Don't Scream

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Definitely not since Jeremy came along.

  She looks at the boys that way, though.

  Garth often catches her staring at one or the other of their sons, utterly captivated by their most mundane actions…or, sometimes, it seems, by their mere existence.

  But in this long-ago moment captured on film, she’s looking only at Garth.

  And Garth is looking at the camera.

  More specifically, at the woman holding the camera.

  How well he remembers that day spent wandering around the autumn arts-and-crafts festival in town, one that was attended by the locals as well as by college students and alumni.

  How well he remembers the irony that she, of all people, would offer to take a picture of him with Brynn that day.

  “Okay, smile,” she said casually, aiming the lens.

  Does she still remember that day? Does she remember what happened the night before, when Brynn was working the overnight shift at the Amble On Inn?

  And if she remembers…Will she keep her promise never to tell Brynn their secret?

  You’d better not tell, he warns her silently.

  Not about what happened years ago…or about the sordid past revisited not so long ago at all.

  Fiona immediately spies a familiar figure at the table as she reenters the dining room. Lithe, exotic Cassandra Ashford, wearing a coral sweater that’s striking against her mocha complexion, now occupies the fourth chair.

  “Cassie! Good, you’re here.” Fiona pauses to give her old friend a quick hug before sliding back into her seat. “Where have you been?”

  “I…I had a little trouble finding this place.”

  “And where the heck have you been?”

  Fiona looks up to find Tildy gazing intently at her from across the table, chin resting in her propped hand.

  “In the ladies’ room,” she lies smoothly.

  “No, you weren’t. You were outside sneaking a smoke and checking your cell phone.”

  Fiona shrugs. “Guilty as charged…since that apparently is a crime?”

  “Cassie, I almost forgot, let’s see your engagement ring!” Brynn cuts in brightly.

  “Oh, that’s right, congratulations on that,” Fiona tells her.

  She can’t help but notice that Cassie isn’t exactly a gushing bride-to-be as she obligingly extends her left hand. Her smile is stiff, and she’s having trouble answering basic questions about the wedding.

  Either she’s been utterly derailed by this impromptu sorority reunion and the strange birthday card that triggered it, or she isn’t thrilled about getting married.

  Maybe it’s both, Fiona concludes.

  The waiter arrives to take Cassie’s drink order—club soda with lime—and to recite the daily specials.

  “Are you ready to order?”

  They look at each other.

  Typically, Tildy decides, without asking, that they are. “I’d like the escargot to start,” she says promptly, “and then the warm duck club sandwich.”

  “Shouldn’t we at least let Cassie look at the menu?” Brynn protests.

  “Oh, I’m fine. Do you have a chicken Caesar salad?” Cassie asks the waiter, who nods. “I’ll have that.”

  That’s probably not what she wanted, Fiona concludes, watching Cassie as Brynn is ordering a burger.

  She’s as low-maintenance as ever; she didn’t want to make us wait while she looked at the menu.

  Unlike high-maintenance me.

  When it’s her turn, Fiona quizzes the waiter at length about the ceviche and the sorrel salad before deciding on the wild mushroom tart.

  “What?” she asks, catching Tildy giving her another look.

  “Some things never change,” Tildy comments with a smug shake of her head.

  “Like…?”

  “Like being in a restaurant with you. Have you ever just walked into a place and ordered something off the cuff?”

  “No, because when I do get a chance to eat, I like to make sure things are going to turn out to be exactly the way I want them. Otherwise it’s all just a big waste of time.”

  Ostensibly, Fiona is talking about food. But she could be discussing life in general. Or her failed marriage.

  She waits for the waiter to retreat before clearing her throat as a prelude to her announcement: “So, Brynn thinks Rachel is still alive.”

  Three jaws drop simultaneously.

  “Why do you look so stunned?” Fiona asks Brynn. “You’re the one who said it in the first place.”

  “Yeah, but…I didn’t think you were just going to throw it out there like that.”

