“Poor Ruthie.” Glenn shakes his bald head. “Her life was hell, her death was hell, and if that was her lying under that sheet, then she wasn’t even able to rest in peace.”
“Now she will.” Al settles onto the steps again and crosses himself, offering a silent prayer for Ruthie.
“Yeah, but . . .” Bobby sits beside him. “I just wonder what kind of sick, twisted person has been living in this house with her.”
“It has to be the brother.” Glenn plops himself down on the step below. “He must have come back.”
Al nods grimly, remembering Adrian Bell, whose only real crime was to be an oddball born into a crazy, creepy family.
Back then, anyway.
God only knows what he’s done since.
“I feel sorry for him,” Sandra Lutz said when Al told her about Adrian. “When I see him in person, I’m going to be extra nice. Sometimes a single act of kindness can make all the difference.”
On her last day alive, Al remembers, Sandra was meeting Adrian Bell here at the house for the final walk-through. He wonders if that ever happened, and—
He sits up straight. What if—
“What’s wrong?” Bobby asks him.
“Nothing, I . . . I just thought of something.”
“What?”
Al shakes his head slowly. “It’s probably nothing.”
Sandra’s death had been ruled an accident. She was careless with a candle. That’s all.
Still . . .
When Al talks to the cops again, he’s going to mention her connection to this house, and to Adrian Bell.
The knife handle is clenched in Carley’s hand.
Sister Linda is reaching for it.
Before she can touch it, Carley thrusts blindly until the blade makes contact.
For a split second, she’s too stunned—as stunned as the woman she just stabbed—to make another move.
Then Sister Linda lets out an unearthly howl. She reaches for the bleeding gash in her upper arm, feeling for the knife with her opposite hand.
She’s quick, but Carley is quicker.
Quick and stronger and smarter and braver . . .
She pulls the knife out of Sister Linda’s wound and takes aim again, this time for her gut.
When the phone rings, Jen is standing alone in the kitchen, glumly watching the coffee drip steadily into the glass carafe.
A moment ago, Frankie went back into the next room to see how many cups they need to fill as Jen tried to imagine herself sitting in there with the others, sipping coffee while her daughter—
But now the phone is ringing.
It might mean nothing at all, or it might mean . . .
Good news.
Or bad.
Jen lurches to grab the receiver.
“Mom?”
Every bit of air goes out of Jen’s lungs. She braces herself against the counter with one hand, clutching the phone hard to her ear with the other.
“Carley! Carley, where are you?”
There’s a pause.
Then Jen hears a quaking sob that stops her heart.
“Are you all right, Carley? Please, just . . . please answer me. Please tell me—”
“I’m all right! Not really. But—I am. I just want to come home.”
She’s crying, hard, and so is Jen—too hard to speak. But Thad is beside her now, gently taking the phone out of her hand, asking the questions Jen can’t ask, and her parents and Frankie and Emma are crowding into the kitchen, too . . .
“Where is she, Genevieve?”
“What’s going on?”
“Is Carley okay, Mom?”
Jen’s heart is racing and her eyes remain glued to Thad. He’s nodding and grabbing a pen to write something down.
“Okay, just stay calm,” he says into the phone, pen poised. “Listen, you need to call—what? You already did?”
He smiles, a teary-eyed smile.
“Good job, sweetheart,” he says into the phone, with a catch in his voice. “That was the right thing to do. They’ll be there any second now. I’m going to call them to make sure. Just sit tight.”
“Who, Dad? Who will be there?” Emma asks, tugging his sleeve.
Police, he mouths.
Police.
Carley had to call the police?
“You’re not hurt, are you?” Thad is asking. He listens for a minute and then, seeing Jen’s expression, nods and flashes a thumbs-up.
Jen breathes.
“Good,” Thad says, “That’s really good. Mommy and I are going to get right into the car and—what’s that? Sure, sweetheart. Sure. Hang on a second.” Thad looks at Jen. “She wants to talk to you.”
“Is she all right?”
He nods, closing his eyes and tilting his face toward the ceiling as he holds out the phone to her.
“Carley?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t say it before. I should have, and I—I love you, Mom. I love you so much.”
Jen smiles through her tears. She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
“Mommy? Are you there?”
She nods—but of course, Carley can’t see her nodding.
Say something. Hurry, before she hangs up. Say anything at all.
She swallows hard, clears her throat, and manages just four words: “I love you, too.”
And for once, she’s certain she’s said exactly the right thing.
Epilogue
The auditorium is packed on this second Sunday afternoon in May. Onstage, a blond teenage girl—Bob Witkowski’s youngest daughter—is seated at the piano, her fingers expertly flying over the keys as she delivers the rousing final notes of Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G minor.
Jen and Thad, with Emma between them, are in the third row; Jen’s parents, Frankie, and Patty are scattered in seats someplace behind them. Her sister Maddie is just ahead in the second row with the Witkowski family. She’s been dating Bob’s brother Al ever since she moved back home from Cleveland last summer, and recently confided in Jen that they’ve been talking about getting married this fall.
