“Because they wouldn’t last. They were already wilting.”
“So you sat in the car waiting for her for a pretty long time, then?” Deb’s tone is almost compassionate. “Hours?”
“Probably.”
“You do realize,” Quincy leans across the table and catches Ray’s shifty gaze, “that I’m about to make a couple of phone calls that will tell us whether or not there’s a bouquet of red roses in a garbage can across the street from Matilda Harrington’s house.”
Wilmington shrugs.
Quincy leans closer. “We’re not going to find any bouquet of roses in the garbage can, are we, Ray?”
No reply. But there’s a telltale staccato rapping sound from beneath the table, courtesy of Ray’s increasingly jittery legs.
“Why don’t you spare us the trouble, Ray, and just admit you weren’t at Matilda Harrington’s to give her a bouquet of flowers?”
“All right, this is getting ridiculous. Where the hell is Cassie?” Seated at the Saddlers’ cluttered kitchen table before a still-brimming, now-cold cup of coffee, and the dwindling pack of cigarettes she keeps going outside to smoke, Fiona checks her watch for the tenth time in as many minutes.
“She can’t just beam herself here from Danbury, you know,” Brynn points out as she shakily dumps boxed pasta into the boiling water on the stove.
“I know, but it shouldn’t take two hours to drive here.”
“It can. Especially in bad weather.”
“It’s not as if it’s snowing or icy.”
“No, but wet mountain roads and fog are no fun.”
And sitting here waiting with the silent, brooding Fiona is even less fun. Silent, that is, when she’s not grumbling about having to move a chair and unfasten three locks every time she goes outside for a smoke.
Brynn steps on the foot pedal of the garbage can to throw away the empty box, conscious of Fiona’s eyes on her.
She’s probably just noticing that the macaroni and cheese isn’t even Kraft, but a store brand, Brynn thinks inconsequentially. It’s almost a relief to focus, if only for a moment, on her friend’s habitual assessment of her downscale lifestyle.
Anything is better than thinking about Tildy.
Dead on her birthday…
Just like Rachel.
Every time Brynn allows herself to piece together the big picture, she’s terrified.
All four of them—she, Fiona, Cassie, Tildy—got those birthday cards last month.
What if whoever sent the cards, and most likely also left the dead bird, is responsible for Tildy’s death?
And what if it isn’t going to stop there?
It won’t be long now before Matilda Harrington’s death hits the media. It’s going to be big news—and not just in Boston.
But the story hasn’t exploded yet.
And you have to stop checking every five minutes to see if it has, or someone is going to get suspicious. Just go about your daily business and stay away from the Internet, the television, the radio.
No, just try to go about your daily business, same as always.
But, of course, that’s not easy. Pure euphoria is difficult to keep under wraps.
It’s especially hard to keep from smiling at the satisfying memory of all that blood spilling from the deep gashes in Matilda Harrington’s face and neck, soaking her fancy white party dress.
The best part was that, despite her inebriated state, she realized who had finally taken her flimsy excuse for a life into capable hands, putting an end to it at last.
Yes, it was a pleasure to see Matilda twitching and struggling, looking up warily, just as that frightened, flapping cardinal did in the final second before its neck was broken with a quick, vicious twist of these same capable hands.
Hands that are, at the moment, handing over a couple of ones and accepting a cup of hot coffee from an unwitting, smiling cashier.
“There you go. Have a nice day.”
“Oh, I absolutely will.”
Still no Cassie.
Brynn checks the stove clock as she turns off the flame under the boiling kettle.
Jeremy has been parked in front of the television all morning. Now he needs lunch, and a nap.
Draining the macaroni into the sink, she realizes she should probably eat something, too. Her stomach has been queasy all morning.
“Do you want some of this?” she asks Fiona, who makes a face and shakes her head. No surprise there.
“How about more coffee?” Brynn offers.
Fiona shakes her head again, taps her cigarette pack against the table in a rapid staccato, and mutters, “God, where is she?”
“She’s on her way.”
“Maybe she’s not coming after all.”
“She would have called to tell us.”
Fiona just shrugs.
Removing milk and butter from the fridge, Brynn wonders, again, if she should tell Fee about the dead cardinal. She hasn’t yet, because it makes more sense to wait for Cassie.
But she can’t go much longer without blurting it out.
“Oh, God,” she murmurs, stirring a rapidly melting wedge of butter into the steaming pasta.
She doesn’t realize she spoke out loud until Fiona asks, “What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
They fall restlessly silent again.
The phone rings as Brynn dumps the powdered orange cheese sauce into the pot.
“Get it,” Fee commands, as if Brynn had no intention of answering it. “Maybe it’s Cassie.”
It isn’t.
It’s Garth, wanting to know if she’s okay.
“I’m trying to be,” she says, walking into the hall with the phone.
“I’ll come home,” Garth offers promptly.
“No, don’t. I’m fine, I’m not alone, Fiona is here.”
“Still? I’ve never seen her stay put for this long anywhere other than her office.”
“Come on, Garth, someone died.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Brynn peeks around the doorway into the living room. There’s Jeremy, glued to yet another episode of Dora.
