The gentleman over there, of course, was Fletch Gallagher. Paula knew who he was. She had even seen him around town.
But she and Fletch traveled in different circles.
She doesn’t remember everything about that night they first met. Maybe it was the wine. Or maybe she doesn’t want to remember. Because it was all a lie. Everything that night, and everything that came after.
He told her that he would take care of her.
Or did he?
Maybe it was just what she wanted so badly to hear. Maybe she twisted his words, desperately needing to believe that he was her Prince Charming, that he would rescue her and Mitch from their miserable little life.
Now she knows that she doesn’t need to be rescued. She’s taken matters into her own hands. She’ll rescue herself.
But she believed, back then, that he would do it.
She believed him when he said he was planning to leave his wife just as soon as their children were out of the house. He said, Sharon and I have an understanding.
Turns out that part was true.
Well, anyway, the point is, he never left his wife.
Not for Paula.
Not for anyone else, either.
Her Prince Charming failed her. He moved on to a princess.
Jane Kendall . . .
And from Jane to Melissa . . .
From Melissa to Rachel . . .
Somewhere in there, to Tasha, too. That bit of news caught Paula off guard.
Just as Margaret Armstrong’s suicide was pure coincidence, she showed up that day on the Bankses’ doorstep that day purely by chance. She intended only to interview Tasha about Rachel’s murder, so that she could quote her in the article. Cover all her bases.
She’s done it all along.
Made a big show of investigating. Taking notes. Intending to interview every possible witness so that if there is ever a shadow of suspicion, they will vouch for her. All of them, from Minerva to Tasha to Brian Mulvaney.
Lest anyone later suspect that she hasn’t been doing her job all along.
Lest anyone guess that Fletch Gallagher isn’t the serial killer after all.
Paula looks at Tasha.
“You have everything, don’t you?” she asks. “Just like they did.”
Tasha is silent. Then the bewilderment drains from her expression, replaced by knowing dread.
“Well, now it’s my turn to have everything,” Paula tells her.
Her mind whirls back over her life. It’s about time she got a break. She’s always taken care of everybody else. Frank. Mitch. Pop . . .
Again, she thinks of that day. The day everything changed. The day Pop fell down the stairs.
What did Tim say?
“Paula, I’m afraid your father’s had a terrible accident. He’s in bad shape. You’d better get to the hospital as soon as you can . . .”
She smiles, remembering. She made it there within minutes of his call.
Because when her cell phone rang, she was standing inside her own apartment a few blocks from the hospital. The apartment they all assumed, as they hovered at the foot of the stairs outside the door, was empty. No one guessed: not Mrs. Ambrosini, or the police, or the paramedics . . .
They presumed Pop had been home alone and was going out for a walk when it happened. That he had stepped out of the apartment and locked the door behind him before tripping at the top of the stairs and plunging forward, head over heels.
They never guessed, and couldn’t know, that it was bolted from the inside, where Paula retreated after giving her father the mighty shove that was supposed to end his life.
And she came so close . . .
Serious brain damage. The doctors told her that it was unlikely he would ever communicate again. Nor would he ever come home again. Thank God. He was out of her hair.
It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t the way she had intended. But it was good enough. Locked away in the nursing home, the old man spent his final years in silence. . . .
Until just the other day.
Until Frank Ferrante showed up to turn things upside down at a time when everything Paula had ever wanted was finally within her grasp.
What did Frank say to her father? Whatever it was had been enough to bring words to the old man’s lips for the first time in years. No, one word. Her name.
But what if more were to follow?
She couldn’t take that chance.
That was why she went back to Haven Meadows today. Why she held the pillow over his withered old face.
Just as she had done to her baby sister so many years ago.
The baby sister who had stolen Mom and Pop away from Paula. But not for long. Paula saw to that. It was so easy to get rid of her, once Paula figured out how. She simply imitated something she had seen on television, on one of those scary movies Mom liked to watch late at night when Pop was working.
Paula never thought they knew what she had done. Not until years later, when Pop was living with her. She saw him looking at her sometimes—as if he knew. About the baby. That her death hadn’t been an accident.
Once she realized that he knew, she couldn’t take the risk that he might tell. He probably wouldn’t, after all these years, but what if he did? What if he slipped?
She wonders if Frank figured it out, too. If that was what he said to Pop the other day when he visited, leaving him agitated and calling Paula’s name. The nurses thought he was beckoning her. That showed what they knew.
She knows Pop felt her hands on his back just before he fell down the stairs. She heard his horrified gasp.
Today, she feared that he would open his eyes in the split second before she pressed the pillow over his face. But he didn’t.
It was quick, just like before. Pop didn’t even struggle. He was too out of it because of the sleeping pills they had given him earlier.
Maybe they would think he had awakened at some point and swallowed the two additional pills that were left in the cup on his bedside table, too. Surely they would never suspect that Paula had slipped them into her purse before she left his room—the last part of her plan falling smoothly into place.
