“Can you believe it?” Tara practically squealed. “We get to ride in a cop car! Do you think we can ask them to turn on the lights and siren?”
Charlie rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Tara! What are you, seven?”
Reggie hobbled down the side of the steps that wasn’t taped off, Charlie holding her arm.
They plunked themselves down on a bench at the bottom, and Reggie bit her lip hard, willing herself not to cry.
“It hurts bad, huh?” Charlie asked, nodding toward her ankle.
Reggie nodded, wiped at her eyes, and turned to look at the steps behind them where, just hours ago, her mother’s hand had been left in a milk carton.
At the top of the steps was the arched entryway they’d just come out of. The two cops stood on opposite sides, like gargoyles in uniform.
The words PROTECT AND SERVE engraved above the doors seemed, to Reggie, an impossible promise.
Chapter 23
October 20, 2010
Brighton Falls, Connecticut
“WHEN WAS THE LAST time you saw her?” Reggie asked her aunt. They were seated at the kitchen table of Monique’s Wish. It was nearly seven o’clock. Reggie had thrown a bag together quickly, stopping in the kitchen long enough to grab her espresso pot and a bag of ground coffee. She’d driven back to Brighton Falls as fast as she could, hesitating only when she got to the front door of Monique’s Wish. She had stood, hand on the knob, feeling as if the house was alive, breathing and hungry. That it just might gobble her up and spit out the bones. Then she’d touched the hourglass necklace, thought of Tara, and stepped inside.
Now, the coffee bubbled on the stove, filling the kitchen with its familiar rich aroma, comforting Reggie on some deep level.
Len had called and left a message on her phone an hour ago, just as she’d crossed the state line into Connecticut. She nearly answered.
“Shit, Reggie, I just heard Neptune’s left another hand! I’m at your house and it’s all locked up. Where are you?” His voice was crackling with panic. She should call him. She knew she should. But part of her was still good and pissed about the way he’d walked out of her house and got a little twinge of satisfaction from letting him stew in worry. It was twisted, and she knew it. She told herself she had bigger things to worry about than whether she and Len might have a future together.
The Hartford Examiner was on the table between Reggie and Lorraine. The headline read HAS NEPTUNE RETURNED TO BRIGHTON FALLS? And there was a brief article describing how a new hand had been found in a milk carton on the front steps of the police station. The article said the police knew who the hand belonged to but refused to comment at this time. Reggie knew it wouldn’t take the papers long to find out who Tara was and that she’d been working as Vera Dufrane’s private nurse. The media were going to have a field day with this one. Martha Paquette was going to be over the goddamn moon.
“Monday morning. She left to go pick up a prescription refill for your mother and to do a few other errands. She never got to the pharmacy. I’ve told the police all of this over and over,” Lorraine said. She looked exhausted and wrung her hands together as she spoke. “That young Detective Levi was here. He asked so many questions my head was spinning. Then he went up and searched through Tara’s room. It was just like before. Just like when your mother—”
Reggie cut her off.
“Did Tara say what other errands she had to do?”
“No,” Lorraine said. “But she was in a hurry. She seemed very tense, but Vera had had a bad night, and Tara was up with her. I don’t think she got much sleep.”
“A bad night?”
“A horrible night, actually—she woke us up screaming, insisting that Neptune was here, in the house, that he’d come through a door in the wall above her bed. I went in and tried to help, but that just made her more frantic. Tara finally had to sedate her. They were up for a while after that, whispering. I even heard poor Tara singing to her—I think that’s how she finally got to sleep.”
Reggie’s shoulders slumped. She shouldn’t have left. She should have been here for her mother, for Tara. Maybe if she’d stayed, Tara wouldn’t have been taken. But why Tara? Maybe the answer wasn’t so complicated. Reggie remembered the copy of Neptune’s Hands Tara had pulled out of her bag, the way she’d confessed to hoping Vera might give her some clues to help her figure out who Neptune was.
What if she finally got her wish?
Be careful what you wish for. That was something Lorraine used to say all the time when Reggie wished out loud for things like not having to take the SATs or eat fish again for supper.
