She only knows that she isn’t being followed. Without her cell phone, no one can possibly reach her; by using only cash, no one will be able to trace her.
This time, she has to get away to a place that’s much farther from home.
A place where no one will ever find her.
Not her parents, not Alec…
Not the silent, invisible stalker whose presence seems to dog her every move.
This is, by far, the hardest part: the waiting.
Knowing that you have to get through another night, and part of another day, before you can accomplish the monumental task ahead.
Keeping up a cool demeanor, going about your business as though this was any other Saturday afternoon, making sure no one would ever in their wildest dreams guess what’s going on in your head.
So far, so good.
The party supplies are tucked away; the gift-wrapped box is ready. Inside it is a special memento selected for the occasion. Cassandra won’t have the chance to open it, of course, but that’s all right.
She doesn’t need a reminder.
She knows what she did.
Is she wondering, even now, if she’s going to die tomorrow?
Does she realize that it’s only fair?
That’s the tricky part.
If she suspects, she might try to get away.
Go ahead, Cassie. You can run from me.
And you probably think you can hide, too.
Maybe you really can…
From the rest of the world…
But what you don’t realize is that you can never hide from me.
CHAPTER 16
For Brynn, Sunday morning dawns just as the others have: with a tide of nausea that propels her straight to the bathroom.
Already weary of the routine only one week in, she brushes her teeth and wonders how she’s possibly going to keep her pregnancy from Garth when she gets home.
He might not wake up in their bed every morning, but he’s bound to notice her morning sickness. The walls are thin and the house is small.
The same thing is true of this one.
So she shouldn’t be surprised to step out of the bathroom and find her stepmother standing there wearing her jogging clothes and a knowing expression.
Brynn’s heart sinks.
“You’re pregnant,” Sue whispers. “I thought I heard you getting sick yesterday morning, too, but I figured you might have eaten something that disagreed with you.”
Brynn considers, then dismisses, the notion of going along with that theory. She was obviously fine last night. Her father treated the whole family, including two of her brothers and their wives and kids, to dinner at a seafood place followed by a visit to Cold Stone Creamery.
Maybe she was eating from nerves—seeing Isaac really was unsettling. Or maybe she was merely eating because she was starved, and the nausea had finally worn off.
But everyone joked about the way she devoured twin lobster tails and a gigantic waffle cone heaping with Pecan and Cream Passion.
“Please don’t say anything to Daddy,” she tells Sue, realizing she might as well admit the truth. She’ll find out sooner or later anyway. “And don’t mention it to the boys, either. I haven’t told anyone yet.”
“Not even Garth?”
She shakes her head. “It wasn’t planned. I was on the pill. I can’t believe this happened…I never missed one.” She’s talking more to herself than to Sue.
But her stepmother asks, with the efficiency of the OBGYN nurse practitioner she once was, “Have you been on antibiotics lately?”
“No, why?”
“Because they can interfere with the pill’s effectiveness.”
“Well, I haven’t—” Brynn stops short. Oh, yes, she has.
She was on antibiotics right before school started, when she and Caleb both had strep throat.
That explains it.
“The doctor should warn people about that.” She shakes her head in disbelief.
“I’m sure there are warnings in the pamphlet that comes with the pill packet. And most pharmacists print out drug interaction information when they hand over prescriptions, too.”
Irked by Sue’s implication that Brynn could have avoided this situation had she been paying closer attention, even if it’s probably true, she says defensively, “Well, nobody bothered to give me that information.”
“Well, I’m sure you’re looking forward to a new baby, and Garth will be, too, when you tell him. When are you going to do that?”
None of your business, Brynn thinks, further irritated.
“Waiting for the right moment again, huh?” Sue smiles. “I remember that Father’s Day when you—”
“No, it’s not like that,” Brynn cuts in brusquely. “I just…Listen, Sue, no offense, but this is really a personal matter and I definitely don’t feel comfortable talking about it right now with you.”
She didn’t mean to put emphasis on the last word, but somehow, it comes out that way.
With you.
It comes out sounding as though Brynn would prefer to discuss her pregnancy with just about anyone else in the world.
Which, come to think of it, is almost true.
Yet, seeing the flicker of hurt in Sue’s eyes, Brynn fends off remorse.
“Point taken. And I won’t say anything to anyone until you give me the green light,” Sue promises quietly. Then she adds, looking Brynn pointedly in the eye, “You might not like me, but you can trust me.”
Brynn watches her stride down the hall and disappear into the kitchen.
I should probably go try to explain, she thinks guiltily.
She starts after her stepmother, with no idea what she’ll say—only that she doesn’t want Sue to think she doesn’t like her…
Even if it’s true?
Well, she can’t deny that Sue has really stepped up for Brynn and the boys this weekend. Daddy is getting older, and tired. He eagerly took them to the basement, where they have always loved to play with Brynn’s brothers’ childhood train set, but he was wiped out in no time and had to take a nap. It was Sue who crawled around on the floor with the kids, and made them peanut butter sandwiches without the crusts when they were hungry before bed, and played endless rounds of Candyland so that each boy could win twice.