Pushing aside her maternal guilt, she tells Garth, “Cassie is on her way and I’m sure the two of them will stick around for awhile. If they leave and I need you, I’ll call you. Okay?”
He hesitates. “Okay. Just…Be careful, Brynn. I don’t like this. First that dead bird, and now Tildy.”
Her heart races. “Who says one has anything to do with the other?”
“Maybe they don’t. It didn’t even occur to me, actually, until I was in the car driving over here. I wanted to turn around and come back home, but I told myself I was being ridiculous. Now I’m not so sure.”
I am sure…And they definitely have something to do with each other.
She bites her lip, fighting the urge to spill the whole story to her husband.
She can’t do that. Not with Fiona in earshot, anyway.
Ten years ago, she swore to keep their secret.
But now her own life might be in danger if she doesn’t tell someone.
Garth, and the police.
They need to know. I have to tell.
But she shouldn’t just blurt it out without discussing it with Fiona and Cassie first. Surely they’ll agree that telling is absolutely necessary now, and damn the consequences. They have to tell for Tildy’s sake.
No. For Rachel’s.
How would I feel if I thought they abandoned my body alone in the woods?
You wouldn’t feel anything, a reasonable voice points out, because you’d be dead.
But what if I wasn’t? What if they only thought I was? Or claimed I was?
Was Rachel really still alive as she lay there? Did Tildy knowingly abandon her at the bottom of that ravine? Did she lie to the others about Rachel being dead?
And if the answer to all of those questions is yes…
Did Rachel return to kill Tildy for what she did?
“Listen,
I’ll be home as soon as I can,” Garth says, still on the phone.
She forgot him; he’s been silent and so has she.
“Promise me you’ll call me if you need me, okay?”
I do. I need you.
Aloud she manages only, “Okay.”
“I love you.”
“You, too.”
She disconnects the call and returns to the kitchen.
“I can’t sit here all day,” Fiona announces. “I’ve got appointments.”
“Can’t you cancel them? It’s not like you’re playing hooky.” Brynn returns to the stove and sees that the orange cheese powder has clumped over the surface of the macaroni.
“Me? Play hooky? I’ve never done that in my life.”
Attempting to stir the mixture into a more palatable concoction, Brynn points out, “I seem to remember you cutting classes to hang out with Pat.”
Fiona’s eyes darken at the mere mention of her ex-husband. “That was school. This is work. I can’t just not show up.”
“Someone died, Fiona.”
“Yeah, I know that, Brynn.” Her tone is sharp. She slaps her hands on the table and pushes back her chair abruptly. “I’ve got to get back to—”
A blast from the doorbell cuts her off.
“There’s Cassie,” Brynn says, and hurries to open the door.
Emerging from his office building onto Lexington Avenue, Isaac sees the drenching downpour and groans inwardly.
He should have looked out the window before heading out to get lunch.
Should he go back up and grab an umbrella, or just make a run to the deli around the corner on Forty-Sixth?
He’s debating when his cell phone suddenly vibrates in his pocket.
He flips it open, checks the caller ID window, and immediately recognizes the area code and exchange.
Cedar Crest.
His heart starts to pound.
Heart racing, he steps away from the group of chatty smokers standing beneath the overhang above the entrance, keeping dry as they puff away.
“Hello?”
“Isaac? Oh, my goodness…I’m so glad I got you. I thought you should know…”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Matilda Harrington. She’s just been killed,” Puffy Trovato, the Zeta Delta Kappa housemother, announces breathlessly in his ear.
“We’ve got to tell the police,” Brynn announces, again.
She’s been saying it for an hour, at least, since the moment Cassie arrived.
And every time Brynn says it, Fiona vehemently disagrees.
She does again now, so loudly that Brynn shushes her with yet another, “Shh! Jeremy’s sleeping.”
Fiona would like nothing better than to get the hell out of here, but she can’t just walk away from this intense powwow at the Saddlers’ kitchen table.
The moment she does, Brynn will probably call the cops and tell them everything.
She already called them, actually, after she found the dead cardinal in her kitchen this morning. They apparently believe it was some kind of prank.
It wasn’t, of course.
And when Brynn spoke up about the bird, and the cops, Fiona’s blood ran cold.
Still, she said nothing about the rose.
She probably wouldn’t have, regardless of whether Cassie immediately spoke up to announce that someone had left a recording of the sorority song on her voice mail.
“Did you tell anyone about it?” Fiona asked sharply, and was relieved when Cassie shook her head.
“What about you, Fee? Did anything strange happen to you?” Brynn asked, but still, Fiona didn’t mention the rose.
And the more time that goes by, the more difficult it will be to bring it up.
So she should do it now…
Or she shouldn’t do it at all.
She isn’t entirely sure why she’s unwilling…other than because it might push Brynn over the edge if she thinks all three of them have been targeted by the same person who murdered Tildy.
“I just don’t get it. How can you believe we shouldn’t report this, Fiona?” Brynn asks now, her voice almost shrill.
Fiona takes perverse pleasure in saying, “Shh! Jeremy’s sleeping.”