A wedding in the family . . .
Jen feels giddy just thinking about it. God knows they can all use a joyful celebration; something to look forward to after all these difficult months spent trying to overcome the past.
Though last spring’s nightmare is more than a year behind them now, the repercussions have yet to completely subside. Fourteen months after her best friend’s murder, Carley continues to shed tears over the loss. And though her days as a bullying victim are long over, she can’t quite shake the heartache—not to mention the post-traumatic stress of having been held captive on that awful March day.
That she managed to fight back—stabbing her tormentor, which allowed her to escape and call for help—has gone a long way toward healing her residual emotional pain.
So has her weekly volunteer work at an animal shelter, where she cuddles baby kittens to her heart’s content.
Most cathartic of all, perhaps, is the fact that she hasn’t ever set foot back in Sacred Sisters.
There was never any question in Jen’s mind that Carley was going to change schools after what happened, and this time, her daughter didn’t argue.
Letting go of the school—of tradition—was easier than Jen expected. She’ll always carry her own happy memories of Sacred Sisters, but she’s since come to realize that her affection isn’t necessarily for the place itself. It’s for the people who were there when she was: supportive staff and loving friends who have long since moved on.
Now the school is just a familiar building populated by unfamiliar faces. Even aside from the violence of that final day, Sisters holds too many unpleasant memories for Carley. It doesn’t matter that the bullying hadn’t been instigated by her schoolmates t
hemselves. They went along with it, taking it to new levels; that alone was reason enough for Carley to seek a fresh start.
Carley was initially hesitant to transfer to Woodsbridge High because it had been Nicki’s school. But she longed to be closer to home, and the therapist she’s been seeing since the trauma urged her to give it a try.
From the moment she started there last spring, she felt comfortable. Nicki had made a close circle of friends in her six months at Woodsbridge, and they welcomed Carley with open arms.
Now, a year later, she goes to school smiling and comes home smiling. Her weekends are filled with extracurricular activities, and she even has a couple of dates under her belt.
She managed to survive not making the honor roll as she finished her freshman year—though she’s made it every quarter this year—and got past an unrequited crush on her biology lab partner. All things considered, she’s making great progress.
Still, every so often, she wakes up screaming in the middle of the night. When that happens, Jen races down the hall to Carley’s room and holds her close, drying her tears and staying with her until she finally falls asleep again. Even on nights when Carley is peaceful, Jen often doesn’t sleep soundly, battling nightmares of her own.
They’d been fewer and farther between until lately.
That, she knows, is because of another looming status hearing. Late last year, after finally recovering from her physical wounds, Adrian Bell began the lengthy process of mental health treatment and evaluation. This coming week, the judge will decide whether she’s fit to stand trial for multiple murders.
It’s troubling enough for Jen to imagine facing her in a courtroom. But when she thinks about putting Carley on the stand . . .
“If she goes to trial, I need to do that, Mom,” her daughter tells her, whenever the topic comes up. “For Nicki’s sake. I need to make sure that she stays in prison for the rest of her life for what she did to her and to Taylor . . .”
And to Sandra Lutz, whose accidental death in a house fire has since been ruled a murder to which Bell initially confessed.
Carley is so much stronger and braver than Jen ever imagined; than she herself ever imagined. Jen reminds her of that every chance she gets.
“You’re going to be just fine,” she says when nightmares keep her daughter from sleeping.
“When? I just want to be able to close my eyes some night and not see her—him—it.”
So do I, Jen thinks. But she doesn’t say it. She doesn’t say a lot of things that have been on her mind—not to anyone but Thad, anyway, and usually only in the wee hours.
Whenever she allows herself to think about “Sister Linda’s” diabolical charade, she’s incredulous that she didn’t pick up on the fact that something was seriously off about the so-called woman. Incredulous—and infuriated.
“But no one else figured it out, either, Jen,” Thad reminds her whenever she goes down that road. “The people at Sisters saw her all day, every day, and no one ever suspected a thing.”
It’s true. But when Jen thinks about how close she came to losing her daughter to that monster . . .
Thunderous applause erupts in the auditorium as the pianist stands to take a bow. Seeing Emma offer a few perfunctory handclaps before pulling out her cell phone, Jen elbows her.
“I’m just checking my texts,” she whispers.
“Put it away.”
With a scowl, Emma returns the phone to her pocket. Now a freshman at Woodsbridge, she’s still a handful—though Jen keeps a closer rein on her than ever.
As the applause subsides and an expectant lull falls over the audience, Jen and Thad exchange a glance. She can tell he’s thinking the same thing she is: That performance is going to be a tough act to follow.
Mic in hand, Marie Bush steps back onstage. “Thank you, Brittany. Wasn’t that wonderful? And now I’m pleased to introduce our next young lady, who has been studying with me for less than a year, although you’d never guess, hearing her play. Ladies and gentlemen . . . Carley Archer.”
