We can never really be sure what’s going on in someone else’s head, even someone we think we know well . . .
Mack never talks about the details of Kristina Haines’s murder, even though he was there that day, right alongside Allison. She always figured that for Mack, that murder was, understandably, overshadowed by the drama of losing Carrie in the World Trade Center—not that he talks about the specifics of that, either.
But what if Kristina’s murder has been there all along, festering in the back of his mind? What if Jerry Thompson’s death or the sleep medication somehow triggered his subconscious to reenact—
“You’re back!”
Allison turns to see Randi in the hallway just outside the guest suite.
She’s wearing jeans and a pristine white silk top and looks so like her usual self—hair done, face fully made-up, jewelry on—that Allison’s first instinct is to resent her.
How can Randi focus on her appearance at a time like this?
But of course, that isn’t fair. The kids are fine, and Greta is here, too—Allison saw her downstairs when she came in—and anyway, Randi is one of those women who always manages to look pulled together. Even at her own father’s funeral a few years ago, she was elegantly stunning.
“What’s going on? Are you okay?”
Allison bites her lip, unable to reply, and shakes her head, conscious of the girls in the next room.
“Come on downstairs, Allie. I’ll make you some tea.”
She nods and follows her friend down the hall. Ordinarily, she thinks, Randi would already be asking more questions, but today she walks in silence a few steps ahead, all the way down the back stairs that lead directly into the big, empty kitchen.
The room, with its high ceiling, pastel walls, and custom cherry cabinetry, is large and airy enough to seem bright and cheerful even on this gray, rainy morning.
“Here—have a seat.” Randi pulls out a chair, and Allison can’t help but pick up on a weirdly stiff, formal undercurrent in the air.
She sits at the big round table and stares at the basket of apples in the center of it. “Thank you,” she says, “for taking such good care of the kids while I was gone. They said you got them Cap’n Crunch.”
Randi waves away the gratitude with her left hand, and her enormous diamond anniversary ring catches the light.
She’s so lucky, Allison finds herself thinking absurdly, to be married to Ben. Ben didn’t come with the baggage of a failed first marriage and a dead first wife. Ben isn’t under a veil of suspicion in a murder case.
But of course, Allison doesn’t want to be married to anyone but Mack. She loves Mack, and this is all just a huge misunderstanding, and any second now he’s going to be back where he belongs, with her and the kids. Then they’ll be able to figure out their next move before whoever really did kill Phyllis and Zoe sets his sights on them.
“Would you rather have coffee?” Randi asks, gesturing at the half-full pot on the counter. “It’s already made.”
“I’ll just take tea, thanks.”
“I figured. It’ll be easier on your stomach. Is it still bothering you?”
“A little. I’ll be fine. Is Ben here?”
Randi hesitates, then nods. “He’ll be down soon. I told him you were back. He was just going to jump in the shower, I think.”
And he’s not in any hurry to talk to me, Allison realizes, reading between the lines. Maybe Randi isn’t, either.
Do they actually believe Mack could be guilty?
Do I?
Watching her friend fill a red Le Creuset teakettle and set it on the enormous six-burner stove, Allison tries to see things from her perspective, and Ben’s.
They’ve known Mack for years—much longer than Allison has, even—and they adore him. But, faced with evidence that seems to link him to a pair of murders, surely they’re having second thoughts about welcoming him into their home.
Maybe they’re even wondering whether he could have been responsible for the murders ten years ago.
Maybe I should be wondering that, too.
It seems preposterous now to even consider that Mack, reeling from an imminent divorce and a wife missing in a terrorist attack, could have killed Kristina Haines and Marianne Apostolos . . . and Jerry Thompson’s mother? That makes no sense.
But . . .
At the trial, she recalls, an expert witness, a psychiatrist, testified that a catastrophic event like September 11 could trigger violence in a person already on the brink of a mental breakdown. That might have been what happened to Jerry Thompson, or . . .
Mack?
The truth is, it wasn’t out of the question in Allison’s mind ten years ago, when she barely knew him—and found herself wondering whether he might have known Kristina better than he was letting on.
Of course, she quickly dismissed her suspicions. She had seen Jerry Thompson creeping around the building the night Kristina was killed, and . . .
And you were so sure he was responsible, because of that?
He was the handyman. He was always around.
Yes, he gave Kristina the creeps, but that doesn’t mean he killed her, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean he was the hooded intruder who attacked Allison in her apartment.
Could that have been Mack?
She quickly dismisses the question as ludicrous.
Having turned on the flame beneath the teakettle, Randi asks, “Are you hungry? Can I make you some toast?”
“No, thanks, I’m—”
“Don’t say fine, Allison. I know you’re not fine.”
Randi doesn’t tack on her usual “no arguments,” but Allison isn’t about to offer one. Randi’s right; she’s far from fine.
“Tell me what’s going on.” Her friend sits across from her at the round table.
“I’m not even sure. They think Mack might have had something to do with it because someone made a call to Nathan Jennings’s phone from our house. But it wasn’t Mack.”