As she passed the nurse in the hallway, the woman smiled and asked, “How’s your dad?”
Paula smiled back. “He’s sleeping so soundly I didn’t want to disturb him.”
“That’s probably a good idea. Have a nice afternoon.”
“Oh, I will.”
And she did.
Shopping.
Searching for another puzzle. The one that would complete her scenario. She still couldn’t quite believe that she had found exactly what she was looking for: Little Bo Peep.
It wasn’t wooden like the others. But it would do.
Have they discovered Pop’s body yet? she wonders.
Probably by now, even if they thought he was merely sleeping the first few times they peeked into his room.
They wouldn’t have been able to reach her with the news. She made sure she was out of touch, letting the battery run down on her cell phone earlier.
She can’t afford to be interrupted. Not today. Not until this is over and she goes home to check her messages.
It really has worked out well, she marvels.
Now, in addition to admiration for solving the murders and courageously rescuing Tasha’s children, she’ll be showered with sympathy over the death of her father. That should be worth even more publicity. That should get her noticed nationally. Internationally.
Anxious to get on with it—to meet her future at last—she tells Tasha, “I’m going to explain what we’re going to do next. Listen carefully.”
As she talks, she sees Tasha’s eyes widen and her jaw drop in petrified disbelief.
Sobbing, his whole body tense and shaking, Jeremiah looks from Joel Banks to
Karen Wu to his father to his lawyer to the detectives. All of them are staring at him. Waiting.
Waiting for something he just can’t give.
“I don’t know what happened to your wife and kids,” he tells Joel Banks. “I swear. I swear. And anyway . . . I’ve been here with the police all night.”
“You say your wife and children disappeared sometime today?” someone asks the husband, who nods. “But you don’t know when?”
Joel Banks shakes his head slowly, looking intently at Jeremiah as he asks the detectives, “What time did you take him into custody tonight?”
“It wasn’t tonight it was this afternoon,” Jeremiah’s dad corrects, squeezing Jeremiah’s hand.
Silence.
Jeremiah can hear his own heart racing.
“Then it couldn’t have been him,” Joel says urgently, as though the light has just dawned.
“It wasn’t me!” Jeremiah shouts. “I keep telling everyone—”
One of the detectives cuts him off as another asks, “How do you know it couldn’t have been him, Mr. Banks?”
“Because they were home until some time tonight. Their beds had been slept in. The beds were made when I left.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive. Tasha always makes the beds. She has a thing about it.”
“Maybe they went to bed early,” another detective suggests.
Jeremiah wants to lunge at him. His father’s grasp tightens reassuringly on his fingers. He forces himself to sit still, to remain silent.
Joel Banks is shaking his head. “In the afternoon? All of them? They would never do that. It was someone else. Somebody came into the house and abducted them tonight.”
“You say there were no signs of a struggle.”
“No. Nothing unusual. Just the puzzle . . .” Joel Banks says, his voice tight with emotion.
“A puzzle just like the ones that were ordered on Fletch Gallagher’s credit card.” Detective Summers looks at the others. “He might have ordered them after all. Maybe it wasn’t the kid.”
“It wasn’t!” Jeremiah bursts out unable to contain himself.
This time, nobody shushes him.
“Do you have any idea where your brother would go, Mr. Gallagher?” a detective asks Jeremiah’s father.
Dad nods slowly, saying exactly the words that pop into Jeremiah’s mind.
“The cabin.”
“I don’t believe you,” Tasha says, her mind racing wildly.
Paula Bailey is insane.
And there hadn’t been a clue . . .
Or had there?
“You don’t believe me?” Paula echoes. “Then see for yourself, Tasha. Take a look in the back.”
Trembling violently, Tasha forces herself to walk to the back of the Expedition. She peers through the rain-spattered tinted window. She glimpses a blanket draped in back. A quilt. She vaguely recognizes that it’s the one that’s usually folded at the foot of Hunter’s bed.
Beneath the blanket are three distinct human bumps, one small enough to be Max, the others just the size of Victoria and Hunter.
“Are they . . . are they alive?” she asks, turning to Paula, terror clouding her mind.
“Of course they are.”
“They’re not moving.”
“That’s because they did such a wonderful job eating their pizza.”
The pizza.
Tasha’s thoughts are a maelstrom of details.
Paula’s visit.
The big white box in her hands.
Paula serving the slices, her own last, laughingly saying she wanted the one with the most pepperoni.
She took that piece on purpose. She put something on the others. Something to make them sleep. No wonder Tasha managed to drift off despite her anxiety earlier. No wonder she felt so groggy that she assumed she had taken Tylenol PM and forgotten.
Tasha realizes that while she slept soundly in her bed, this deranged woman crept back into the house and carried her children outside, one by one. Then she hid them in the back of the Expedition and staged her own late-night visit.
“But how did you get in?” she asks, still trying to make sense of it. Any of it.
