The Jennifer McMahon E-Book Bundle

by Jennifer McMahon

  And in the morning, when he woke, she was down in the kitchen, the smell of coffee drifting up the stairs. He lay there a long time, savoring the moment, tricking himself into believing that it had never been any other way—he had always been there, waking on his side of the bed, her pillow still warm.

  Part of him was twenty again, waking up in her dorm room at Sexton, waiting for her to bring in a cup of thick, sweet Turkish coffee, in love with his life because it was so full of possibility.

  Sometimes I think we’re just conduits.

  Then he sat up looked down at the floor and saw Tess’s sketch looking back at him.

  Suz.

  Suz the creator. Suz the destroyer. Suz the shaman, who put hair and blood and dirt and little pieces of other people’s souls into every work of art she ever created, making the static noise, speaking in tongues.

  Suz. His Suz. Their Suz.

  Part of you will always be with me.

  He bent and turned the drawing over, facedown, then joined his wife and daughter downstairs for breakfast.

  HENRY’S DECIDED TO BURN the journal today. He’ll look at it one last time, then have his own little bonfire out behind the barn. Time to put the past to rest once and for all so he can concentrate on rebuilding his life in the here and now.

  Henry flips to an entry he hasn’t read before. Dated one week before Suz’s supposed death, before the end of everything.

  July 20—Cabin at the lake

  I told Winnie the truth today. I expected her to be furious, but she wasn’t. She said that when this thing with Spencer is over, this final mission of the Compassionate Dismantlers, she and I can leave here, make a new start someplace else.

  I laughed a little. “But what about the baby?” I asked.

  “We have it. We go out to San Francisco and have the baby. Our own little family.”

  “What about Henry and Tess?”

  “We don’t tell them. They never have to know.”

  “But Henry’s the kid’s father,” I argued.

  “No,” Winnie said. “One drunken fuck in the sand doesn’t make you a father.”

  “Neither of us was drunk,” I told her. “And Henry used a condom. I don’t get how it happened. We were careful.”

  I watched Winnie cringe. “These things happen,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how it happened, but we’ve gotta believe it happened for a reason, right? We’re meant to have this baby—you and me. We’re the only parents she’ll need.”

  I kissed her.

  I don’t know what’s really gonna happen—the whole thing scares the shit out of me, to be honest.

  I know it doesn’t make any sense, and it’s not really possible, but sometimes…sometimes I think I feel her in there, swimming around like a little tadpole; the tiniest secret with a heart all her own.

  Henry closes the journal, his head beginning to throb.

  Part of you will always be here with me.

  Did Suz have a child? His child? Does he have a son or daughter out there somewhere, walking around in the world?

  The child would be about Emma’s age.

  He tosses the journal aside, pulls the cell phone from his pocket, and punches in Winnie’s number. He gets her voice mail.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he says into the phone. “Suz really was pregnant. That baby was mine! What happened to it? If you know, if she said anything to you about it when she found you at the cabin, you’ve got to tell me. Please call me back.”

  As he’s hanging up, his landline rings. He pulls himself up off the floor and hurries to grab the phone mounted on the wall beside his tool bench. Maybe it’s Winnie! Or even Suz—he lets himself imagine it for half a second—Suz calling to say, Would you like to meet your child? The one you never knew about?

  “Hello,” Henry says, nearly breathless with expectation.

  “Henry? Bill Lunde here.”

  “Hey, Bill.” Henry sighs, dusting wood chips from his pants.

  “Henry…I wanted to give you a heads-up. The police, when they couldn’t find any trace of Suz in the immediate area, they dragged Number Ten Lake. The divers found something.”

  Henry presses the phone harder against his ear. “Something?”

  “First, they pulled up a trash bag full of clothes and personal effects.” Bill pauses, Henry nods into the phone, remembers Winnie telling the story of swimming the clothes out when she first got back to the cabin. Bill clears his throat, continuing, “Then they discovered human remains. Out in the middle of the lake.”

  “Oh my god! Did Suz not make it back to shore? Did she get caught up on the moose somehow?”

  “No. The bones they pulled from the bottom of the lake had been there awhile. A decade or so. Female, trauma to her skull.”

  Henry feels the little pinprick of pain in his left eye that says a headache is coming. His breath is fast and shallow. His skin cool and clammy.

  “I don’t understand,” Henry tells him.

  “Suz’s old dental records were faxed over this morning. They’re a positive match, Henry. I think you’re going to want to get a lawyer.”

  Henry remembers the feel of Suz against him, on top of him, as he swam on his back out into the middle of the lake. How cold her body felt. How still.

  “But that’s not possible. Suz is alive. She came back,” Henry says. “You saw her. She told me things in the canoe—things only Suz would know.”

  “We were wrong, Henry. I don’t know who Claire Novak is—I can’t find a trace of her anywhere—but she’s definitely not Suz Pierce.”

  Henry feels all the air leave him.

  He’s underwater again, trying to save his drowning daughter. Only this time, at last, he understands it’s not Emma. It’s the unborn child Suz was carrying when he swam her out to the middle of Number 10 Lake, her clothing full of rocks.