I don’t have to like her…But I don’t have to hurt her, either, Brynn thinks as she steps into the kitchen to make amends.
But she’s just in time to see the back door close as Sue leaves the house.
Opening her eyes on Sunday morning, Fiona finds herself facing a wall of windows looking out over a breathtaking mountain tapestry bathed in golden sunlight.
Her lips curve into a smile as she realizes exactly where she is.
Turning her head, she sees James lying beside her, tangled in the sheets, sound asleep.
She waits for the inevitable morning-after pang of regret…
But it doesn’t come.
Everything about last night felt right.
She impulsively called him from her car as she headed back home from Boston after the funeral, thinking she should make up some professional reason to speak to him. It still hadn’t come to her by the time he answered the phone, so she figured she’d wing it.
He sounded glad to hear from her.
“When are you coming back to town?” he asked.
“Right now.”
“Really. What are you doing when you get here?”
“I’m not sure…”
“Come over.”
She laughed. “Is that an order?”
“Yes, it is.”
At last, she got to lay eyes on the fabled “cottage”—a three-story stone structure rambling along a majestic overlook. What a far cry from the cabin she still owns with Pat, not far from here.
“What do you think?” James asked.
That I could definitely see myself living here.
But, of course, she didn’t say that.
James grilled chicken
and vegetables on a grill that cost more than the sum total of every appliance in Fiona’s kitchen at home. He opened a bottle of wine, a rare vintage. And he kissed her on the moonlit terrace with the lights of Cedar Crest twinkling far below.
She didn’t want to leave.
Ever.
And he didn’t want her to leave—at least, not last night.
Now, checking her watch—the only thing she’s still wearing—Fiona realizes that her fantasy interlude is about to skid to a crashing halt.
She’ll have to scramble if she’s going to make it home before Pat drops off Ashley.
She considers calling to tell him she can’t be there—she can say she’s still hung up in Boston. He assumed she was spending the night there anyway, consoling Tildy’s family or something.
She turns to look at James again.
No, she should go.
Now, before she inadvertently says or does something to ruin this budding dream-come-true.
Back in her room, Brynn climbs into bed, determined to catch a little more sleep.
But the guilt has followed her.
She doesn’t want to feel bad about Sue; life would be easier if she was immune to any feelings at all for her stepmother, good or bad…
But lately, especially, good.
It isn’t easy to maintain resentment for someone who treats Caleb and Jeremy—and, all right, Brynn’s father, too—so well.
Still…
If my mother were standing here, instead of her, I’d be pouring my heart out about this pregnancy.
And about Rachel, even.
In fact, I would never have kept that to myself for ten years if she were around.
Ten years.
It’s been even longer than that since her mother died. Is there ever going to come a day when Brynn isn’t unexpectedly blindsided by pain and longing?
Maybe the grief isn’t as raw as it once was, but it’s still there.
She finds herself thinking of Tildy’s father, so anguished as he passed up the aisle after the service yesterday, leaning heavily on Troy Allerson’s arm.
People are supposed to lose their parents, painful as it is. That’s the natural order of things.
But Jason Harrington will have to survive the loss of his wife and both his children.
Just as Rachel’s parents—and siblings, especially her poor brother—had to survive their loss.
Seeing Isaac yesterday brought it all back: the terrible days in the immediate, frenzied aftermath of her disappearance, when searchers were roaming the area looking for her. Brynn’s overwhelming guilt for hiding information that might have helped them find her…
Unless she didn’t want to be found.
Did Isaac suspect, back then, that Brynn and the others might know more than they were telling? Is that why he kept coming back to Cedar Crest, back to the sorority house?
Could he be—?
She cuts herself off hastily, telling herself there’s no way Isaac is the one who killed Tildy. What reason would he possibly have?
What if he saw what happened with Rachel?
What if he wants revenge?
Brynn burrows into the quilt as if she can stave off the cold dread stealing over her once again.
Isaac wasn’t even in Cedar Crest the night his stepsister vanished. He didn’t get there until the next day, just as her absence was coming to light.
How do you know that? Brynn asks herself.
Because he told me.
She isn’t just frightened now, she is starting to feel nauseated again, and this time, it isn’t mere morning sickness.
She remembers that she was on the porch of the sorority house with some of the other sisters when Isaac pulled up in his car. He told them he had just driven from Manhattan to see Rachel.
He was immediately upset when Puffy told him she was missing. In retrospect, more upset, perhaps, than he should have been at that early stage. At the time, Brynn was more concerned with concealing her own guilt than with Isaac’s reaction, but she does remember that he wouldn’t accept the housemother’s theory that Rachel had just spent the night with a friend somewhere and was still hanging out.
No, Isaac seemed to sense even then that something was very wrong. And, of course, Brynn, Tildy, Cassie, and Fiona knew that there was.
Does he believe, even now, that Brynn knows something?