There’s a long pause before Randi asks, with obvious reluctance, “You’re sure?”
“I’m positive! He’s my husband! I know him and I know he’s not capable of this.”
She waits for Randi—who not so long ago reminded Allison that you never really know what someone else is thinking; Randi the self-proclaimed expert bullshit detector—to agree with her that Mack is incapable of murder.
But Randi doesn’t say it. She doesn’t say anything, just sits staring at the basket of apples with her chin resting in her hand, like she’s waiting for Allison to go on.
Allison isn’t sure what else to say—or what not to say.
She doesn’t dare admit to anyone, not even her best friend, that she herself may be harboring the slightest shred of doubt about Mack’s innocence.
It’s not that she doesn’t trust Randi . . .
Oh hell, yes it is.
How can she trust her friend when right now, she doesn’t even trust her own husband?
“Allie . . .”
The invisible wall seems to crumble, and Randi reaches across the table to clasp a warm hand over Allison’s cold, trembling one. “It’s going to be okay.”
“What if I’m wrong? What if . . .”
Don’t say it, she warns herself, but her defenses are down, and the words spill out before she can stop them.
“What if Mack did it in his sleep? He’s done other things . . .”
“What?”
Suddenly, Randi has gone absolutely still, staring at her, almost as if . . .
“It was just . . . talking to himself, and eating,” Allison says quickly, her thoughts racing as she tries to remember whether she ever mentioned any of it to Randi. “It doesn’t mean—”
“No,” Randi says quickly, “it doesn’t mean anything. I’m just so worried about you, Allie. And the kids, too.”
Her grasp is so welcome—so reassuring—that it takes a moment for the words to register with Allison.
“But not Mack?”
&n
bsp; “I don’t know what to think about Mack.” Randi shakes her head. “You just said—”
“Forget it. Forget what I said.”
“My cousin Mindy—”
“Please don’t bring that up right now!” Allison wrenches her hand from Randi’s grasp. “Please, just . . . don’t.”
She doesn’t want to hear again about Mindy’s encounter, years ago, with Ted Bundy.
She doesn’t want to be reminded that one of the most ruthless serial killers in history was able to present himself as a charming, intelligent guy.
She pushes her chair back. “I need to . . . I’m sorry, can you . . . can I . . . can I leave the kids here just a little while longer?”
She’d just sworn not to leave J.J. again, but he’s asleep, and . . .
I have to go. I have to get to Mack.
“Of course you can leave the kids here, but where are you going?”
“I just . . .” She takes a deep breath. “Mack needs me.”
“Allie—”
“Don’t, Randi. Please. He’s my husband. He’s in trouble and I’ve got to go help him.”
“Just wait until Ben comes down. He said he knows a good defense attorney who—”
“Ben said Mack needs a lawyer?”
“Not exactly that, he just thought—”
“He doesn’t,” Allison tells her.
Not yet, anyway.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No, please just watch the kids for me.” Allison tells her, already heading for the front hall where she left her handbag—with her car keys in it—when she got back here from the wake . . .
Was it only last night?
Unbelievable, how things can change so quickly. One minute, you have everything you ever wanted, and the next . . .
No.
I still have everything I ever wanted. I still have my husband and three beautiful children, and nothing—nothing—is going to change that.
Chapter Fifteen
“Fancy-schmancy, huh, Rock?” Murph comments, pulling the car to a stop at the foot of the long, winding driveway leading to the Webers’ three-story brick mansion.
“What did you expect?”
“Nothing less. You think these people feel safe back in there?”
Rocky regards the looming closed iron gates. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether the danger is out here, or right under their own roof.”
“So you think they’re harboring a murderer.”
“I don’t know what to think, but I want to talk to MacKenna’s wife.”
Murph shrugs. “I still think we should talk to the guy himself.”
“We will, but right now, I want to get to her, so . . .” He gestures at the keypad and intercom affixed to the stone pillar on the driver’s side of the car.
Murph rolls down his window, asking Rocky, “You don’t happen to know the access code?”
“Nope.” But he’s betting that both MacKennas do, given the fact that they’ve been staying here. He figures the Webers might regret being so hospitable right about now.
Murph presses the call button on the intercom.
After a few seconds, a tentative-sounding female voice asks, “Yes?”
“Detectives Rocco Manzillo and T.J. Murphy. We’re with the NYPD.”
There’s a pause. “Do you have badges?”
In silence, both Rocky and Murph flip open their badges and hold them up to the surveillance camera mounted above the intercom.
“Open sesame,” Murph mutters under his breath, as the gates immediately begin to swing open.
They drive through, the tires crunching on the gravel lane.
“Think they ran out of money by the time they were ready to pave the driveway?” Murph quips as a pebble flies up and hits the windshield.
“Nah, asphalt’s not classy enough. Dirt roads are where it’s at with this crowd, Murph. Guess you didn’t pay enough attention in finishing school.”
“Guess I was too busy learning how to curtsy.”
Rocky grins at the mental image, relishing the casual, familiar banter with his longtime partner.