Jen’s breath catches in her throat as her daughter walks from the wings into the spotlight. She doesn’t quite carry herself with the poise of Brittany Witkowski, but she doesn’t teeter on her heels or fumble her way forward, either, the way Jen would have imagined her doing a year ago.
A year ago? Just days ago, Carley was thinking about backing out of the recital, a nervous wreck at the thought of being onstage in front of a roomful of people.
“You can do it,” Jen told her. “You’re going to be just fine.”
“How do you know? You’ve barely heard me play lately.”
That’s true. Last winter, when the keys on their own piano started sticking and Jen was searching around for someone to repair it, Carley started practicing on the baby grand piano over at the Oliveras’ house. That was Debbie’s idea.
“Won’t it be hard for you?” Jen asked her friend, well aware that the news that Nicki hadn’t killed herself had served more as a second blow than as a measure of relief for Debbie.
“No—it would be nice to have someone play that piano,” Debbie insisted. “Nicki would have wanted her to.”
Now, though their own piano has long since been repaired, Carley goes over there almost every day to practice.
“It sounds so much better on a baby grand,” she tells her mother, and Jen doesn’t doubt that. But it’s not the only reason she lets her go.
“What does Mrs. Olivera do while you’re there?” Jen asked Carley not long ago.
“She just sits in the next room and listens. I think she’s glad I’m there.”
Jen knows she is. She prays for Debbie every day, and was gratified when her friend told her last summer that she’d broken things off with Mike and had decided to go into marriage counseling with Andrew.
“Maybe there’s still hope for us,” Debbie said, though her tremulous tone revealed that she didn’t quite believe it.
Jen doesn’t know whether she does, either—but at least it’s a step in the right direction.
She sees Carley’s chin lift a notch as she accepts the microphone from Marie. She’s steeling her nerves, Jen knows, for what she considers the hardest part of the performance: introducing the audience to the piece she’s about to play.
Even to Jen, she looks almost like a stranger standing up there: all dressed up in a pale lavender sheath, her hair back in a sleek ponytail, and her glasses relegated to a nightstand drawer after she got contact lenses just a few weeks ago.
She’s been working out regularly ever since Frankie convinced her that physical activity would help speed her emotional recovery.
Carley hasn’t quite made it past the physically awkward stage—she’s not quite as slender as she’d like to be, and her skin flares up whenever she’s stressed—but she’s finally growing out of it, growing up.
“Thank you,” she says shyly into the mic, and winces at a faint screech of feedback. Moving it a little farther back from her mouth, she goes on, her voice wavering just a little, “The classical piece I’m going to play was originally known as Johannes Brahms’s Wiegenlied, Opus 49, Number 4. But you might recognize it by its popular name, Brahms’s Lullaby. Because it’s Mother’s Day, and because my mom used to sing it to me when she rocked me to sleep when I was little, and because . . . well, because of a lot of other reasons, I’d like to dedicate this performance to her.”
Jen’s breath catches in her throat, and tears spring to her eyes. She feels Thad’s hand coming past Emma to rest gently on her shoulder. He knows that Jen’s days of rocking Carley to sleep aren’t over yet. Sometimes, even now, as she strokes the worried creases from her daughter’s forehead, she hums the lilting melody.
She presses her palms into her eyes and wipes away the blur in time to see Carley arrive at the piano bench.
Her daughter remembers to smooth the skirt
of her dress behind her before sitting down and opening her sheet music. Seeing her fingertips tremble as she positions them over the piano keys, Jen says a silent prayer for her.
Then Carley begins to play.
The lilting fluidity of the music—and a few fresh tears, happy tears—wash away every bit of apprehension.
She’s good. Really good. Gifted.
The final note of the piece seems to hang over the hushed auditorium like a delicate glass orb suspended from a gossamer thread. Then it falls away, shattered by thunderous applause.
Onstage, Carley breaks into a relieved smile and rises from the bench. She bends her head in a little bow, then straightens, squinting a bit, still not entirely used to her contacts as her eyes search the vast room.
Jen fights the urge to jump to her feet and wave her arms in a wild burst of pride. Instead, she stops clapping and lifts her right hand slightly overhead, until Emma grabs it with a mortified “Mom! Stop!”
“She’s looking for us!”
“No, she isn’t!”
Yes, she is.
And now she’s found them.
As her daughter’s eyes meet hers, Jen smiles broadly and she gives a little nod—a nod that says not just Great job, and I love you, but also See? I told you so.
Carley really is going to be just fine.
Stay tuned for a sneak peek of
Wendy Corsi Staub’s thrilling new book
THE PERFECT STRANGER
Coming 2014 from Harper
When the doctor’s receptionist called this morning to say that they had the results, it never dawned on her that it might be bad news. Janine casually requested that she come by in person this afternoon; she even used just that phrasing, and it was a question, as opposed to a command: “Can you come by the office in person this afternoon?”
Come by.
So breezy. So inconsequential. So . . . so everything this situation is not.
What if she’d told Janine, over the phone, that she was busy this afternoon? Would the receptionist then have at least hinted that her presence at the office was urgent; that it was, in fact, a command rather than a request?
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