Swiftly launching a search engine, he types in Olivia McGlinchie.
He taps his fingers nervously on the arm of his chair as the computer hums and clicks, processing the name.
When the search results come up, there are dozens of them—mostly references to news stories.
He clicks on the first.
POLICE BELIEVE BODY THAT OF MISSING STATEN ISLAND WOMAN
He squirms in his chair. The headline is vaguely familiar, but back when he read it the first time, he never connected it with the organ recipient from Staten Island. Why would he? He never even knew her name.
Olivia McGlinchie can’t be the woman he remembers reading about. That simply would be too far-fetched a coincidence.
But as David scans the article, his blood turns to ice in his veins.
He struggles to wrap his mind around the impossible:
Olivia McGlinchie’s body was found a mile from his cabin in the Catskills.
Before Isabel can cry out again, a gloved hand roughly clamps something over her mouth. Some kind of tape.
Duct tape.
“I knew you’d be late, Angela.” The voice is chillingly guttural, yet recognizable.
Mr. Gabriel.
Dear God.
As she begins to struggle, the first dazed, coherent thought she manages to form is that she was right about him all along. She should have listened to her instincts.
Her next thought: who on earth is Angela?
“Are you listening, Angela?” He remains behind her, unseen, a madman who clearly believes she’s somebody else.
“Angela?” he barks, and she nods, whimpering behind the tape, still struggling, panting through her nose.
She can’t get enough air. She feels light-headed and her knees have gone liquid, as though she’s going to faint. But she can’t. If she does, she knows, she’ll never wake up.
“Now, listen. Here’s what I want you to do,” Mr. Gabriel says calmly, as though he were a kindergarten teacher about to teach a child how to tie her shoes. “First, I want you to stop fighting with me for a moment and stop trying to scream. You’re wasting all that effort. There’s nobody to hear you.”
If you cooperate, he might let you go.
She forces herself to go utterly still and silent in his grasp, even as hysteria screeches through her.
“Good.” His voice is laced with an eerie calm. “Now isn’t that better? You really should listen to me, Angela. If you had listened to me in the first place, we wouldn’t be here. We’d be together on a tropical island somewhere, living happily ever after. But you didn’t want that. You chose him instead.”
Isabel attempts to swallow the saliva welling in her throat, and chokes. Her body wracked with spasms, she begins to struggle again.
“No. Be still!” he barks. “You aren’t doing what I want you to do.”
I can’t breathe. Oh, please, I can’t breathe. I’m going to die.
Bile is rising in her chest.
“Breathe through your nose,” he commands. “That’s all you have to do. Take a long, deep breath through your nose.”
She sucks in air through her nostrils.
“Good. Now hold it.”
With one rapid movement, he raises something in front of her face, holding it high over her head.
A rock, she thinks frantically, he’s going to kill me with a rock or—
But when he presses it against her, it’s not a rock. It’s soft.
“Did you savor that deep breath, Angela?” he asks. “Because it was the last one those lungs of yours are ever going to take.”
A pillow.
He’s clamping a pillow over her face, holding it fast, blocking out oxygen.
She falls to the frozen ground. He pins her there, flat on her back in the snow, smothering her with the pillow.
He’s killing me.
Panic sets in.
“Just remember that the odds for survival are with you, Isabel.”
Galvanized by Dr. Henry’s long-ago words, she grapples with the steely arms above her, but they won’t budge. She raises her knee sharply, hoping to make contact with his groin. He grunts in pain, but his death grasp doesn’t flinch.
“There’s an excellent chance you’ll be around to dance at your daughters’ weddings.”
Her lungs are aching, violently straining for air.
No, Dr. Henry. You were wrong about that. I won’t be around for my daughters’ weddings or anything else. And they need me. My children need me.
Her strength waning, her lungs on fire as she slowly suffocates, Isabel’s anguished last thought is that now she knows.
Jenny Cavilleri was wrong. It does hurt.
Death isn’t falling off a cliff in slow motion.
It is hurtling through an icy black pit toward her doom, hitting bottom with an explosion of sheer agony.
Driving home from the bookstore, Rose does her best to prepare herself for the difficult evening ahead.
When she called Leslie earlier to check in, she learned that both Jenna and Leo have been crying on and off all afternoon about the missing puppy. Leslie even took the kids around the neighborhood to call his name, but there’s been no sign of him.
“They keep accusing each other of having been the one who let him out last night or this morning but they’re both denying it, Rose. One of them must be lying, but I can’t tell who it is.”
Rose almost told Leslie her suspicions about Leo, but then she’d have to bring up the necklace. And if she brings up the necklace, Leslie is going to think Hitch is the one who left it there.
Of course it wasn’t Hitch, Rose tells herself. The necklace had somebody else’s name on it.
It had to be Leo. He stole the wrapped gift from someone who meant to give it to a woman named Angela, and then he lied about it.
Just as he lied about going outside, or at the very least, opening the door this morning.
Approaching the last intersection in town, she keeps a wary eye on the green light up ahead.
If it wasn’t Leo . . .
That is, if somebody actually snuck into the house last night to leave the necklace . . .
