Only when she’s told them everything she possibly can—right up to and including Fiona’s furtive plan to leave town for her birthday—does she finally sag against Garth’s arm and the back of the chair, utterly spent.
Quincy Hiles rubs his beard thoughtfully. “Is there anything else, Mrs. Saddler?”
“No, sir. There’s nothing else.”
Nothing other than the fact that I’m pregnant, and my husband doesn’t know. But I think I’ve spilled enough secrets for one day.
“I have a question.”
Brynn looks at Garth in surprise. He avoids her gaze.
“Yes, Mr. Saddler?”
“Did my wife commit a crime ten years ago when she left her friend’s body in the woods?”
“No.” That unequivocal answer from Hiles catches Brynn off guard.
“Are you sure?” she asks.
“Yes. And you didn’t even technically commit a crime if you thought your friend was alive, as long as you didn’t push her over the edge.”
“Isn’t there a Good Samaritan law or something?”
For the first time, Quincy bares a smile. “In Massachusetts? You mean, like on that last episode of Seinfeld? People ask me all the time, and that’s how I know the answer off the top of my head. It’s against the law to harm another person, but the law doesn’t require you to help another person.”
Tears fill Brynn’s eyes once again. But this time, sheer relief mixes with her grief over her lost friends.
If only they had known…
Maybe Tildy and Fiona would still be alive.
CHAPTER 21
Fiona’s shaken parents opted to break with tradition and avoid a wake or funeral home visitation.
Her funeral itself is held at Saint Vincent’s Church on a blustery October morning that feels more like late November. The sky hangs low and black over Cedar Crest, spitting sheets of horizontal rain on the throng of mourners huddled beneath useless umbrellas.
The press has been swarming ever since Fiona’s murder was linked to Matilda Harrington’s, and of course Rachel’s disappearance has been dredged up all over again amid much public speculation that she, too, fell victim to the same fate ten years ago.
The authorities haven’t released the details surrounding either murder scene, but the media has created sensational headlines just the same:
THE SORORITY SISTER MURDERS. THE BIRTHDAY-GIRL KILLER.
Detectives Quincy Hiles, Mike Connelly, and Deb Jackson have all but taken up permanent residence in Cedar Crest. With Ray Wilmington dead and the apparent sorority connection, Troy Allerson has been back-burnered as a potential suspect. Particularly since he was on a well-documented Washington trip when Fiona Fitzgerald was murdered in Cedar Crest.
Apparently, his affair with Matilda Harrington was an unfortunate coincidence—and one that is destined to stay hidden, at least for the time being.
Cassie Ashford’s apparent disappearance has yet to materialize in the press or be publicly linked to the murders of her sorority sisters. