“We never have enough hangers,” Tasha says, coming to a halt at the foot of the stairs. “You can hang it on a hook in the kitchen. . . .”
“Never mind.” He drapes his coat over a hanger that already holds one of Hunter’s jackets, and closes the door. “Are Rachel’s kids still here?”
Rachel’s kids. Just the way he puts it brings a lump to Tasha’s throat. Mara and Noah are not Rachel’s kids anymore. Only Ben’s. Rachel’s gone, and she isn’t coming back.
Funny how Tasha speculated just the other night about their friend leaving them, running off in search of adventure. Her notoriously over-active imagination getting carried away again . . .
Unless it was a premonition. Had some part of her actually sensed that Rachel really would be gone only hours later? Had it ever crossed her mind that Rachel might die?
No.
No, it was just a coincidence.
Thinking back, she realizes that she was afraid for herself, wasn’t she, in those tense days after Jane Kendall’s disappearance? It’s hard to recall now. Everything is such a blur. Lack of sleep will do that. So will traumatic shock.
“Ben’s sister came and got the kids a while ago,” she tells Joel.
“Do they know?”
Tasha shakes her head. “I didn’t tell them. Ben is going to.”
“He’s still home, isn’t he? I saw his car in their driveway.”
“He’s not there. He’s down at the police station. They’re questioning him.”
Joel doesn’t look surprised. “Have the police come here to talk to you yet?”
Tasha shakes her head.
“Well, it’s only a matter of time before they do.”
It’s maddening, the matter-of-fact way he says it. But she knows he’s probably right. Of course the police will want to question her. She was there, yesterday, in the Leibermans’ house. She was one of Rachel’s friends.
A lump rises painfully in her throat at the thought of Rachel. How can she be gone? She was just here, breezy, irreverent, beautiful. Now she’s lying in a morgue someplace, cold and dead. Unrecognizable, Ben had said.
She doesn’t want to think about what he saw when he walked into the bedroom and found her. And she doesn’t want to think about—or see—Rachel dead.
Tasha knows that they’ve taken her body out of the house. She sneaked a peek at the latest television newscast upstairs in the bedroom just now while she was rocking a cranky Max to sleep. She found herself sobbing at the prerecorded image that mercifully she hadn’t happened to glimpse when it happened live outside her own window—a bulky, covered stretcher being borne out the Leibermans’ front door. Caught off guard by the macabre image, she tried to muffle her sobs and kept the volume on the television turned low so that Hunter and Victoria wouldn’t hear.
She hasn’t told them yet. Oh, God, how is she ever going to tell them? They’ll be so upset. Worried. Afraid.
Maybe Joel will do it.
“I’m so glad you’re home,” Tasha tells him, peering out the window beside the door for the hundredth time that day. The street is still crawling with media. “Did the reporters attack you on the way in?”
He nods. “I just said no comment and ordered them off our property. It’s a mob scene out there. Have they tried to talk to you?”
“All day. Every once in a while one of them rings the doorbell.”
“You didn’t say anything to anyone, did you?”
She thinks about Paula Bailey, the local reporter. Should she mention to Joel that she spoke to her? No. He won’t like that. He said not to talk to the press, and he wouldn’t understand that Paula is different. That Tasha found herself wanting to help her, if only because she’s local, and a fellow mom, and she knows what it’s like to have a fussy child permanently attached to your hip.
“No, I didn’t say anything to anyone,” Tasha tells Joel.
“So how’s Ben holding up?”
She shrugs. “He’s having a hard time. Who wouldn’t?”
“What did his sister say when she came?”
“That she’ll call and let us know when the funeral will be.”
“Tomorrow, won’t it? That’s the custom,” says Joel, who, like the Leibermans, is Jewish.
When his grandfather died suddenly of a heart attack the year they were married, Tasha marveled at the way the death ritual is handled in Judaism as opposed to Catholicism. The morning after Grandpa Jake died, they found themselves shoveling dirt on his casket after the long trek to the cemetery on Long Island.
By contrast, Tasha’s father’s funeral happened three days after he died. Thank goodness for that, because they had to travel to Ohio with the kids, which took almost a whole day in itself. Joel was frustrated by the two days and nights of wake before the funeral. He said it only dragged things out. Tasha, on the other hand, found it comforting.
“Rachel’s funeral won’t be tomorrow, Joel. The police haven’t released—” she hesitates, then manages, “the body for burial yet. It’s a murder investigation. I don’t know how long it’ll take.”
He nods. “I hadn’t thought of that. Well, I hope I’ll be here for it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve got a business trip this week, remember? I have to fly out to Chicago on Sunday night. I’ll be gone until Monday night.”
She had momentarily forgotten about that.
For a while, they’re both silent.
“So how’d it go today?” she asks, now that the specter of his job has reared its head.
“Hmm?”
“Your shoot,” she reminds him. “In the city. With the supermodel.”
“Oh, that. It was fine,” he says, and heads for the stairs. “I’m going to go change my clothes.”
“Good luck finding something to wear,” she calls after him.
He pauses. “What do you mean?”