  “How can Rachel still be alive?”

  Fiona shrugs at Cassie’s bewildered question and asks pointedly, “What do you think, Tildy?”

  Matilda Harrington seems to have no qualms about looking her in the eye as she responds, “She isn’t alive. I checked her myself that night.”

  Which, of course, means nothing.

  It wouldn’t be the first time Tildy carried on a lying charade right under their noses.

  But when it comes to that illicit situation, Fiona concludes that it’s better for everyone involved to let some bygones be bygones, rather than go dredging up every last secret from the sisters’ shared past.

  Because what Brynn doesn’t know can’t hurt her.

  At least, I hope not, Fiona thinks uneasily.

  To Tildy, she says, “All we have is your word that Rachel didn’t have a pulse when you climbed down there.”

  “‘All’ you have?” Tildy echoes. “What else do you need? You know my word is worth more than…well, more than…”

  “More than you are?” Cassie supplies. “I mean financially.”

  Tildy responds with a tight little smile.

  “So…the oath,” Fiona says thoughtfully. “I guess that’s what this is all about in the first place, isn’t it? We gave each other our word that we wouldn’t tell a soul what happened that night. But obviously, somebody did.”

  Silence as that sinks in.

  Then Tildy commandeers the conversation. “So then, of the three of you sitting at this table, whose word is completely worthless?”

  “There are four of us at this table, Tildy,” Brynn points out.

  “Do you really think I told? You’re forgetting that I was the one who had to convince the rest of you to do what was best for our sisters.”

  “Rachel was our sister.” Brynn’s jaw is set firmly. “Was leaving her there in the woods best for her?”

  “You mean leaving her body there,” Tildy clarifies. “We had nothing to do with her death itself. We didn’t cause it or even contribute to the cause. She drank her own disgusting grain alcohol; it’s not like we gave it to her, or pushed her off that rock.”

  Tildy pauses to let that sink in.

  Then she continues, “Look, we all know Rachel was responsible for her own actions that night. We tried to stop her, for God’s sake. But who would have believed we were entirely innocent after what happened to the Sigmas? That night, we did what was best for all of the sisters, not just the four of us. That was my biggest priority. I was the sorority president, remember? I took my oath more seriously than anyone else. I wouldn’t break it.”

  “I honestly don’t think any of us would,” Cassie speaks up. She looks from Fiona to Brynn. “Look, I’m a doctor. That was a hell of a fall. Do you honestly think…what? That Rachel was really alive down there, and Tildy lied about it? You believe that Rachel got up after that fall and walked away—and now she’s back to torment the rest of us?”

  Her words hang in the air, punctuated by ambient restaurant sounds: silver clinking against china, murmured conversations, classical music.

  “It’s either that,” Brynn says quietly after a long moment, “or one of us told somebody what happened.”

  Fiona looks around the table. “Anyone want to come clean on that?”

  More silence.

  “I didn’t think so,” she mutters, reaching for her purse,
and her cigarettes, before remembering that she can’t smoke here.

  “This is ridiculous.” Tildy pushes back her chair. “I’m not sitting here while the three of you accuse me of something so heinous, after all I’ve done for all of you.”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything,” Cassie protests.

  “No, you’re not,” Tildy concedes, taking her leather Hermes bag from the back of her chair and slinging the strap over her shoulder. “They are.”

  “We’re not accusing you, either.” Brynn touches Tildy’s arm, and looks to Fiona for agreement.

  As irked by Brynn’s benevolent attitude as she is by Tildy’s self-righteous outrage, Fiona merely shrugs.

  “We’re just trying to figure out who could have sent those cards, and why,” Brynn goes on, turning back to Tildy, “and how they could have known what happened.”

  “Maybe they didn’t know,” Cassie suggests, and is promptly on the receiving end of three blank stares.

  “What do you mean?” Fee asks.

  “Maybe whoever sent the cards just knew that Rachel disappeared on her birthday ten years ago, and that she was our friend. It was all over the news at the time, remember?”