“You didn’t even notice that your key ring was missing, did you, Tasha? I figured you wouldn’t. You were so distracted after I told you about Fletch and Rachel. You’re so much like him, you know. He never noticed his credit card was missing, either, when I slipped it out of his wallet one night when we were together. I figured he wouldn’t miss it. He had so many. I figured I could use it for emergencies. . . .”
“Fletch . . . you’re doing this because of Fletch?” Tasha asks, struggling to keep her wits about her.
The wind-driven rain is coming down in sheets around them, thunder booming, lightning flashing. Above them, the tree limbs sway to an alarming pitch.
“The first time, I did it because of Fletch,” Paula says matter-of-factly. “After that I realized he didn’t matter. After that I came up with the plan.”
“The first time?”
“Melissa.”
“Melissa . . .” It takes a moment for Tasha to place her.
Melissa. Fletch’s sister-in-law.
“I followed him over there that night and saw them together through the window. After he left, I went in and confronted her. Then I killed her. I certainly didn’t plan it,” she says, as though that excuses what she did. “And when I realized she was dead—and that my fingerprints would be everywhere—I panicked. So I set the fire.”
“How?”
“Oh, it was easy. They had a gas stove. She was boiling a big pot of water for pasta. I made it look as though she had left it, and the flame from the burner had ignited an apron she’d left on the counter next to the stove. The fire spread from there. Nobody ever suspected that it was anything more than a tragic accident. And I wrote her obituary myself.”
Mute with horror, Tasha hears the pride in her voice. She’s sick. Sick enough to go through with the grisly plan she has described.
“Okay, it’s time,” Paula says, snapping out of her reverie as if on cue.
“Tell me first,” Tasha says, desperately trying to buy a few more minutes, seconds, anything at all. “Tell me about the plan. Tell me what you did to Jane, and Rachel, and Sharon.”
“Why should I? Stop stalling, Tasha. Go ahead and do it.”
No! No! She can’t get away with this . . .
Keep her talking. That’s it. Keep her talking.
“Tell me again,” she babbles. “What do you want me to do?”
“Walk away from me. Toward Fletch. Then put the gun in your mouth and pull the trigger. It shouldn’t take long.”
I can kill her, Tasha thinks, reeling, staring down at the gun in her violently shaking hand.
“You won’t shoot me,” Paula says, as though she’s read her mind. “If you shoot me, my foot will come off the brake, and the car will go right back over the cliff with your kids in it. In case you didn’t notice, Tasha, there’s a slight downward slope here, and the tires are at the edge. It’s in reverse. It’ll roll back right away. You won’t have time to jump in and stop it.”
Tasha noticed when she pointed that out the first time.
She’s right.
If Tasha shoots Paula, her kids will die.
“Start walking, Tasha,” Paula directs impatiently. “We don’t have all night.”
“If I do this, what’s going to happen to my kids?”
“I’ve already told you. They’ll be fine. I’ll bring them to the police. I’ll tell the police that Fletch had kidnapped them and driven them up here. That you and I followed. That Fletch told you the kids were dead and you killed him in a rage, then turned the gun on yourself. It will be clear why, won’t it, Tasha?”
“Why?�
� she asks, her voice faint.
“Because you’re a mother. And any mother knows life wouldn’t be worth living if her children were dead. Jane knew that Tasha. She made the same choice you’re going to make.”
Jane.
What had she done to Jane?
Forced her to jump off the cliff by threatening to harm her daughter?
“I’ll tell the police that Fletch lied to you about the kids, for whatever reason. That I discovered them safe in the trunk of his car. I’ll be their hero, Tasha. They won’t remember any of this. They’re too far gone because of course, Fletch drugged them.” She chuckles. “All they’ll know is that I was the one who delivered them safely to their father.”
Joel.
What will Joel believe, Tasha? Will he ever suspect the truth?
“And then I’ll write the exclusive story. The one that’s going to get me the recognition I deserve, Tasha. The money, too. And the respect. Nobody will dare try to take my son away from me then,” she mutters.
Help me, Joel, Tasha begs silently. Wherever you are. I need you. Please.
“Start walking,” Paula barks. “Or I’ll take my foot off the brake and jump out and do it myself. I don’t have to save the kids. That doesn’t have to be part of it.”
Her fingers clutching the cold metal gun, Tasha forces her rubbery legs to take a step. And then another, acutely aware that Joel can’t help her now.
Nobody can help her now.
Nobody even knows where they are.
It’s all over.
It was Uncle Fletch. Not me.
They have to know that at last . . . don’t they?
Jeremiah listens, dazed, as the detectives ask his father about the cabin. Where it is.
Then they want to know if there’s anything in his uncle’s past they should know about. Anything that could cause him to suddenly go off the deep end.
Jeremiah’s father shakes his head. “I can’t imagine that my brother would be capable of any of this, any more than I believed my son was involved.”
“What could have set him off? Does he have any psychological problems you’re aware of?”
The Last to Know Page 36