a gift-basket business, Mrs. Zimmerman had said. She made a good muffin. “I was going to give her a potassium spike while she was in the hospital, but I didn’t have to. I’m lucky that way.”
“Lucky?”
“I get what I want, just by thinking about it. When I was thirteen, I got in a big fight with my mother. I wanted to buy a designer skirt and she said I couldn’t use my savings. My own savings. I screamed at her, I said, ‘I wish you were dead.’ Two days later, she was. After that, I always knew I was special, that I could get whatever I wanted.”
“And you wanted Don Epstein?”
Carole made a face. “Don’t be silly. I wanted him to marry my sister.” She looked at the taser. “I think this would be less painful. If I go with the burglary scenario, I’ll have to use a kitchen knife.”
Tess had a feeling that Carole was more concerned about what blood would do to her coat than about easing Tess mercifully into the next world. The thing was to stall, to try to stay alive until her dinner arrived.
“The burglary is too much like the carjacking,” she said. “And you’ve always been so careful not to repeat yourself, Carole.”
As a little girl Whitney had owned a music box, which played a song that began “In the gloaming, oh my darling.” What was a gloaming? Was it a place or a quality of light? She remembered only that the trees were sobbing there. And now Don Epstein, cradling her hands in a grip that she couldn’t imagine breaking, was sobbing.
“It’s not uncommon,” she said, “to blame oneself. But it was just bum luck. Right? You stopped for someone in distress—”
“No,” he choked out, “no. It was my fault because I didn’t take her seriously. But who would? Who would think that an eighteen-year-old girl would do such a thing? Yes, I told her that I wanted to marry Danielle, but that I couldn’t afford to divorce Mary. Her father willed the stores to her, so they weren’t marital property under Maryland law. But I never expected . . . I never intended . . .”
It took Whitney a second to remember just who Danielle was. But once she did, she had no trouble filling in the missing bits of Epstein’s disjointed tale.
“But you didn’t tell police who shot you and Mary. That made you an accomplice.”
“They were treating me like a suspect the moment I came out of surgery. Who would ever believe that I didn’t ask her to do it? She told me she’d cut a deal, hang me out to dry. So we reached an agreement. I’d marry Danielle, take care of both of them. And even when Danielle died, I did w
hat I could for her . . . for a while.”
Tess knew Carole wasn’t stupid. The woman recognized that she was stalling, if not the reason why. Carole was advancing on her, taser drawn, when Tess’s iPhone rang. “Para Donde Vas,” the ring tone Crow had assigned to himself.
“It’s my boyfriend,” Tess said. “He’ll panic if I don’t answer because he knows exactly where I am.”
Carole nodded, standing over her. “Short answers,” she hissed.
“Is Lloyd there?” Crow asked. “It’s been two hours since he borrowed my car for the dinner run.”
“No,” Tess said.
“He probably stopped to see May and lost track of time. You know how he is when he gets access to a car. It brings out the teenager in him. Which is only fair, given that he’s eighteen.”
“Yes.”
“Tess, are you mad at me still? I’m sorry that I said I didn’t think Whitney would be a good guardian. And the job thing—well, we’ll find a solution. Don’t be angry, Tess. You’re not still, are you?”
“No,” she all but choked out. “God, no. I love you, Crow.”
“Love you, too. Don’t be too hard on Lloyd when he shows up.” He clicked off.
“Love,” Carole said with disdain. “What a waste.”
“Why did you marry Don Epstein, then?”
“For the spousal immunity. Sort of like the Cold War, you know? Neither one of us could strike first. He was weak. I needed something to hold over him.”
“Does he know about Annette?”
“You mean that she was a bloodsucking gold digger? Neither one of us saw that coming. I picked her out, in fact. Don’s one of those men who needs a companion. I never expected her to put the squeeze on Don, to demand that he cut off his monthly payments to me. Once she was gone, I knew I couldn’t make that mistake again. I’d have to marry Don if I wanted his money. It was a business deal.”
“And why did you decide to end your lovely business arrangement?”
Carole tossed her head. It was all too easy to imagine her at thirteen, throwing a fit over a Dolce & Gabbana skirt. It was harder to see her as an adult, holding down a job, meeting anyone’s expectations but her own.
“Let me guess: He figured out that you killed Danielle. He found her jewelry and Annette’s among your things, and he was repulsed, maybe even terrified. So you struck a deal. You would disappear in such a way that no one could be really sure what happened—and you wouldn’t come back, as long as Don kept the money flowing into those private accounts you set up. Your own sister. Jesus, I’m repulsed.”
“She was going to tell the police about the affair, how she suspected Don set up the carjacking. She called me at school, in the middle of the week, and I came home late that night to talk to her. I didn’t mean to—I just tried to grab her arm at the top of the stairs and . . . well, Dani’s balance was never very good.”
“It’s interesting,” Tess said, “how many accidents happen around you. And how careful you are to avoid implicating yourself in anything by Mary Epstein’s death, which you can always blame on Epstein.”
“You know what?” Carole said. “I’ll happily take responsibility for yours, you buttinsky bitch.”
The gloaming—it was the last light of day, Whitney finally remembered, not a place—had come and gone. It was pitch-black, the kind of darkness to which the eyes never really adjust. She wasn’t sure she believed a word that Don Epstein had told her, but that didn’t seem to be the best tack.
