There. Grab a fistful of cornrows, tug as hard as you can…
Cassandra Ashford’s head is abruptly jerked backward; her long, graceful neck arches tantalizingly near.
Now, raise the knife with your right hand, steady, steady, good…
Oh, this is good.
No time, however, to relish the sight of the blade glinting in the candlelight, or the sound of a strangled scream that strains to escape her about-to-be-severed vocal chords.
Just do it.
Now.
The knife descends methodically as if of its own accord, splitting a thin layer of supple mocha-colored skin, slicing into flesh.
Blood begins to spurt; Cassie thrashes, gurgles.
The knife rises, strikes again, hacking vocal cords, windpipe, hitting bone…
Ah. Good. The birthday girl has been swiftly silenced, has gone limp in the arms that hold her. Warm, sticky blood drenches the hands that still clutch her hair and the knife, pouring over everything, draining from her lifeless body.
“There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
A soft chuckle disturbs the morbid silence inside the cabin as a chorus of crickets go on chirping, uninterrupted, beyond its walls.
Cassandra Ashford is dragged over to the seat of honor and propped there. It isn’t an easy task; she keeps toppling forward, nearly hitting the beautiful cake.
Then again, it isn’t so beautiful anymore. An army of bugs has already invaded the white frosting and the message, first in icing, done by the bakery: Happy Birthday—then in blood, painstakingly accomplished back at home: DEAR CASSIE.
In no time, the bugs will undoubtedly make their way from the sugary cake to feed on the corpse beside it. There’s no telling when Cassie’s body will be discovered…
And that’s good.
The longer she stays hidden away up here, the better.
Fiona and Brynn will have no inkling that another of their sisters has paid for the sin they committed together…
But they must sense, even now, that their own days are numbered.
And if by chance they don’t…I’ll be sure to let them know.
CHAPTER 17
“Morning, Daddy.” Brynn bends low over the kitchen table to kiss her father’s stubbly cheek. In the process, she is assailed by an overpowering whiff of the contents of the full plate before him.
Scrambled eggs fried in butter and onions…His favorite breakfast.
Brynn, whose stomach was emptied in an early-morning bout with nausea, finds herself swallowing a tide of saliva.
Eggs…butter…onions…
Bleh.
She looks away, battling queasiness, and catches Sue watching her from the sink, where she’s washing out the frying pan.
“How about some toast, Brynn?” Sue offers knowingly. “It’s all made.”
She wants to say no thanks, but if she doesn’t get something bland into her stomach, she’s going to find herself dry-heaving over the toilet.
She sits across from her father and nibbles a piece of toast, willing the nausea to abate.
“I was thinking we could ride over to Chatham today to visit your brother and show the boys some lighthouses,” he suggests around a mouthful of egg.
“Joe, don’t talk with your mouth full.” Sue slides into the chair beside him, clasping a fresh cup of coffee.
He’s always talked with his mouth full, Brynn wants to shout at her. My mother gave up on trying to get him to stop. She used to laugh about it. So leave him alone!
Instead, ignoring Sue—as does her father—she says, “That sounds great, but we can’t go to Chatham today, Daddy. We have to get back home.”
“Not until later.”
“No, it’s a holiday. There’s going to be a ton of traffic leaving the Cape. I don’t want to sit in it.”
“But you haven’t even seen your brother yet.”
He’s talking about Joey Jr., the oldest of the Costello boys, who lives just north of Chatham with his wife and three kids. He couldn’t make the Saturday-night dinner, unlike her other two brothers, Charlie and Al, who live right here in town.
“We’ll be back in a few weeks for Thanksgiving,” she reminds her father. “I’ll get to see Joey then.”
“That’s more than a few weeks. It’s the end of November.”
“Joe, cut it out. She’s got a long drive alone with two little kids. Let her go early if she wants to. More toast, Brynn?”
She shakes her head at Sue’s question, forcing down the sodden wad in her mouth.
“What’s the big rush?” her father persists. “What time is the Professor coming home from that fancy meeting?”
The Professor. Her father gets a kick out of calling Garth that. Never out of respect, and never to his face.
Fancy meeting?
Yeah, Garth would love to hear his academic symposium thus described. Brynn finds herself already dreading the return visit for Thanksgiving.
“He’s landing late this afternoon.”
“So stay here with me awhile longer, baby girl.” Her father reaches out to lightly pinch her cheek. “I don’t get to see you enough anymore.”
“Well, you could come visit us,” Brynn suggests, noticing that there’s more gray than black in her father’s hair now. “We’d love it if you would.”
He brushes her off, as always. “I don’t know. It’s a long drive. We’ll get there when we can.”
Brynn can feel Sue’s sympathetic eyes on her, but she refuses to meet her gaze.
I wish she didn’t know, Brynn finds herself thinking. Of all the people in my life, why does she have to be the one who knows about the baby?
It’s not that she’s afraid Sue will tell.
No, it just bothers Brynn that the one person with whom there’s no love lost now knows the one thing she doesn’t want anyone to know.
No, she immediately amends, not the one thing.
Far better that this secret has been spilled than the other one.