“Do you think Mom could have said something to her? Given her a clue that might have led Tara to Neptune?”
Lorraine frowned. “Regina, don’t be ridiculous. Tara’s a smart girl. I can’t believe she’d go chasing after a killer on her own.”
Reggie nodded, thinking, But you don’t know Tara like I do. Going after Neptune was exactly something Tara would do. But that was the Tara of twenty-five years ago. Did the grown-up Tara have just enough of a reckless streak to try something so dangerous?
Reggie stood up, took the espresso pot off the burner, and poured a cup for herself. She made Lorraine a cup of peppermint tea.
“Okay,” Reggie said. “First thing is, we talk only to the police. No press. Second, I think we need to get some decent locks put on the doors here.”
“What about another nurse for your mother?” Lorraine said.
“No,” Reggie said. “We’ll take care of her ourselves as long as we can. I don’t think it’s safe bringing in a stranger.”
Lorraine nodded, then stared down at the tea Reggie had placed in front of her. She continued to clutch at her own hands, which were dry and chapped. “Poor Tara,” she said.
Reggie took a sip of espresso. “It’s day one,” she said.
“What?” Lorraine said, picking up her cup and taking a tentative sip.
“If it really is Neptune and he sticks to his regular schedule, I’ve got to find her before day five.” If Tara could be brave and reckless, then so could Reggie. She thought of Levi, the bumbling boy detective, and knew that the police couldn’t save Tara. It was up to Reggie. And this time around, she wasn’t a scared thirteen-year-old kid. She was no detective, but she was good at problem solving, at putting a string of unlikely things together and having them make sense. If she could design an award-winning house, couldn’t she put those same skills to use to figure out a way to capture this son of a bitch before he killed Tara?
Lorraine choked on her tea. “And how are you going to do that?” she asked once she was done coughing.
“However I can,” Reggie said, reaching absentmindedly for the hourglass, turning it over.
Upstairs, a bell jingled.
“That’s your mother,” Lorraine said, standing. “Tara got her a bell so she can call for us whenever she needs anything.”
“I’ll go,” Reggie said, sucking down the rest of her coffee and heading for the stairs.
“IT’S YOU,” VERA SAID, peering up at Reggie.
“Yes,” Reggie said, squinting at her mother in the dim light. There was a radio playing an old Bob Seger song. The room smelled of medicine and talcum powder.
“But they said you went away.”
Reggie smiled down. “I came back.”
“Where’s my angel? The one who sings?”
“Tara’s not here, Mom.”
“Where is she?”
“I think he’s got her,” Reggie said.
“He?”
“The man who took you. The man who cut off your hand. Neptune.”
Vera closed her eyes tight, the muscles of her face contracting, accentuating the bones, making her look like a skin-covered skull.
“Do you know who he is, Mom? Do you know where he’s taken Tara?”
When Vera opened her eyes, she smiled, and Reggie felt a glimmer of hope. “Do you know the weather in Argentina?” she asked.
Reggie
sighed. “No, Mom, I don’t.”
“The seasons are reversed. Fall here, spring there. You just have to look around you and know that down there, it’s the exact opposite.”
Reggie nodded. “Can I get you anything, Mom?”
“Some ice cream would be nice,” Vera said.
“Coming right up.”
Reggie went down to the kitchen, put a scoop of chocolate ice cream in a little dish, and brought it back up. Her mother was fast asleep. Reggie set the ice cream on the bedside table, next to a clipboard that had a chart to help them keep track of medications. Her mother got long-acting morphine every twelve hours, short-acting morphine every four, clonazepam for anxiety every six. And if she was especially agitated, she could have lorazepam. It looked from the chart like she’d been getting the maximum dose of everything since Sunday night. No wonder she wasn’t making any sense.