Is that why he was looking at her so intently yesterday in the café?
And what is it that he isn’t telling her about Rachel?
He’s hiding something, too.
She has no real evidence of that, just a vibe she sometimes gets about people. Usually people she knows well; Garth, in particular.
I swear you can read my mind, he says sometimes.
But not lately.
Before he left for Arizona, he seemed preoccupied.
Well, of course he was, Brynn tells herself. He was worried about me, and upset about Tildy’s murder, and the bird on the counter, and trying to finish the research material he was planning to present at the symposium…
Who wouldn’t be preoccupied?
Anyway, Garth’s frame of mind won’t be important until they’re back at home, where she’ll have to figure out how to deliver her pregnancy news.
Right now, she’s more concerned with Isaac Halpern’s frame of mind.
Why did he show up in Cedar Crest the day after Rachel’s birthday?
He never said.
And Rachel never mentioned that he was coming. Why not?
She was so upset that night…Did it have something to do with Isaac?
“If I could tell you, I would, Brynnie. But I can’t,” was Rachel’s response when she asked what was wrong.
Now, Brynn would bet her life that it had something to do with her brother…
And that he, like Brynn, knows more than he’s willing to tell.
“God, what time is it?”
Isaac looks up from the Sunday Times.
Kylah has emerged from the bedroom. Her face is smudged with yesterday’s wedding-heavy makeup; her slept-on hair is still in a salon-sprayed bouffant. She’s wearing just panties and the gray T-shirt she pulled on after discarding her bridesmaid’s gown in a heap on the floor beside the bed.
“It’s early. Go back to bed.”
She shakes her head and stretches. “Is there coffee?”
“Yes.” He sets aside the paper and walks over to the kitchenette to pour her a cup as she leans against the door frame, looking wan. “How do you feel?”
“Not so good.”
“Champagne mixed with beer and tequila shots will do that.” He hands her a steaming mug.
She looks down at it and makes a face. “Are we out of milk again?”
“No, but drink it black. It’ll help.”
She sips it in silence as Smoochy materializes to rub against her shins, purring.
“Are you hungry, baby?” she asks the cat.
“I already fed him.”
Kylah looks up at Isaac in surprise. Then she says, “Really.” As if she’s pondering that unexpected development.
They both know he never bothers with the cat unless she asks him to. Now, Isaac realizes, she’s thinking that he’s trying to appease her. For yesterday. For taking off to Boston without explanation.
And she’s right.
He managed to make it to the wedding with time to spare. Despite everything that’s gone on, he somehow got caught up in the spirit of the occasion. He ate, drank, talked, and danced. He met Kylah’s extended family and was sure to charm all of them, especially her eighty-five-year-old grandmother, when he asked her to dance.
He and Kylah even joked and laughed—and kissed—in the backseat of the cab home. Of course, she was drunk—too drunk to remember that she was angry with him. And Isaac was a little tipsy himself.
The evening as a whole was a welcome reprieve, the first in a long time.
But now it’s back to reality. If she demands an explanation, he owes
her one.
But he’ll tell her only as much as he told Brynn, and nothing more.
It’s cold…
Really cold.
Cassie snuggles deeper into her down comforter…
Only, she realizes, it isn’t her down comforter.
As her memory of yesterday gradually returns, she remembers that she’s lying beneath a shiny-stiff quilted bedspread that smells faintly of wood smoke, as though someone had huddled beneath it around a campfire on a recent, chilly night.
For the second time in as many weeks, Cassie opens her eyes on unfamiliar territory.
This time, though, she isn’t shell-shocked.
She probably should be.
Hell, she should be scared out of her mind.
She’s never even been to Portland or Kennebunkport before, let alone the backwoods of Maine, miles from civilization. It took her well over four hours to find her way up here; she’d have kept right on going if she hadn’t passed the VACANCY sign right around the time she realized she was burning daylight.
It was a nerve-racking drive. And it took her a long time last night to settle into a sleep that was, in the end, surprisingly sound.
Now, as she gazes around the rustic cabin, she feels only contentment laced with relief.
I’ll be okay here for awhile. I can do this. I really can.
The cabin is small: just one room, with a square window on each of the four log walls. There’s a woodstove she could have used last night, and electricity. No plumbing, though; you have to go down the path to the community bathhouse to use the toilet, wash, or take a shower. A minifridge is tucked into one corner, but that’s the extent of the kitchen appliances; any food preparation has to be done on the outdoor stone fireplace. She checked it out last night, beside the rushing stream just a stone’s throw from the door.
Cassie plans to do some grilling there. She doesn’t mind, but if she did she’d have no choice anyway: there are no restaurants in a half-hour radius of this place. Louise, the wheelchair-bound woman who runs the camp, said there’s a small grocery store in the nearest town. But it’s a twenty-minute drive back down the winding road through the forest.
Cassie has a feeling she’ll be heading that way pretty frequently; she paid for the entire month of October when she checked in. She used cash, of course, and entered a fake name on the register.
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