Instead she asked: “Why are you confiding in me, Don?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m in love with you. But I can never divorce Carole, she won’t allow it. And if I go down to the police station and make a clean breast of things, they’ll lock me up. I want to be with you, Whitney. But I’ll never be able to marry you.”
Whitney fought down the impulse to scream Thank God! Instead, she pulled her hand, ever so gently, from Epstein’s grasp and patted his cheek.
“But we can be engaged,” she said. “In a matter of speaking. We can live together, as husband and wife, after a decent interval has passed. No one needs to know that you haven’t legally severed your ties to Carole.”
“You would do that?”
“Yes. Now—Now let’s go tell my mom the happy news.”
“Doesn’t she live in Easton? Aren’t you estranged?”
“Um, not anymore.”
One look at you and she’ll make stiff drinks for all of us. She also would insist on giving Epstein a tour of the house, Whitney thought, which would allow her to call the police. She wanted to skip back to the car. She couldn’t help being pleased with herself. Tess was never going to believe what had really happened. Plus a proposal, to boot, her very first. Of course, it wasn’t really for her, but the girl she had pretended to be these last two weeks. Still, it was something.
Tess knew she probably wouldn’t die at the taser’s first contact, but she would be immobilized. More immobilized. She could try to heave herself out of bed, but she couldn’t outrun a snail in her condition. Instead, as Carole approached, she picked up the cane her aunt had given her and tried to push the panic button on the alarm console above her head. But the angle was awkward, and Carole knocked the cane away, although not out of Tess’s grip. She was thrown a little off-balance, her high heels catching on the rug. In that split-second, Tess used the cane as she had used it so many times, to open the door on Dempsey’s crate.
Freed, the dog rushed toward his former mistress—going straight for the hem of her coat, trying to shred it with his teeth. Carole screamed and kicked at the dog, but he was quite the little sidewinder, evading her every move. Carole tried to use her weapon on him, but Tess rapped her right wrist sharply with the cane and the taser fell, skittering across the floor. Carole crawled after it, the dog nipping at her legs and backside. But now Carole was out of cane range, her hands closing over the taser, and she might fire it from there in her desperation.
Searching frantically for something, anything, she could reach from the bed, Tess risked leaning forward and hefting the chamber pot, throwing its contents at Carole Epstein’s face. Shocked, Carole let go of the taser with an outraged screech, but Tess wasn’t through. She managed to heave the chamber pot at the woman’s head, hitting her midsection instead. This gave Tess the time she needed to grab the cane and hit the panic button, sounding a wail of an alarm that could be heard up and down the street. Dempsey continued to bite and tear, as if intent on shredding that raincoat. This was the battle for which he had been preparing, this was his enemy, the coldhearted mistress who had staged her disappearance and left him behind.
Tess felt a sharp pain in her midsection, quite unlike anything she had ever known. Had she torn something, or—worse? The pain shot through her again and she looked for her phone, which had been knocked from the table in the struggle. Scooping it up, she called 911, screaming her address into the phone, asking for an ambulance, even as the house phone rang, probably the alarm company. Good, they would call police if she didn’t pick up and provide the code.
Carole Epstein was up on her feet again, now intent only on getting away, but Lloyd, truly better late than never, picked that moment to arrive with Tess’s dinner. Bless street-smart Lloyd, he didn’t need to be told that a woman dripping with dog urine was someone who should be detained. Tess could hear them scuffling, and the whole neighborhood probably could hear Carole Epstein’s ugly screams and epithets.
“Release the hounds,” Tess cried to Lloyd, and he ran to the bedroom to let out Esskay and Miata, who had been scratching at the door all the while. For the first time, the three dogs worked in concert together, their fealty to Tess overriding their previous disputes.
“They’ve got her cornered in the dining room,” Lloyd said breathlessly, crouching by her. “Who is that crazy lady? Did she hurt you?”
“I don’t know, Lloyd. I called 911—something—it feels—I need to get to the hospital, but you have to stay here with her until the pol
ice can take her away. Tell the police that she assaulted me, that she’s a killer, and not to let her go under any circumstances. Then call the club and get Crow on the phone, tell him to meet me at Hopkins.”
“Tess—is the baby coming?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on inside me.”
In Baltimore public schools, they tell you in sixth grade where babies come from, but precocious Tess Monaghan had scored that information from her older cousins before she was eight. Now, at thirty-five, in despair over her lack of maternal instincts, she had finally learned where mothers come from. She knew what it was like to fight for her own life, but this had been different. She was defending her daughter. Now she could only hope that she hadn’t killed her in the process.
Chapter 15
No one should long to forget the night her first child is born, but Tess Monaghan did. She wished she could erase every detail of the evening from her mind. Not just that evening, but the weeks that followed as well. Upon arrival at Johns Hopkins, she was taken to an operating room for an emergency C-section. She begged them to wait for Crow, but there was no time to spare. She and her daughter were both in distress. “Your husband wouldn’t be allowed in the O.R., anyway,” a nurse told her, meaning to console her.
Yes, take the baby away from me, Tess thought as she slipped under the anesthesia. Save her from me. The adrenaline of the encounter with Carole Epstein had ebbed and Tess no longer saw herself as her child’s warrior-mother, but her greatest liability. Oh, hadn’t she been clever, sitting there with her iPhone and her laptop and her composition books. The Land of Counterpane indeed, fighting her battles with toys and proxies. Then one of the toy soldiers had shown up, larger and far more lethal than she seemed at a distance. I wouldn’t be surprised if a Department of Social Services worker is waiting when I wake up, ready to take the baby from me.
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