After all, her pregnancy will eventually have to be shared anyway.
Eventually, Garth will get used to the idea. He loves her; he’ll love the baby.
But if he found out that she’s been keeping this information about Rachel from him—from Rachel’s family, from the authorities—for all these years…
Well, chances are, he wouldn’t be so understanding.
Fiona is right, Brynn realizes with sudden clarity, imagining how her life would come tumbling down around her if they went to the authorities now.
I can’t get caught up in something like that…
Detectives, lawyers, reporters. A public scandal, an investigation, a trial? Prison?
She has two children to raise and another on the way. What would Garth do if she was found guilty of a crime and had to serve time? He’d be left alone with the kids, not to mention that his reputation on campus might be severely damaged—guilt by association. He might lose his job.
Would he possibly stand by her? Forgive her?
Is he capable of that kind of unconditional love?
Unconditional love—that’s what you get from a mother. Not necessarily from your spouse.
Brynn no longer has that person in her life. Someone who would staunchly support her if the whole world was against her. Someone who would step into her shoes and care for her children if she couldn’t.
Yes, Fee is right. Why didn’t I realize it before? We can’t tell. No matter what.
“This isn’t easy for me.” Isaac forces himself to look directly at Kylah, seated beside him on the couch.
She shrugs, still wearing the carefully noncombatant expression she had donned when he woke her a few minutes ago and told her they have to talk.
“Now?” she asked, trying to burrow into her pillow.
“Now,” he said.
He just spent a sleepless night thinking about his upcoming meeting with that detective, and he’s well aware that his past might be on the verge of exploding into the present. He�
��d better prepare Kylah.
“I know you think I’m involved with someone else,” he begins awkwardly.
She doesn’t respond, verbally or physically.
“And I understand why you might think that.”
“Because you are?”
“No. I’m not. I’m not cheating on you. That’s not why I’ve been…”
He can’t bring himself to say it.
She, however, can: “Lying to me?”
Isaac winces, wants to protest, but how can he? That’s precisely what he’s been doing.
“I’m sorry.”
“You keep saying that. But you never say anything else.”
“I know, and—” He bites back another I’m sorry.
He can’t delay this any longer.
“I had a younger sister,” he tells her abruptly.
Surprise alights in Kylah’s widened eyes. She knows only about his older sister, Carolyn, who lives near his mother in North Carolina.
“She was a stepsister,” he clarifies. “I never told you about her, because…Well, it’s really hard for me.” He takes a deep breath, lets it out shakily.
Kylah is silent. Waiting.
“Her name was Rachel.”
Was.
“She died?”
“She disappeared. Ten years ago.”
Kylah touches his arm. “Oh, my God. What happened?”
Struggling for emotional detachment, he briefly describes it in a couple of concise sentences that sound almost like a lead paragraph from one of the many decade-old newspaper articles.
Kylah shakes her head, trying to digest it. “Do you think somebody kidnapped her and killed her?”
He winces.
“I’m sorry,” she says immediately. “I know how painful that had to be for you.”
He nods.
Kylah falls silent. He can see the wheels turning.
Then she asks tentatively, “Ten years ago—Wasn’t your dad married to Maggie?”
Maggie, of course, is his current stepmother, who is childless. Kylah hasn’t met her, but she knows about her—and that his father was married twice before.
“Yes, he was married to Maggie then, but Rachel and I were still close.”
“So—not to be…I mean, what does any of this have to do with your lying to me and sneaking around? And why didn’t you tell me about her?”
Because I’ve tried that. With Lindsey, and with other girlfriends who came before her. In the end, every relationship I have falls apart because of Rachel. In the end, I get accused of being obsessed by another woman…
And you are, he reminds himself. Just not in the way they might think.
“I didn’t tell you because I was trying to put it behind me,” he tells Kylah. “And I really did, for awhile…But then, in September, when the anniversary rolled around again, I couldn’t help it. It happens every year at this time. Sometimes in between, too. But every September, no matter how I tell myself to stay away, I have to go back up there, to Cedar Crest.”
“Looking for clues?”
He nods.
Yes, he’s looking for clues…
And looking for her.
Thinking maybe Rachel will decide her birthday is a good time for her to come back to life, so to speak.
“Do you think she might still be alive?” Kylah asks, as if she’s read his mind. “Maybe she just took off and didn’t want to be found.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“But, then again, she had to know what it would do to everyone she left behind. Why would anyone do something like that to their family and friends?”
Why, indeed.
“I have no idea,” Isaac tells her.
Lying again.
But this is it.
This is as far as he’s willing to go.
The rest of it is his alone. His, and Rachel’s.
“Are you really going to work today?” Ashley grumbles from her leg-dangling perch on the counter as Fiona takes one last sip of her still-hot coffee, standing at the kitchen sink. “It’s a national holiday. No one is working today.”
“Plenty of people are working today. Doctors, soldiers, firemen—”
“Yeah, but they have to work. You don’t.”
“Yes, I do.” Fiona dumps the remainder of her coffee down the drain and rinses the sink. “I have to support us.”
Ashley says nothing.