  Chapter 84

  TESS’S EYES ARE MOVING from wall to canvas as she tries to capture…what? Surely not passion.

  Answers. That’s what she wants: answers.

  She’s been working on the portrait for three days now. With no studio to work in, she’s set herself up in the bedroom. The wall opposite her is covered with the sketches she’d done of Claire Novak: pair after pair of Claire’s green eyes follow her everywhere she goes, each version of her face forming the same unspoken question: how could you let yourself be fooled?

  As she’s worked from the sketches, filling in details from memory, she’s studied the painting for some sign. She’s recalled each conversation, each meeting, replaying words and phrases, searching for clues. Surely, Suz must have dropped clues. That would have been part of the game.

  She’s found herself talking to the portrait, begging for answers. And now, as she adds the finishing touches—the little highlights in Claire’s eyes—she steps back to look and sees that what she’s captured on the canvas isn’t really Claire. Yet it isn’t Suz either. It’s a strange amalgamation of the two: a mythical creature with startling green eyes, blond hair, and a cigarette in her mouth.

  “Tess.” Henry’s stumbled into the room, looking pale. He’s holding a hand over one eye the way he does when he has a bad headache. She goes to him, gently moves his hand away and places her fingers on his forehead, her thumb hooked under the ridge of his eyebrow, and begins to rub in slow circles. She knows what to do. How to make this go away.

  When Tess woke up this morning with Henry’s arm wrapped around her, she had the feeling for the first time in days, weeks, months even, that things might be all right. Maybe, now that she wasn’t a murderer, now that Henry wasn’t her accomplice, they could start their lives over in some way. Maybe the past would let them go.

  She wasn’t an idiot. She didn’t expect that they’d get together again and live happily ever after. But maybe now that things didn’t feel so trapped and stagnant, they could try again. Go out for dinner and a movie: best friends who might, one day, become something more. They could even take that silly gallery owner’s adv
ice and go on a trip: see Europe. Go wine tasting in Provence. Get to know each other all over again.

  Tess smiles at the thought as she holds his head cradled in her hands, rubs the pain away with her magic-finger circles.

  “It wasn’t her, Tess,” he says. He’s crying now, but trying not to. His whole body heaves and trembles with the effort of holding it all back.

  “Wasn’t who?” she asks, her voice calm as a lullaby, her fingers and thumb still doing their slow, steady circles.

  “They found…remains. At the bottom of the lake. A female. Trauma to the skull. They’ve been there ten years. All this time.”

  “No,” Tess says, the word little more than a weak sigh.

  “They faxed over her dental records this morning, Tess. Lunde says it was a positive match. It’s Suz.”

  Her fingers slip away from his face.

  “But she—” Tess hears herself say, reaching up to touch her shoulder, where her shirt hides a gold-colored bruise marking the place Claire’s teeth met her skin.

  “They’ve been down there the whole time,” Henry repeats, as if what remains of Suz is somehow more than she ever was in life.

  Tess turns to look back at her portrait. If Claire wasn’t Suz, who was she?

  Behind her, Henry slips away saying something about finding a lawyer. “And you should call your parents,” he says. “See if they can drive up and help with Em for a while.”

  Tess nods, her eyes still on the portrait.

  Tell me your biggest secret. The one thing you’ve never told anyone.

  The police will come. And she knows what she’ll tell them, no matter what any lawyer advises: the truth. It’s time for the truth.

  She held a rock in her hand. It was the size of a grapefruit. She didn’t realize she was going to throw it until it was in the air. Even then, she never thought she had a chance of hitting Suz. She was so far out. And Tess had such lousy aim. She was just angry. Wanting to scare Suz, shut her up for once, just for one minute.

  Tess closes her eyes. Sees Suz on a hillside of brown grass, a crown of oak leaves in her hair. Behind her, the parking lot with Henry’s van, keys lost; the Texaco sign—a bright white star shining down, marking their place on earth, in the universe. And Suz leans toward them, and in a fevered whisper says, “Do you want to hear something that will change your lives forever?”

  Chapter 85

  WINNIE ROLLS OVER. THE train is rattling along on its tracks, rocking her, lulling her back to a dreamless sleep. For once, the nightmares are gone. She lifts her head from the pillow, pulls back the curtain to see a brilliant sunrise lighting fields and mountain. They could be anywhere. The truth is, she’s lost track. Isn’t sure which borders they’ve crossed.

  Over the intercom, the conductor makes an announcement she doesn’t understand.

  “You awake, love?” Amber asks.

  Winnie turns, sees Amber’s got the wig on. God, she loves it when Amber wears the wig. It gives her a little jolt, makes her scars tingle.

  When they met in the hospital two years ago, Winnie knew that her luck was about to change. Here was a person who understood everything Winnie said, everything she had to offer. A mysterious woman with deep green eyes and the highest cheekbones Winnie had ever seen. Nefertiti, Winnie called her.

  Now that she knows her better, she calls her My Little Chameleon, because Amber has this uncanny ability to change her look, her voice, to turn into someone else.

