Karen’s eyes narrow as the door to the shed abruptly opens again.
Jeremiah emerges, carrying something. Karen glimpses it: a dark bundle of some sort.
He pauses in the yard.
For a moment she expects him to turn toward the house again with his bundle, giving her a better view.
Instead he hurries toward the dense woods at the back of the property, looking over his shoulder as though expecting to be followed.
Karen waits until he disappears between the trees. Then she turns away from the window, wondering what to do.
Chapter 9
“Are you sure Mom’s okay?” Mitch asks his father as Frank Ferrante switches lanes, following a green highway sign that reads WHITESTONE BRIDGE. This is the road they take every weekend to Long Island, but it’s usually Friday night when they go, and it takes a lot longer because of the rush-hour traffic.
Right now, at eleven-something on a Friday morning, there isn’t much traffic. They left Mitch’s house only half an hour ago, after stopping there so that he could grab some clothes for the weekend.
“I’m sure your mother’s fine,” Mitch’s father tells him.
“And she said it was okay if I got out of school early to go with you?” Mitch asks doubtfully.
“It’s fine, Mitch. I’m your father. It’s not like I’m kidnapping you. I can get you out of school and bring you home with me early if I have to. Like I said, I was in town on business this morning and I don’t see any reason to hang around waiting until after school to pick you up.”
Mitch nods. That makes sense. But it’s hard to believe that his mother said it would be okay for his father to spend extra time with him. She doesn’t agree with much of anything his dad says or does, especially when Mitch is involved.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“What will we do when we get to Long Island?”
“I figure we’ll stop and have some lunch,” his father tells him. “There’s a great new place not far from my house. You like spaghetti, right?”
“It’s my favorite food.”
“That’s because you’re Italian,” his father says, looking pleased.
“Mom’s not Italian.”
“But I am. And you’re half mine. So you’re half Italian.”
“Really? I never thought of that before.”
“That’s because your mother changed your name,” his father growls. “It should be the same as mine. Ferrante. She has you going by Bailey.”
“Yeah.” Uncomfortable, Mitch looks out the window at the green-and-pink signs designating the express lanes at the toll bridge. There’s no backup here, either. They’ll probably be at the restaurant in half an hour, or even less. “What will we do after lunch, Dad?”
“I’ll drop you off at home. Shawna will be there. I have some business I have to take care of this afternoon.”
“Oh.” Mitch is disappointed. He’d been hoping that he and his father might be able to spend the day together, just the two of them.
Now he’ll have to hang around with Shawna until his dad gets back.
Oh, well. He figures it’s still better than staying in school. Maybe he can tune her out and fool around with the Sony PlayStation his father bought him.
He grins and turns to look out his window at the distant New York City skyline as they cruise over the bridge. The sky is a brilliant blue, and the bright October sunlight glints on a plane that is just coming in for a landing at La Guardia airport, directly to the west.
“It sure is nice,” he comments.
“What is?”
“The view,” Mitch tells his father.
“It is pretty nice,” his dad agrees, glancing in that direction and smiling.
For a brief moment, Mitch feels like he’s absolutely bursting with happiness.
Then he remembers his mother. She’s all alone back home. What if the killer goes after her next? There’ll be no one to protect her. Maybe Mitch shouldn’t leave right now. Maybe he should skip this weekend on Long Island.
“Dad?” Mitch asks, his heart beating really fast.
“Hmm?”
He pauses. Looks at his father.
“Never mind,” Mitch says, and turns back to the view of the skyline.
“Tasha?”
“Ben!” She clutches the telephone receiver tightly against her ear. “Are you okay? Oh, Ben . . .” She breaks off on a choking sob and presses her hand to her quavering lips. This is the first time she’s spoken to him today.
“How are the kids?” he asks hoarsely. “Are they okay?”
“They don’t know. . . .” She sinks into a kitchen chair.
“I have to tell them. I need to see them.”
“Do you want me to bring them over?”
“I’m not at home, Tasha.”
“Where are you?”
“At the police station.”
For some reason, this catches her off guard. All morning, she’s assumed he’s in seclusion across the street. But if he’s at the police station . . . “Ben, they don’t think you—”
“I don’t know what they think! They’ve been questioning me all night, all morning. I keep saying I don’t know what happened. All I know is that I came home late—I got buried in paperwork at the office. When I got here, I found her. In bed. And I . . . I didn’t even know it was her, her head was so . . . If she hadn’t been wearing that black lacy thing of hers I wouldn’t have even believed it was really her. . . .”
“Ben.” Tasha bites back a sob. “Oh, God . . .”
“Listen,” he says, getting hold of himself. “My sister is picking up the kids in about an hour. Okay? Just tell them that Aunt Carol is coming, and that I’ll see them at her house. If they ask about Rachel . . .”
“They have been,” Tasha tells him, her insides roiling with grief.
“Tell them that—no.” He changes his mind. His voice is tight “No, don’t tell them anything. I’ll tell them.”
“Okay, Ben. Okay. And if you need anything . . .”
“Thanks, Tasha.”