Fiona turns away, knowing she wouldn’t have to work this Monday holiday if she hadn’t shirked both Saturday and Sunday.
Now she’s fallen hopelessly behind, and it means spending all day today at the office, playing catch-up.
Which, Ashley’s disappointment aside, is fine with her, really. She’s used to it, and, anyway, it’s not as though there’s something better to do. James is back in Boston. She was hoping he’d call her last night, but he never did.
She’s been trying to convince herself that he’s just busy. That he isn’t avoiding her now that they spent the night together.
But something tells her she may have gone too far and scared him off: the ultimate cliché.
The doorbell rings; that’s the sitter.
Fiona was lucky to find one on short notice. At twelve, Andrea Carson is young to stay with Ashley for such a long day, but her older sister had plans. Anyway, it’s not as though Fiona is leaving her with an infant.
“Make sure you eat some breakfast, Ash,” Fiona says, picking up her satchel and quickly opening the top to make sure she has the files she needs.
“Can me and Andrea make pancakes?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Fiona bristles at her tone. “Cut it out, Ash, you know I don’t like whining. And stop kicking your heels against the cupboards, you’ll nick them.”
“With bare feet?”
“Stop.”
Ashley stops. “Why can’t we make pancakes?”
Still whiny, but…
Choose your battles, Fiona reminds herself, as she so often did during the divorce.
“For one thing, because Andrea is just a kid and I don’t want you two cooking when I’m not home. It’s dangerous.”
“If she’s just a kid, why is she babysitting me?”
Ignoring that comment, Fiona continues, “For another thing, because pancakes aren’t good for you. They’re too sweet, and you’ve already had a cavity. Have cereal.”
“I’m sick of cereal. I want pancakes.”
Fiona looks up sharply from the file folder in her hand. It isn’t like her daughter to make waves like this.
“What’s wrong with you today, Ashley?”
“Nothing.” Ashley idly toys with the handle of a knife sticking out from the Henckels set in the butcher block holder.
“Careful, Ashley, those knives are sharp.” And expensive, Fiona wants to add, watching her daughter run a fingernail along the handle and hoping it doesn’t leave a scratch mark.
“I’m not touching the blade. Just the handle.”
“Leave it alone.”
Ashley lifts her hand from the knife and scowls.
The doorbell rings again.
Fiona shrugs; she gives Ashley a kiss on the cheek and a quick squeeze. “Tonight when I get home, we’ll get pizza and watch a movie. Okay?”
“What time will that be?”
“I don’t know…around seven?”
“With you, Mom, that means nine. And it’s a school night. You won’t let me stay up that late.”
“Tonight, I will.” She pauses in the kitchen doorway. “How’s that?”
“Good, I guess,” Ashley says, and at least she’s smiling when she looks up.
Fiona slings her bag over her shoulder and strides away to open the door.
Andrea Carson is one of those girls who will probably never take advantage of her potential—physical or otherwise. She’s about fifteen pounds overweight, with acne and stringy hair. All of which can be remedied. In fact, every time Fiona sees her, she thinks, If s
he were my daughter…
But she isn’t.
And Fiona’s got enough on her plate without offering a makeover to the neighborhood ugly duckling.
“Hi, Mrs. Hagan.”
Fiona’s skin crawls at the name, but she doesn’t bother to correct the girl. She’s told her, how many times now, that she prefers to be called Ms. Fitzgerald, but it never sinks in.
“How are you today, Andrea?” She aims her key remote toward the BMW and hears it beep as she unlocks the doors.
“I’m good.”
“So I’ll be at the office, call me if you need—what is that?” she breaks off to ask, seeing that Andrea is holding out a package toward her.
“I don’t know. It was propped against your door. It’s for you, see?”
“I see,” Fiona murmurs, staring at the block letters that read FIONA.
Quincy Hiles has never liked New York City.
Maybe that’s because it’s unfamiliar turf; he doesn’t know his way around the vast network of streets, bridges, and tunnels.
Or maybe it’s simply because this is the home of his hometown baseball team’s archrivals.
Yeah, that’s it. And maybe it’s lame, but he can’t help it. As a fan, he takes the sport almost as seriously as he did when he was playing it.
Routed off the New England Thruway by an accident, Quincy is riddled by unpleasant memories as he drives past Yankee Stadium with Connelly in the passenger’s seat.
He finds himself telling Mike about the time, back when he was first married, that he and Bev spent a long weekend in New York and went to a ball game at Yankee Stadium.
Quincy wore a Red Sox cap—and came out feeling lucky to be alive. The Yankees weren’t even playing the Sox that day; they were hosting the Blue Jays. But that didn’t matter. Mercilessly heckling fans welcomed the telltale red B on Quincy’s blue cap about as warmly as…
Well, as warmly as Fenway Park would have welcomed an intertwined white NY on a navy one.
Of course Quincy kept that cap on his head, no matter how much his wife begged him to take it off so they could enjoy the game in peace.
“No wonder she dumped you.” Mike shakes his head. “You’re a stubborn S.O.B., you know that?”
“Yeah, I know that. Comes in handy on the job.”
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