Well, the puppy could have slipped out then.
Round and round her thoughts keep spinning, making her dizzy with confusion.
If you really think somebody broke in, why didn’t you call the police first thing?
The light changes to yellow.
Because you can’t bother them for another false alarm.
Her nerves on edge, she accelerates a bit to make it through the intersection. All she wants is to get home.
Do you really believe an intruder was in the house?
Of course not.
Fine. So now that that’s settled . . .
She’ll ask Leo again about the necklace.
And if he denies it . . .
Well, she’ll have to ask around at Toddler Tyme to find out who this Angela could possibly—
A blaring horn shatters the thought.
Rose slams on the brakes.
Oh my God.
The light is red.
She was about to barrel right through it.
The Blazer screeches to a stop inches from the car that had the right of way. The driver, a woman Rose’s age with children strapped in back, shakes her head and mouths something at Rose as she drives by.
Shaken, Rose doesn’t blame her. She could have caused a terrible accident. She could have killed those children, or their mother . . .
Or yourself.
Then Jenna and Leo would be orphaned.
Leaning forward, Rose touches her forehead to the steering wheel, shuddering at the thought of what her death would do to her poor babies.
They’d be traumatized.
Closing her eyes, Rose can’t fathom how they could possibly get through the death of a parent for the second time in their short lives.
After the initial shock wore off, would they be okay, just as they eventually were after Sam’s d
eath? Would they go on without their mommy, just as they went on without their daddy?
If something happens to Rose, Leslie will be the children’s legal guardian. Rose and Sam planned it that way when they wrote their will shortly after Leo’s birth.
The will was their lawyer’s idea, just in case something happened to them, and Rose’s father came out of the woodwork seeking custody of the kids or their meager assets. After all, he had suddenly popped up to unsuccessfully stake a claim in Rose’s inheritance when his ex-wife died.
How lighthearted she and Sam were when they made their will. She remembers how they joked their way through the process. Sam said Leo was so colicky they should probably put in a special clause just in case Leslie tried to refuse to take him. And they both found it amusing that they had nothing to leave anyone but the kids, a fixer-upper Victorian on the unfashionable side of town, and a pile of bills.
“But that’s okay, because we’re not going anywhere for a good sixty or seventy years,” Sam said as they signed the papers.
“Yeah, just think . . . by then, maybe we’ll actually have something to leave behind,” Rose told him.
“But Leslie still gets the kids. I don’t want them going into any nursing home,” Sam quipped, and they laughed again.
Had either of them sensed what loomed before them, they would never have joked their way through—
Behind her, a car horn honks.
Rose bolts upright in the driver’s seat, looking around wildly, relieved to discover that this time, the honk was merely because the light has turned green.
She isn’t in danger. Not this time.
And anyway, nothing will happen to me, Rose reassures herself fiercely, pressing the gas pedal and steering cautiously toward home. Nothing can possibly happen, because my children need me.
It’s that simple.
Yet morbid thoughts persist as she heads out onto the highway. Worse, she finds the anonymous caller’s piano music floating through her head, over and over. Every time she thinks she’s about to remember what the piece is called, the title darts out of her mind before she can grasp it.
I need music, she thinks, fumbling for the radio dial. Regular music. Something to help me get that damn melody out of my head before I go crazy.
She tunes in to WLIR, only to hear the meteorologist in the midst of his weather report.
“ . . . turning colder tomorrow with snow beginning late in the day. This could be a big one, folks. Because this is shaping up to be a coastal storm, those of you on the eastern end of the Island might see up to a foot of accumulation before it blows out of here Thursday morning.”
A foot of snow? Rose grins. The kids will be thrilled. She’ll be able to take them sledding at last. But she won’t say anything to them. Not yet. The last time snow was predicted, it didn’t happen.
This time, the forecaster had better be right, or the kids might have to put away their new sleds unused.
After all, Rose realizes, with March only days away, the promised storm could be the last chance this winter for snow.
Now comes the hard part, he thinks, gazing down at the body lying in the snow.
Unlike Angela, who landed facedown in the gutter after he struck her with the cab, Isabel Van Nuys lies faceup. Unlike Olivia, whose eyes sockets were charred black caverns by the time he finished with her, Isabel’s eyes are open, staring in vacant horror at a fixed spot somewhere over his left shoulder.
But like both Angela and Olivia, Isabel lies in a pool of her own blood. Precisely at the moment he felt her go limp beneath his grasp, he slit her throat, a move that will undoubtedly make little sense to whoever examines the body, he thinks smugly. But it makes perfect sense to him.
Oh, how he’s craved the intense satisfaction triggered by a glimpse of crimson blood on pure white snow. Twice before, the sight filled him with an exquisite sensation, and the knowledge that he’d won.
This third time is no disappointment. Triumphant power surges through his veins as he watches her blood pool beneath her head. Such a shame he has to move her.
She put up one hell of a fight. He rubs his bruised thigh where she kneed him.
So did Olivia. They fought like caged animals. It was so much more satisfying than it was that first time, with Angela.