She barely manages to murmur some inane reply before hanging up and bursting into tears all over again.
“Oh, Rachel,” she says softly, wiping her nose with a soggy tissue from her pocket. “What happened to you? Who did this to you?”
She sits in her silent kitchen, listening to the muffled sound of the children’s voices upstairs. Noah and Max are napping, but Hunter is playing ring-around-a-rosy with the girls. The three of them are giggling.
They’re so innocent, Tasha thinks. They have no idea that their world is falling apart around them.
She desperately wants to call Joel, needing to bare her sorrow, needing comfort. But she knows there’s no way to reach him. He’s not at the office; he’s at the shoot, and she’s already tried his cell phone twice. There was no answer.
You’d think he would call her to make sure she and the kids are okay. Well, maybe he will. Or maybe he’s already on his way home. He said he would get back here as soon as he could.
The doorbell rings.
Tasha sighs. It’s been doing that all morning. It’s the press every time. She’ll have to ignore it . . . again.
She thinks about that reporter from the local paper. She was different from the others who have turned up on the Bankses’ doorstep. Not as pushy or brusque, and she didn’t have a camera crew—or even a notebook. She really seemed to care about Rachel. Jane Kendall, too. Like she can relate to them, just as Tasha can. Tasha wonders if Paula, like Tasha, is wondering, with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, who might be next.
The doorbell rings again.
Remembering that Ben said his sister would be coming to pick up the kids, Tasha reluctantly goes to answer it. Ben said she wouldn’t be here for an hour, but maybe he wa
s wrong.
“Who is it?” she calls through the door, wishing it had a window so that she could just look out and glimpse whoever’s standing on the other side. The door is solid wood, and the narrow foyer windows on either side are positioned so that from inside the house there’s no way to see who is ringing the bell.
For the first time, it occurs to Tasha that this isn’t very safe. In the city, they had a peephole. Four or five locks, too.
Here there’s only one latch. It has never occurred to Tasha that they might need something more. She has always felt safe in Townsend Heights.
“My name is George DeFand, Mrs. Banks,” a masculine voice says. “I’m with the New York Post. I was wondering if—”
“Leave me alone!” she calls through the door, suddenly as angry as she is weary. “Just go. I don’t have anything to say.”
He persists until she threatens to call the police. Even then, she isn’t sure he’s really gone until she looks out the window and sees a male figure retreating toward the street.
The circus in front of the Leibermans’ house looks like the scene in front of the Kendalls’ home these past few days. How many times has she turned on the television and seen a view of their stately brick mansion surrounded by police and reporters?
It has obviously received full coverage on the national news. Her mother called from Centerbrook earlier, worried, having recognized Rachel’s name and the images of Orchard Lane. Tasha assured her that she and Joel and the children are safe. That they’ll keep in touch, and yes, they’re coming for Christmas. They just haven’t had time to make arrangements, but they will. As soon as things die down . . .
Tasha wonders again whether what happened to Rachel has anything to do with Jane Kendall’s disappearance. She’s been mulling it over all morning, ever since Paula Bailey asked her about it. Half the time Tasha concludes that the two cases must be linked. The other half, she tells herself that this could just be a coincidence.
After all, Rachel has turned up dead. Jane hasn’t . . .
Yet, a voice whispers ominously in her head.
“Jeremiah?” Fletch knocks on his nephew’s door again, then calls more loudly. “Jeremiah?”
No reply.
He pauses only a moment before turning the knob. If it were Derek or Randi sullenly barricaded inside, ignoring him, he’d have done it without hesitation. But then, Derek and Randi are his own kids. Jeremiah belongs to his brother.
Fletch has consciously tried to avoid invading his nephew’s privacy ever since the boy moved in here, giving him as much space as he seems to need. After all, he’s been through a lot. And he seems to need a lot of space. Derek and Randi did too at that age.
Still do, in fact.
And they sure have their faults, especially Derek.
But Jeremiah’s different. He’s a quirky kid. A real odd-ball. It isn’t as if Fletch hasn’t tried to help him, but there’s not much you can do with a kid like that. It would take a lot more than buying him new clothes and teaching him how to hit a baseball. Or even taking him up to the cabin in the Catskills for a weekend to teach him how to hunt and fish.
Fletch pushes the door open, bracing himself for whatever he’s going to find on the other side. He imagines the boy lying on his bed sulking, or even smoking cigarettes or dope. What he doesn’t expect to find is an empty room.
“Jeremiah?”
Puzzled, Fletch looks around. He hasn’t really been inside the former guest room since his nephew moved in. It certainly is lived-in. Clothes and books are strewn over the unmade bed, the bureau, the chair. The computer is turned on; a dragon screen saver glowing formidably. There are empty soda cans and food wrappers on the desk and floor. Sharon’s going to have a fit when she sees this, Fletch thinks. The housekeeper doesn’t come until Monday. This kid’s an even bigger slob than Derek ever was.
And he’s not here.
Where the hell did he go?
He steps back out into the hall.