Grim as this job is, it’s the one part of Rocky’s world that’s not foreign to him right now. As soon as they’re done here, he’s going right back to the hospital to see for himself that Ange is well-protected.
Then he’ll go to the precinct to complete endless paperwork.
And eventually, he’ll head home to the strangely empty house to maybe catch some rest . . .
And take a good look around, he reminds himself.
The broken window now seems like an obvious link to the case.
Is it possible that he missed something the first time? Some kind of clue left behind—maybe even on purpose?
That wouldn’t be unheard of with a guy like this—a killer who goes to so much trouble staging murder scenes, taking gruesome souvenirs. He gets off on playing games with the victims and with law enforcement.
“Nice,” Murph says, and Rocky looks up to see him gazing at the Webers’ house. The driveway ends in a loop around a landscaped circle at the front entrance. Redbrick facade, pillars, tall windows—the place looks like the country manor of someone very wealthy.
Reading Rocky’s mind as usual, Murph asks, “Wall Street?”
“Ad sales.”
“We’re in the wrong business, Rock.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Think it’s too late to reinvent ourselves?”
“Hell, yeah. Look at us.”
“What, you think we’re over the hill?”
Rocky shakes his head wryly. “Come on, Gramps, let’s get moving.”
The house is surrounded by neatly pruned hedges and beds that either survived last weekend’s snowstorm or have since been replanted with mums and ornamental grasses. Fall foliage clings here and there to high branches of the towering oaks and maples, and fresh splintered gashes indicate that limbs were lost, but there are no branches or even leaves on the ground—courtesy, most likely, of a hired landscaping team and not the home’s owner with chain saw or even rake in hand. Not in these parts.
The door opens before Rocky and Murph have put a foot on the bottom step, and they look up to see a man standing there. Handsome, clean-shaven, and smelling of cologne, with damp-looking short hair that probably wasn’t cut for ten bucks in a barbershop, he’s wearing chinos, loafers, and an untucked, but perfectly pressed, blue plaid shirt.
“I’m Ben Weber.”
They flash their badges and introduce themselves to Ben and the petite, attractive, auburn-haired woman who comes up behind him: his wife, Randi. With her oversized diamond ring and obviously expensive clothes and perfume wafting through the air, she, like her husband, looks—and smells—as though she belongs here.
“Come in,” she says politely.
Stepping onto the marble floor of the entrance hall, Rocky notes the oil paintings on the walls, the sweeping staircase leading to second and then third floor balconies, and the classical music playing in the background. Nice. Very nice.
“We’d like to speak to Allison Taylor,” he says. “Is she here?”
“MacKenna.” Randi Weber’s closed lips curve into a brief nonsmile.
“Allison MacKenna, right. I . . . met her before. Years ago.”
“When her neighbor was killed.”
Rocky nods, wondering what else Randi knows about that—and everything else that’s gone on.
“She isn’t here right now.” That comes from Ben.
“Aunt Randi?”
At the sound of a child’s voice coming from overhead, all four adults look up to see a pair of small blond girls standing at the second floor railing.
“Do you know when Mommy will be back? We heard the buzzer and we thought that was her.”
“She’ll be here in a little while, sweetie.”
“Do you know where she went?” The taller of the two girls seems to be the sp
okesperson; the younger sister just bites her lip and eyes the newcomers in bashful silence.
Ben is the one who answers that question, and he shoots a quick glance at Rocky and Murph before he does. “She went out to run a couple of errands, girls. She’ll be back soon. Why don’t you go find Greta and see if she’ll play a game with you?”
Looking unsatisfied with the explanation for their mother’s absence, Allison’s daughters oblige nonetheless. The adults, heads tilted, watch them climb the stairs to the third floor. They can be heard knocking on a door up there and then talking to someone. A moment later, the door closes, swallowing the voices.
“Greta is our au pair,” Randi volunteers.
“And the girls are . . . ?” Rocky asks, though of course he’s already guessed.
“They’re Allison and Mack’s daughters.”
“And Allison is . . . out?”
Randi looks at Ben.
He clears his throat. “She was headed down to the police station to be with Mack. But the girls don’t know anything about—anything. We don’t want to worry them.”
“That’s understandable.”
“Mack isn’t—” Randi breaks off, starts again. “He’s not under arrest, is he?”
“As far as I know, he isn’t,” Rocky tells her.
And unless something else turns up to provide probable cause, he’s not going to be taken into custody in the immediate future. He’ll be free to come back here to his own family and the Webers, free to either try to put the nightmare behind him, or strike again . . .
If he’s the killer.
Even now, in Rocky’s mind, that’s a big if. Things still just aren’t adding up the way they should.
“Mind if we ask you a few questions?” Murph asks the Webers.
Rocky doesn’t miss the glance exchanged by the couple. It’s either a silent agreement to reveal potentially incriminating information—or a silent agreement to keep it to themselves.
He’s betting on the latter.
He’s wrong.
Half an hour later, he and Murph are back in the car.
“What do you think, Rock? Look at the names: James—Jamie.”
“It’s one of the most common names there is, though. Could just be a coincidence.”
“Definitely.”
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