I told you that you couldn’t escape me, he silently tells the woman who started all of this. Her lungs may have ceased respiration in Isabel’s body, but he still feels her presence, taunting him.
It’s because she’s still out there. As long as her heart is still beating in Rose Larrabee’s rib cage, he’ll have no peace.
But it won’t be long now. In fact, if it really does snow tomorrow night, it will be all over.
He shivers with giddy anticipation, imagining the beautiful red blood that will stain the snow when he drives a blade through the heart that betrayed him.
But he mustn’t get ahead of himself. First things first.
Isabel has to be moved.
With a sigh, he begins to spread the lavender vinyl shower curtain on the snow beside her corpse.
If only there were some way to leave her here, yet still accomplish his objective.
If only . . .
He breaks into a smile, realizing that there is a way, and it’s very simple indeed.
Chapter Ten
Having lived his entire life in New York City, David has never set foot in the borough of Staten Island, ten miles across the bay from Manhattan.
He’s driven through it, yes, on the expressway. And once in a while, he and a couple of his friends used to ride the ferry round trip from the Battery to catch a bay breeze on hot spring days when they were supposed to be in school. But they never got off the boat. Why would they? As far as they were concerned, there was nothing on Staten Island but a bunch of houses.
Tonight, David has actually guided his Land Rover off the expressway, on a mission even he doesn’t quite understand. He only knew, after reading about Olivia McGlinchie’s disappearance and murder, that he must speak to her parents face-to-face.
That her body was found so close to his cabin might very well be a coincidence. But if there’s the slightest chance that it isn’t . . .
But how on earth could it not be? Nobody would ever link her to Angela—the donor information is confidential. And even if somebody did figure out the connection—what does that have to do with Olivia’s death? And the cabin? Angela was rarely even there.
None of it makes any sense.
Yet David is here on Staten Island nonetheless, propelled by some inner urge he can neither comprehend nor deny.
He drives through a maze of residential streets, some better lit than others, and all of them dotted with old houses in various architectural styles: colonial, Victorian, and a smattering of fifties-style ranches.
Olivia McGlinchie’s parents live in a well-preserved Queen Anne on a quiet side street, in the kind of neighborhood David never quite comprehended existed within the boundaries of New York City. Cozy lamplight spills from the windows of the houses on the block; there are station wagons and basketball hoops in the driveways; a woman is out in slippers and a housecoat walking her dog in the chilly evening air; commuters stride briskly home in overcoats with briefcases in hand.
This could be some small New Jersey town, David thinks, as he parks at the curb and presses the remote on his keychain to lock the doors. New Jersey, or Long Island, or upstate.
He feels a pang for Olivia McGlinchie, who grew up in this comfortable little world, only to be wrenched out of it by an unknown abductor and violendy murdered on a remote mountainside miles from home.
David pauses at the curb to look up at the house, wondering what the hell he’s doing here.
You should just go, he tells himself. You have no business butting into these people’s lives, and you sure as hell don’t want them butting into yours.
But it’s too late.
A curtain flutters in a downstairs window at the front of the house, an
d then the porch light clicks on, flooding the spot where he’s standing. The front door opens and a lanky, balding man is there, beckoning him.
“Is that you, Mr. Brookman?”
“Yes.” He moves forward, squarely into the light, up the porch steps.
“I’m Ralph McGlinchie. My wife told me you called back around dinnertime to ask if you could come over. I’m glad you did.”
“Thank you.”
David shakes the older man’s bony hand and feels it tremble in his grasp as the man says, “No, thank you . . . for what you did. For Olivia.”
There are tears in Ralph McGlinchie’s eyes.
David has always been uncomfortable with unabashed emotion, yet he isn’t now. There is a connection between him and this stranger that goes beyond the fact that he is the organ donor’s next of kin.
It’s the grief, he realizes. We both know what it is to suffer an unexpected loss, a loss so immense you don’t know how you’re going to make it through each day.
“I’m so sorry about your daughter, Mr. McGlinchie,” he manages to say, his throat clogged with sorrow.
“It’s Ralph. And I’m so sorry about your wife. Joanne and I—we never forgot for a second that a young woman had to die so that our daughter could see. But it wasn’t until we lost Olivia that we really understood your sacrifice.”
Sacrifice?
No. It wasn’t a sacrifice. The word makes it sound as though David chose to give up Angela. And that is something he never would have done. Ever. He fought to keep her when he discovered her adultery, and he fought to keep her alive in the hospital long past the realization that there was no hope.
“Come in,” Ralph says, holding the door wide open. “My wife wants to meet you. And I know you said you wanted to talk to us about Olivia.”
“I would, if it’s not—”
“It’s fine. It’s been almost a year, Mr. Brookman. We need to talk about her.”
David nods, wondering if he’d feel the same way about Angela . . . if he had anyone with whom he could share the burden of grief. Her family grieved in their own way, but Angela severed her ties with them so long ago, it was as though they had already lost her. And the people she called “friends”—the socialites with whom she shopped and lunched, the gay men she met through her charity work—attended the funeral, sent flowers and platters of food, made charitable donations in her name, and quickly moved on, leaving David to mourn alone.
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