“I still haven’t been able to do the laundry. The washing machine is broken, remember?”
He tilts his head back, as though he’s exasperated. “It hasn’t been fixed yet?”
“Nope.”
He sighs. “Okay, I’ll go down and take a look at it. Where’s the manual?”
“In the drawer in the kitchen.” She still hasn’t had the chance to take it out and check out the troubleshooting chart. It seems like years ago that she went down to the basement and found out the machine wasn’t working. Has it really only been a few days?
Back then she was preoccupied with the Jane Kendall disappearance.
Now there’s Rachel.
The fleeting television reports Tasha has managed to see today seem to assume that one has something to do with the other, although the police haven’t actually come out and confirmed a link between the two cases.
Tasha doesn’t know what to think anymore.
Well, Joel’s home now, she reminds herself. You should feel safe—at least for the moment.
So why don’t you?
Opening the door to the apartment, Paula expects to hear the television. Instead, there’s a pronounced silence, marred only by the refrigerator’s hum.
“Mitch?” she calls, surprised.
No reply.
She steps into the living room and looks around. No sign of her son. She doesn’t have to check the bedroom, kitchen, or bathroom to know that the place is deserted. The first thing Mitch does any time he walks in the door is turn on the TV. If it’s off, he’s not here. It’s that simple.
She frowns, glancing at her watch. It’s a little past three. Though she’s seldom around when Frank picks him up on Friday afternoons, she knows Mitch doesn’t usually leave until after four. In fact, that’s been a bone of contention between Paula and her ex-husband, because it means Mitch needs to be at home by himself for more than an hour after school on Fridays while Paula’s wor
king.
Granted, he’s alone other times. But Paula can’t understand why Frank can’t just get here an hour earlier on Fridays, especially after making such a big deal about getting full weekend visitation rights, rather than the single day Paula offered. He had some excuse about not being able to leave work that early. But Paula’s no fool. Frank’s self-employed, right? She doesn’t doubt that he could get here by three if he really wanted to, or even pick up Mitch at school at two forty-five, as she had originally requested.
He’s just pushing her buttons at their son’s expense, knowing the visitation situation infuriates her in the first place.
So if Mitch isn’t here, and it’s too early for Frank to pick him up, where is he?
Miss Bright probably made him stay after again, Paula realizes, striding to the phone. Too anxious to waste time looking up the telephone number in the Townsend Heights directory, she dials information for it, then accepts the extra charge to be directly connected rather than dialing the number herself.
Come on, come on. . . .
She only stopped home to change her clothes before going back over to Orchard Lane. She found out her friend Brian Mulvaney is on duty guarding the Leiberman house, and she’s going to request a little favor from him. She wonders what it will take for him to let her inside the house—just for a quick walk-through of the murder scene. She knows it’s off-limits to the press, but she’s local. And Brian’s her buddy.
Besides, he owes her a favor.
Didn’t she keep his name out of the paper last year when he came close to being arrested in a bar brawl in the next county?
As she listens to the phone ring in her ear, she kicks off her pumps and wiggles her toes. Those shoes pinch. She really needs a new pair—
“Townsend Heights Elementary School. May I help you?”
“This is Paula Bailey. My son, Mitch, is a student there. He hasn’t come home from school yet. May I please speak to his teacher, Miss Bright?”
“Just a moment, and I’ll see if she’s still here, Mrs. Bailey.”
“It’s Ms.,” she says through clenched teeth.
She lights a cigarette, then goes into the bedroom, tucking the receiver between her shoulder and her ear while she picks out another outfit. Something warmer and more comfortable than the skirt and blouse she put on this morning. There’s no telling when she’ll get back here tonight, and the temperature is supposed to drop into the thirties.
The phone clicks. “This is Miss Bright.”
“Is Mitch there with you?” Paula asks without preamble.
A slight pause. “No, he’s—”
“You didn’t keep him after school again?”
“No, Ms. Bailey, I didn’t,” the teacher says crisply. “His father picked him up this morning. He said there was a family emergency.”
“And you let him take Mitch?” Paula shrieks in disbelief.
“He’s the parent, Ms. Bailey. He’s authorized to pick up your son at school. You signed the form yourself.”
“That’s because I had originally thought he’d be picking him up after school on visitation days. Not because I wanted him to have permission to just pull Mitch out of class whenever he feels like it!”
“Well, you’ll have to resolve that with your ex-husband.”
“Believe me, I will.” Steaming, Paula hangs up without even saying good-bye.
She takes a deep drag on the cigarette, striding across the bedroom, cursing Frank under her breath as she exhales the smoke. Who the hell does he think he is?
Worry flits into her mind, and then right out again. Of course Mitch is fine—and of course, there’s no family emergency. And even if there were, what does she care about Frank or his idiot wife? All that matters to her is Mitch—and keeping him away from her ex-husband’s influence. Frank is going to do everything in his power to turn Mitch against her and convince him to come live on Long Island.
It isn’t fair. How is she supposed to compete with everything Frank has to offer? And he knows it, damn it. He knows she doesn’t have the means to provide for Mitch what Frank can. Here there’s no stay-at-home step-parent, no pool, no separate bedroom for Mitch with an entertainment center and his own bathroom.