Reggie left her mother’s room and went across the hall, into the room Tara had been staying in. The bed was made. Tara’s empty backpack sat on a chair, and Reggie went through the pockets but found nothing. Reggie opened dresser drawers, finding underwear, socks, T-shirts, jeans, and sweaters. It felt invasive, pawing through another woman’s clothing like this, but she was desperate to find any sort of clue. The neat piles of clothing Tara had made were all disheveled—Detective Levi had already searched through them and found nothing. It seemed foolish, looking anyway. But she told herself that maybe there was something he’d missed; something only a kindred spirit, a blood sister, might be able to find.
The bedside table held only a flashlight, a purple pen, and a half-full glass of water.
What did you expect? she asked herself. A treasure map leading right to Neptune?
If only.
Her heart sank into her stomach. She was failing Tara already. She looked down at her watch, seeing the seconds click by while Tara sat tied up in a dungeon somewhere, her right arm ending in a club of bandages.
Reggie felt like she’d been thrust into the middle of one of Tara’s old games. I’ve been taken captive by a serial killer. You have four days to follow the clues and find me. It felt like a test and a cruel joke and a nightmare all tangled up together.
“I’ll find you,” Reggie said to the empty bed. She picked up the half-full glass of water, took a sip, imagining Tara’s lips on this same glass the night before last.
Reggie went over to the bookshelves, hesitating a moment before she finally gave in and pulled out War and Peace. There, behind it, she found Tara’s hidden dog-eared copy of Neptune’s Hands.
“Ha!” she said out loud. Evidently the boy detective had neglected to search the shelves.
She moved her fingers over the raised silver trident on the cover, felt the gaudy crimson drops of blood that dripped from it.
Reggie tucked the book under her shirt in case she met up with Lorraine in the hall, and headed back to her own room, checking in on Vera—still sleeping.
Back in her old bedroom, she closed and locked the door, and set Neptune’s Hands down on the bed, neatly made with the Drunkard’s Path quilt. She grabbed her messenger bag and pulled out her sketchbook and pens. Then, with sure steps, shoulders squared, Reggie went right for the closet, flung open the door, and reached for the old cigar box on the shelf, carrying that over to the bed as well.
She opened the lid with trembling fingers and with a horrible sense that she’d just let the genie out of the bottle.
Chapter 24
June 20, 1985
Brighton Falls, Connecticut
“YOU’VE GOTTA SAY SOMETHING,” Tara said.
Reggie, Charlie, and Tara were in Reggie’s living room, listening to Lorraine in the kitchen. She was cleaning fish for dinner, humming as she worked. They could hear water running, the sound of a knife on a cutting board and sticky scraping sounds. Reggie pictured Lorraine deftly slitting open the belly, pulling out skeins of entrails, her fingers covered in sparkling scales.
Lorraine had been gone all day, and Reggie was starting to get worried. Then, half an hour ago, she, Charlie, and Tara had spotted Lorraine stepping out of the woods in her huge rubber waders and fishing vest, carrying her fly-fishing pole and a string of trout. From a distance, she looked like a strange monster—half frog, half woman—squishing her way up the bank.
Now she cleaned fish in the kitchen, oblivious to the news that a new hand—a hand thick with scars—had been found.
Tara was pacing, unable to hold still. “Vera’s her sister! She should know.”
“I already tried,” Reggie said, sitting because she felt queasy. “Last night I told her about my mom getting into a tan car. She said she didn’t want to hear another word about it.”
“The scarred hand, Reg,” Tara said, stopping to gesture at Reggie with her own intact right hand with its chipped blue nail polish. “The tan car. Did you see Charlie’s dad’s face when you told him that part? And that thing about what your mom said about getting married—what if that’s how Neptune lures the women away? You need to tell Lorraine all of it. Tell her you went to the cops and that they’re checking into it.”
“I can’t tell her I did that!” Reggie yelped. “She’d shoot me!”
“Why?” Charlie asked.
“Because. She’s kind of a freak about my mom. And besides, I promised her I wouldn’t even leave the house. If she finds out I went to the police station this morning—”
“But this is her sister!” Tara shrieked. Maybe she was hoping Lorraine would hear them, come in to see what all the fuss was about, and learn the truth. “And Neptune might have her right now at this very minute. Don’t you think she might want to know?”