  In the beginning, Winnie started with the story of her scars. And to tell the story of her scars, she had to tell the story of Suz. The story of the Dismantlers. Amber wanted to know everything. Every detail. She became enraptured with Suz, even secondhand.

  And everything they’d done together had all started with Amber’s idea: “You know,” she said, “we should really find a way to make the others pay for what they did to Suz. And the baby.”

  When the postcards arrived it was an unbelievable stroke of luck. A miracle.

  They hadn’t started out with much of a plan. Just that Amber would play Claire Novak—Suz in disguise—and somehow, they’d pull off an act of revenge worthy of the Dismantlers, of Suz. And things had fallen into place so perfectly: the moose, the canoe, Emma’s doll, Tess’s seduction; it was as if Suz herself was guiding them, pulling everyone on invisible puppet strings.

  Winnie loves to imagine the look poor Tess must have had on her face when Amber came into the bedroom dressed as Suz, syringe in hand. She wishes she could have been there to see it instead of hiding out at Henry’s, moving the damn doll around. She joined Amber as soon as she and Henry finished putting the moose on the canoe; got there in time to see Amber give Tess the final dose of tranquilizers before stitching her up inside Emma’s doll. For an instant, Tess seemed to come to, opening her eyes to see them both standing there in their matching blond wigs and silk tunics. Tess had the oddest look of being both puzzled and suddenly understanding everything.

  “What if she recognized me?” Winnie had asked Amber once Tess was out again.

  Amber had shaken her head. “If she even remembers, all she’ll think is that she had double vision, and instead of one Suz, she saw two. Besides, it’s not as if it matters now. Once she’s in the moose, it’s all over. Now come on, we’ve gotta hurry up and get her over to Henry’s barn.”

  “I’M GLAD YOU BROUGHT the wig,” Winnie says, running her fingers up the bumps of Amber’s spine, a train track all its own. Bumpity, bump.

  Amber turns to face Winnie. They kiss. Amber’s kisses are all tongue; hungry dog kisses.

  “What wig?” Amber says, breaking away from the kiss and using the mysterious Claire Novak accent.

  And Winnie thinks it again: Suz would have loved this. She’d love Amber. Wherever she is right now, she’s pleased.

  Winnie reaches for what’s left of the bottle of champagne and refills their glasses.

  “To Suz,” Amber says, as if reading Winnie’s mind.

  “And to the new Compassionate Dismantlers,” Winnie says.

  “Tear it up, babycakes,” Amber whispers, so like Suz it gives Winnie shivers. “Let’s tear it the fuck up.”

  Chapter 86

  IN ORDER TO TRULY understand something, you have to take it apart.

  This is what the moose tells her.

  “No,” Emma argues. “You have to put things together. That’s the only way to make sense of the world.”

  Francis the moose is whole now, all nine paintings hung in the entryway of their house, taking up the entire wall.

  “Nine,” Emma whispers again, smiling as she stands in the front hall, dwarfed by Francis in his entirety.

  He gives a little shuffle. A happy whole-moose grunt.

  Sometimes, like now, Emma’s sure she can even smell him—his thick, musky scent of fur and dung; wild, far-off places. Places like A Long Time Ago.

  Yesterday, she watched a fly land on the painting, crawl along the entire length of his body, moving carefully, prodding with its proboscis, apparently unsure whether it was tasting actual moose or paint-covered canvas.

  It makes her dizzy to think of it.

  Emma has heard the hushed conversations her parents have been having this morning. She knows about the skeleton pulled from the lake. She understands what it means.

  Emma goes upstairs to her room, locks the door, then lays down on her bed with her eyes closed tight.

  “Danner?” she calls. “What if they take my parents away?”

  Emma’s skin gets prickly and she opens her eyes. There, in the chair by the computer, is Danner. The real Danner—the one she’s known her whole life, has grown up alongside, not some stupid doll.

  “Don’t worry,” Danner tells her. The light coming through the window seems to shine through her, make her glow and sparkle. “We’re sisters, after all. We’ll always have each other.”

  Acknowledgments

  A BIG THANK-YOU TO:

  My agent, Dan Lazar.

  Jeanette Perez and
the whole team at HarperCollins.

  Alicia Partridge and Stacey Cannizzaro for their insightful feedback and for their friendship.

  The wonderful folks at Espresso Bueno in Barre, Vermont, for making the world’s best lattes and letting me sit for hours on end, tapping away on my laptop and occasionally mumbling to myself.

  And my family, who once again put up with me locking myself in my office for days, and covering tables, walls, and the floor with drafts of my manuscript, index cards, and notes scrawled on huge sheets of newsprint. Especially my daughter, Zella, who has shown amazing-for-a-four-year-old patience when being told for the umpteenth time, “Not now, Mommy’s working on her book.” The book is done now—let’s go get some ice cream.

  Credits

  Cover photograph © Photodisc/Veer

  Cover design by Jarrod Taylor

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DISMANTLED. Copyright © 2009 by Jennifer McMahon. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.