  “Remember?” Fiona echoes, thinking back to the media blitz that followed that terrible night. “Is there anything about any of it that we can possibly ever forget?”

  Rachel’s pretty face was plastered everywhere, from The Today Show to the evening news, from the front page of all the New York tabloids to People magazine.

  Impressive coverage. The case held certain elements of mass appeal: a beautiful coed from a privileged family had vanished without a trace, and on her birthday, no less. People ate that stuff up.

  Always have, always will.

  In the past decade, other beautiful young women have mysteriously disappeared, just as Rachel did.

  Chandra Levy, Elizabeth Smart, Natalie Holloway…

  Sometimes, their stories have happy endings. Others conclude tragically. But even recovered remains bring closure.

  There was no closure for the Lorent family. There were no remains to bury in the family plot on Long Island.

  Eventually, rumblings began to surface in the media, just as there were rumors on campus, that Rachel had simply run off somewhere on her own. Gradually, her story faded from the public eye.

  Of course, she was resurrected in the local press on the first few anniversaries of her disappearance, and when her father died of cancer a couple of years ago, and whenever a similarly high-profile case came along. But for the most part, it was over.

  For everyone but Rachel’s family…

  And the four of us…

  And whoever sent the cards.

  “So, if that’s the case—if the cards came from someone who knew about Rachel from the news, and not what really happened,” Brynn says slowly, absorbing Cassie’s theory, “then maybe it’s just some sicko who remembers reading about it in the press, and the four of us aren’t the only ones who got them.”

  “What do you mean?” Fiona asks impatiently.

  “Maybe some of her other friends got the cards, too,” Cassie says.

  Brynn nods. “We need to find out.”

  “How are we going to do that?”

  “We aren’t,” Fiona firmly informs both Cassie and Brynn, noticing that Tildy has remained conspicuously silent through their speculation, though she’s made no further move to leave.

  “Don’t you think we should know whether this is strictly about the four of us, and somebody possibly knowing what happened that night?” Brynn asks.

  “I’d love to find out, but we can’t go around looking up the Zetas and asking questions without making ourselves look suspicious.”

  “I disagree.”

  Fiona shakes her head at Brynn’s stubborn expression. “You want to start calling people and saying we all got cards from Rachel, and did they get them, too?”

  “Not flat out, but—”

  “No, Fee is right,” Tildy pipes up at last. “We don’t need anyone thinking we might know something about Rachel. Not even now, after all these years. The best thing we can do about all this is keep quiet.”

  “But—”

  Brynn’s protest is interrupted by the waiter returning with a loaded tray.

  They wait in silence as he places their meals before them. As soon as he departs, Fiona says, “Let’s assume that whoever sent those cards knows what we did that night. What do you think she—or he—is going to do about it?”

  “Blackmail us.” Tildy’s answer is immediate.

  Fiona had been thinking the same thing.

  “What if it’s Rachel?” Brynn asks, her meal still untouched, like the others’. “You think she’d want to blackmail us?”

  “It can’t be Rachel, Brynn,” Cassie insists. “How did she survive? Where has she been all these years? Why did she disappear?”

  “I don’t know!” Brynn squeezes her fingertips against her temples. “It doesn’t make sense, but I can’t think of anything else that does, either.”

  “Blackmail makes sense,” Fiona admits.

  “So should we go to the police, then?”

  “No,” the other three answer Brynn’s question in decisive unison.

  “So we should just…what, then? Sit around waiting for something else to happen? Wait for someone to blackmail us? Or…worse?”

  Nobody answers that.

  You would expect Fiona to be the first to emerge from the inn, with Brynn dogging her heels, but that’s not how it happens.

  No, it’s Matilda Harrington who steps out onto the porch less than an hour after Cassie’s arrival, unaware that she’s being watched from the stand of trees alongside the parking lot.