Reggie shook her head. “I think she’d be glad.”
Charlie gasped. “What? How can you say that?”
“You should have heard Lorraine the night before last. She threw my mom out of the house! She hates her.”
“I don’t believe it,” Charlie said. “Lorraine may be a little weird, but she’s not like that.”
“That’s what you think,” Reggie said.
“I don’t get it,” Tara said, scowling. “Your mom is so cool. How could her own sister hate her?”
“I don’t know. But she always has. Maybe she’s jealous. My mom’s got the looks, the talent, and what has Lorraine got? A bunch of dead trout, her weird little bench in the garage where she sits for hours tying flies being watched over by Franken-fish.”
“Holy shit,” Tara said, eyes huge as she smacked herself in the forehead. “What if Neptune’s not a guy at all? Maybe it’s Lorraine!”
Sometimes Reggie really couldn’t believe the things that came out of Tara’s mouth. Her dowdy aunt in her fishing vest a serial killer? Reggie had to swallow down a laugh.
“You’re nuts!” Charlie yelped. “There is no way Reggie’s aunt is a serial killer.”
“Think about it, Charlie,” Tara said, voice raised with excitement. “She’s jealous, antisocial, and great with a filleting knife. And you should see all the crazy stuff she’s got in that garage—I mean, what kind of person is into taxidermy?”
Charlie rolled his eyes and let himself sink farther back into the couch.
“And didn’t you say you couldn’t find her this morning?” Tara asked Reggie. “That you called out over the bank and she didn’t answer? If she was really fishing at the brook all day, then wouldn’t she have heard you?”
“Maybe she walked down to the pond,” Reggie said, a lump forming in her throat. There was no way Lorraine was a murderer. But isn’t that what all the people close to actual serial killers always said?
The doorbell rang and they heard Lorraine running water, then walking across the kitchen and down the hall.
“Lorraine Dufrane?” a male voice said. Reggie got up and peeked down the hall. Her aunt’s tall frame filled the doorway, but in front of her was a man Reggie recognized at once: Stu Berr. Reggie’s stomach felt tight and twisted. She turned her head so that she could hear better.
&nbs
p; “I’m Detective Berr with the Brighton Falls Police Department.”
“Yes, of course. I remember you, Stuart.”
“Is there somewhere we can talk?”
Lorraine stepped outside, closing the door.
“Oh my God, was that Charlie’s dad?” Tara’s breath was hot in Reggie’s good ear.
Reggie couldn’t answer. She stood frozen in silence.
“We’ve gotta find out what they’re saying,” Tara said, standing on tiptoes to look out the window at the top of the front door. Lorraine and Detective Berr were standing in the yard. “Come on, let’s go out the back and sneak around the house. We can hide in the bushes.” She tugged on Reggie’s arm, but Reggie couldn’t move, so Tara let go and ran off toward the kitchen. Reggie watched her go, then slowly, with leaden legs, walked back into the living room and took a seat on the couch beside Charlie.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Your dad’s here.”
“What?”
“He’s outside, talking to Lorraine. Tara went on a recon mission to see what she could find out. She probably thinks he’s gonna arrest Lorraine or something.”
Was he? Or was he here to tell her they’d identified the hand?
Charlie stood up.
“Please don’t,” Reggie said, reaching for his arm and holding it a little too tight. “I think we should just wait here. Can we do that? Can you just wait here with me?”
Charlie nodded, looking down at Reggie’s hand on his arm, probably wondering if he really had a choice.
“Reggie, there’s something you should know. Something my dad told me, but he made me swear not to tell anyone, because it’s like confidential police stuff.”
Reggie nodded, waiting.
“Tara was caught breaking into Ann Stickney’s apartment a couple days ago.”
“What?” Reggie pictured the photo of the fresh-faced, smiling college student that had appeared on the front page of the Hartford Examiner after her body was found.
“Ann’s roommate came home and found Tara in the kitchen. I guess she’d picked the lock. The roommate found her just sitting there, eating a bowl of cereal. They aren’t going to press charges or anything.”
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