“This isn’t like the birthday cards,” Cassie speaks up quietly after a pause. “It’s different now. Somebody’s dead.”
Fiona can tell that Brynn’s paranoia is really starting to sway Cassie.
When Cassie walked in here, haggard and emotional, she kept looking over her shoulder as if she thought she was being followed. Now, she seems weary as well; she keeps yawning, and the bags beneath her eyes indicate she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in awhile.
“Maybe what happened to Tildy has nothing to do with this—with us,” Fiona points out stubbornly, and, all right, perhaps foolishly. Still, she goes on, “Maybe it was some random thing, a serial killer, a robbery—”
“It was her birthday, Fiona.” Brynn’s tone is contained now, but she looks as though she’s on the verge of hysteria. “It has everything to do with us. And Rachel.”
“Do you think Rachel did it? Is that what you’re saying?”
There’s a moment of silence.
Then Brynn replies, “Yes, I do, all right? I think Rachel did it.”
“Because…?”
Cassie answers the question. “Because we left her in the woods to die.”
“Not the three of us,” Fiona says. “We thought she was already dead. We were told she was already dead. If she wasn’t, and Tildy lied, well, then, maybe Tildy got what was coming to her—” Wow, that’s harsh, even to her own ears. “But the rest of us didn’t do anything wrong.”
“We still left her there, Fee.” Brynn is adamant. “That was wrong.”
“Not as wrong as if she were alive. I’m so damned sick of going around and around about this!”
“So am I,” Cassie agrees.
“Then let’s just drop it. We all know that we thought we were leaving a body, and that someone would find it.”
“Well, we know, but how would Rachel know that?” Brynn asks. “How would she know Tildy lied to us—if she did lie?”
“Maybe she was listening.” Fiona can’t quite keep the sarcasm from her voice.
“I doubt that.” Cassie shakes her head. “The chances of her even being alive after a fall like that, let alone conscious, with all she had to drink—”
“So you’re saying that for all Rachel knows, we were as responsible as Tildy was.”
“I’m not saying Rachel knows anything because I truly think Rachel died that night.” Fiona’s words are far more decisive than she feels inside, but someone has to be in charge now that Tildy’s gone.
And gone forever.
Whatever happens from here on in is up to the three of them.
It can be up to me alone, if I play this right, Fiona thinks.
“The police are probably never going to connect Tildy’s death with what happened to Rachel,” Cassie says slowly, “or with us, unless we tell them.”
“Which we can’t do,” Fiona responds firmly. “Something like that will destroy all our lives.”
Including yours, Brynn. You just have no idea to what extent.
“We have to do it anyway,” Brynn says, just as firmly, oblivious to the fact that Tildy had other secrets. Secrets that had nothing to do with Rachel and the sorority.
“We don’t ‘have to’ do anything,” Fiona tells her, longing to get off this frustrating carousel.
“We have to tell the police about this, if for no other reason than that whoever killed Tildy might be coming after us.”
“Maybe not after Fiona,” Cassie points out. “I mean, nothing strange turned up on her voice mail or in her house last night.”
Brynn turns to Fiona. “Are you sure? You did sleep at home last night, right?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I know you had a date…in Boston,” Brynn adds suddenly. Thoughtfully. �
�You know…I completely forgot that you were in Boston last night, Fee.”
Wide-eyed, Cassie is looking from Brynn to Fiona. “You were in Boston? So you really were throwing Tildy a surprise party after all? Because Lena acted like—”
“Surprise party? What are you talking about? I was at the Red Sox game with one of my clients.”
“You didn’t give Tildy a surprise party?”
“If I did, don’t you think I’d have said something to you by now?”
Cassie falls into a troubled silence again, but she’s furiously chewing her bottom lip.
“So you went straight home after the game, right?”
Fiona forces herself to maintain eye contact with Brynn. “Right. After the game—and dinner at a Japanese restaurant.”
And really, what happened after that is none of your business.
“What about your mail?” Brynn persists. “Did you check it when you got home?”
“Yes, I checked it.”
And she did. When she stopped home this morning to shower and change just before heading to the office…which is where she found the bloody rose and her nice, orderly world turned upside down and inside out.
“Look.” She glances from Brynn to Cassie and back again. “I know you’re both shaken up by this. So am I. But I honestly don’t think we’re in any kind of actual danger. And I think the best thing we can do right now is just sit tight.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” Cassie leans back in her chair, arms folded across her chest, expression gaunt as she looks at her friends. “Your birthdays aren’t coming up next weekend.”
According to the municipal department, the garbage cans on and around Matilda Harrington’s block haven’t been emptied in the last twenty-four hours.
About to pull out of the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot long after dusk, Quincy answers his phone and is promptly informed that none of the trash receptacles in the area has yielded a discarded bouquet of red roses.
So, unless someone walked off with them…
“Which could have happened,” Deb protests, seated in the passenger’s seat of the sedan, tearing a sip hole in the plastic lid of yet another cup of black coffee.
“You’re saying you believe he was telling the truth?” Quincy closes his cell phone and tucks it back into his pocket, then takes a quick, soothing swig from his own his own take-out cup.
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