But there’s a mother who is determined to fight to keep her son, Paula thinks grimly as she dials information again and asks for Frank’s number.
“I have it as unlisted at the customer’s request, ma’am,” the operator informs her.
“Damn!” She slams the phone down and looks around quickly for her address book. Finding it in a desk drawer, she opens it to the F page and scans for Frank’s number.
Moments later, she’s clutching the receiver as the line rings in her ear.
Finally, a click. “You have reached the Ferrante residence,” Frank’s voice says with uncharacteristic enunciation. “Sorry we can’t come to the phone right now, but if you’ll leave your name, number, and the time you called, we’ll get right back to you.”
“You bastard!” Paula snarls into the receiver. “How dare you take my son out of school without my permission? I want Mitch to call me on my cell phone the minute you get this message. I mean it.”
She slams the phone down, shaking.
Takes another deep drag, needing to steady her frayed nerves.
She has Frank’s address. Should she drive out to Long Island and get Mitch herself?
Would her car even be able to make the trip? When was the last time she got it serviced?
And what about her job, damn it? She’s involved in the biggest story of her career. Her entire future is riding on this one—and so is custody of Mitch.
Is she supposed to just drop everything just because her ex has pushed the envelope with his visitation rights?
She doesn’t like what Frank has done. In fact, she hates it. Hates him. Nor does she trust him.
However, he was supposed to have Mitch for the weekend. If she drives out to Long Island, she’ll have to bring Mitch home with her—not to mention threaten Frank with legal action that will require attorney consultation that she can’t afford. Then she’ll have to leave Mitch at home alone all weekend while she covers the Leiberman murder and the Kendall disappearance—providing Frank with all the more ammunition to use against her.
She has no choice but to proceed with her plans.
“But I’ll make you pay someday, Frank Ferrante,” she promises aloud, stubbing out the cigarette in a bedside ashtray. She goes to her closet and jerks the door open. “You’re not going to win this one in the end. I guarantee you that.”
“Margaret?”
She glances up at the sound of Owen’s voice, feeling a twinge of pleasure at the sound of her name on his lips. It’s not something she’s heard often. In fact, in all the years she’s known him, he’s rarely addressed her directly. Nor have the two ever spent any amount of time together without Jane. Before Jane disappeared, there had been only one instance when Margaret had been alone with Owen.
It was the morning after Schuyler was born. Margaret arrived at the hospital to visit her sister and niece, bearing a large bouquet of pastel flowers for her sister and an expensive porcelain doll for the newborn baby. The first person she saw upon walking into the private room was Owen, proudly beaming and seated in the chair where he had spent the night.
Jane was in bed, wearing a white peignoir and looking wan and exhausted. Mother hovered beside her, cautioning Margaret not to bother her sister, who was worn out after the ordeal of giving birth.
Feeling like an intruder and wondering why Mother did not, Margaret said awkwardly that she would take a quick peek at the baby in the nursery and then be on her way. Owen leapt to his feet, offering to escort her.
Margaret reminds herself now, as she did then, that he had merely been eager to show off his new offspring. Yet she still feels warmed by the memory of walkin
g alongside him down the hushed hospital corridors that morning. Conversation came easily between them even before they reached the baby, with Owen describing the dramatic miracle of the night before in great detail. He was so clearly awestruck by the birth—and even more so by Jane’s role in it, telling Margaret at length how brave her sister had been, making it seem like some heroic feat rather than something billions of other women had done since the beginning of time.
Now, as Margaret gazes at her brother-in-law standing in the doorway of the kitchen while she sits at the table with a cup of coffee, she realizes that he looks a decade older than he did that morning last year. His eyes are underscored by lines and shadows, his skin is sallow, and she’s shocked to spot graying hair at his temples; it literally must have appeared there overnight.
She is engulfed by a fierce rush of yearning.
I’ve loved him from the first moment I ever saw him.
No, that isn’t true. She was attracted to him then, but she didn’t truly love him, because she didn’t know him. Not as she does now, having shared a part of his life for so many years.
Yes, she shared it through Jane. Yet in a strange way, that doesn’t matter. She has seen what Owen is like when he’s in love—has witnessed his steadfast devotion, his playful affection. He has grown into the kind of man any woman would desire—the kind of man for whom a woman would do anything.
Anything at all.
Now Owen needs help. He needs someone to hold him and tell him everything’s going to be okay.
Margaret so wants to be that person that it’s all she can do not to reach out and touch him. To be safe, she clasps her hands around her warm mug of tea on the table.
“Do you know whether Jane has always kept a journal?” Owen asks her.
“She did, growing up. I wouldn’t be surprised if she still does,’’ Margaret tells him, her insides quaking simply because she’s alone with him and has his undivided attention. For once there’s no Jane, or Mother, or even Schuyler.
“She does,” Owen says, and Margaret, looking into his eyes, is momentarily confused, unable to recall what they’re even talking about. “At least, she did when we were first married. She used to write in it first thing in the morning.”
The Last to Know Page 22