The door to the master bedroom opens. Sharon peers out. Her head is wrapped in a towel, turban-style, and she’s wearing a terry cloth robe.
“What’s going on? More reporters banging on the door downstairs?” she asks.
He shakes his head.
It’s been happening all morning. Fletch has answered the door and given every one of them a terse “No comment.” Thank God their phone number is unlisted. So far, no reporters have managed to track down the number, but he figures it’s only a matter of time before they do.
“Have you seen Jeremiah?” Fletch asks her.
“He was in his room a few minutes ago when I went in to take a shower. Why?”
“Well, he’s not there now.”
Fletch exchanges a long glance with his wife.
Then he says, “He wouldn’t run away, Sharon.”
“Of course he would,” she shoots back. “That detective scared the shit out of him.”
“Well, he’ll be back.”
“Don’t be so sure, Fletch.”
“Oh, come on, Sharon. Where’s he going to go?”
“As far away from Townsend Heights as he can get—if he’s guilty. And if he’s not . . .”
Fletch waits for her to finish.
She merely shrugs and goes back into the master bedroom, closing the door behind her.
“But what if he had something to do with Rachel’s murder?” Karen asks Tom, pacing across the living room. She steps around the gently rocking baby swing, where Taylor is snoozing, her little head tilted sideways in what looks like an uncomfortable position. Karen decides against trying to straighten her head, not wanting to wake her.
“If you really think he did, then go ahead. Tell the cops,” Tom says with a shrug. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea to involve yourself in this by making a big deal out of something that was innocent in all likelihood. So the kid next door was in the storage shed with the door closed. So what?”
“He went off into the woods carrying something, Tom,” Karen reminds him, going back to sit beside him on the couch. Maybe she shouldn’t have woken him up to ask what he thought. She should have known that a level-headed accountant would think she is reading too much into what she has seen.
Besides, Tom has such a thing about them keeping to themselves as much as possible. She figures it stems from his New England background—the old Yankee privacy ethic. The last thing he would want to do is have his wife admit to spying on the neighbors, even if that wasn’t exactly what Karen had been doing.
Well, what were you doing? she demands of herself. You stepped back from the window so he wouldn’t see you watching him.
Yes, but, she isn’t exactly the type to go around poking her nose into things that don’t concern her, either. After all, she grew up in the city, where people mind their own business with a vengeance. Live and let live, right?
Right.
So why does she suddenly feel compelled to keep track of the neighbors’ nephew’s comings and goings—to report him to the authorities, even. Is she just paranoid?
Maybe.
Or maybe she should have just trusted her instincts and gone ahead and called the cops without consulting Tom.
He hates this, all of it. He’s been on edge all day, what with the doorbell constantly ringing and reporters asking for their comments on the case. He’s turned them all away and lowered all the shades at the front of the house to block out the hubbub at the other end of the block—and perhaps the prying eyes of the press, as well.
“He’s a kid, Karen,” her husband is saying. “Kids like to play in the woods. And unless he was carrying a dead body or a bloody weapon—”
“Oh, come on, Tom. . . .”
“Well, was he?”
“Of course not. But I don’t know what he was carrying. He looked suspicious.”
“Are yo
u sure?” Tom asks. “Maybe you’re reading too much into it. You’re upset about what happened to Rachel. She was your friend.”
“I don’t know,” she says slowly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I just thought he was sneaking around. Maybe he’s not up to anything after all.”
“Or maybe you were right and he was up to something, Karen. Like smoking. Or reading Penthouse. That could be what was in the bundle. He’s a kid,” he says again, to her irritation. Christ. She wishes she’d never started this. “That’s what kids do,” Tom goes on. “They sneak around and they use poor judgment. But the vast majority of them don’t slaughter innocent women in their beds.”
“But somebody did, Tom. Somebody walked into Rachel’s bedroom and—” She breaks off, emotion clogging her throat.
“I know.” He puts an arm around her, pulls her close. “Take it easy, Karen. Trust the police to do their job. You saw that detective going into the Gallaghers’ house this morning. He stayed a long time. He had to be questioning the kid thoroughly. He’s on top of the situation. If he thought he had a serious suspect, he’d have arrested him or something.”
“I guess.”
“Look, if you’re that concerned, at least tell Fletch or Sharon what you saw first. Let them take care of it. If they think they should go to the police, they will.”
She considers that option.
The baby stirs in her swing, waking up.
Karen goes over to unstrap her.
“So what are you going to do?” Tom asks.
“Right now, I’m going to feed Taylor,” she answers, lifting her daughter and snuggling her warm skin against her neck. “I’ll figure out the rest later.”
Joel shows up right after Tasha puts Max down for his nap. Hearing the front door open and close, Tasha has a moment of panic, thinking she might have forgotten to lock it and that another reporter has crept in. But when she rushes to the top of the stairs, she sees her husband there in the foyer, locking the door behind him.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, going down the steps toward him.
“I told you I’d be home as soon as I could.” He takes off his trench coat and opens the hall closet. Sliding hangers around, he mutters, “There’s no place to put this.”
The Last to Know Page 21