  She looks straight ahead through huge designer sunglasses as she strides toward her Ferrari as though she can’t wait to get in and drive away.

  Already clutching her keys, she unlocks the door with the remote when she’s still a few yards away. She slips behind the wheel, closes the door, starts the engine…

  Is she going to drive off without even spotting the white rectangle on the windshield?

  No.

  The door opens and a hand snakes out to pluck away the envelope.

  Seconds later, the car shifts into REVERSE and rolls backward, tires crunching on the gravel lot.

  Did she even look at it?

  There wasn’t much time for that.

  No, she most likely tossed it recklessly onto the seat next to her, probably thinking it’s some kind of advertising flier.

  Matilda’s face is visible through the windshield for a moment as the Ferrari rolls past the hiding spot en route to the exit.

  She appears to be utterly poised, as always.

  She wouldn’t be if she’d read what was in the envelope.

  No, not at all.

  Oh, Matilda. You, of everyone, should have bothered to look at it.

  Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you…

  Because, in my own clever way, I tried.

  In the small ladies’ room with its antiquated fixtures, Cassie leans toward her reflection to reapply her coral-shaded lipstick with a shaky hand as Brynn comes out of the lone stall.

  She washes her hands at the sink. Her eyes meet Cassie’s in the mirror.

  “I didn’t even ask you anything else about your wedding.”

  “That’s…understandable.” Cassie gives a choked little laugh and puts the cap back on her lipstick. “It’s the last thing on my mind right now.”

  “It shouldn’t be, though. You can’t let this get to you, Cassie. This should be the best time in your life.”

  Yes. It should be.

  “Did you…um, pick out your flowers yet?” Brynn asks, sounding as though she genuinely cares.

  That’s the thing about Brynn—she really does care.

  Maybe more than I do, Cassie thinks wryly.

  “I’m meeting with the florist soon,” she says aloud, trying to remember the correct answer
to the question, “and I was thinking of doing all roses.”

  “In red? That was our sorority flower, remember?”

  “Maybe red, but not really because of the sorority. Maybe I won’t do roses at all.”

  “I had pink and white roses with baby’s breath at my wedding,” Brynn volunteers as she dries her hands thoroughly on the roller towel.

  “I guess I’d go with deeper colors. I wouldn’t want pastels since the wedding is in November.”

  “When is it again?”

  “The weekend after Thanksgiving.” Cassie guiltily avoids meeting her friend’s gaze again in the mirror above the sink.

  Maybe she should invite Brynn and Fee after all. She opted to include only Tildy on the guest list, reasoning that she’s been in more regular contact with her than anyone else these past few years.

  And why is that?

  Because she’s always been closer to Tildy, even back in their college days.

  And why is that, Cassie? her inner voice demands.

  Because the Boston Harringtons hobnob with the equally wealthy and similarly tragedy-ridden Boston Kennedys. They even have a friendly political rivalry, kindred folk who happen to belong to opposing parties. Of course, the Harringtons are actually involved in politics only through their close association with Troy Allerson.

  Yes, the Boston Harringtons are, according to Cassie’s parents, the kind of people it’s good to know in this life.

  As opposed to the Cape Cod Costellos and the Cedar Crest Fitzgeralds.

  It isn’t that Cassie herself subscribes to that brand of snobbery. It’s just that she has precious little time to stay in touch with anyone from her past, so when she does have an opportunity to catch up with someone, it might as well be Tildy.

  That way, whenever her parents invariably ask how Matilda is and when she last spoke to her, Cassie at least has a satisfactory reply.

  Fiona sticks her head in the door. “Brynn, come on. We could have been halfway home by now!”

  “I’m coming.”

  “Well, hurry up!” The door bangs closed.

  Brynn and Cassie look at each other.

  “Listen,” Brynn says, “about all this—”

  “I know,” Cassie cuts in. “It’s bad. I’m scared. But, Brynn, you can’t tell anyone. Please swear to me that you’re not going to do something crazy, like—”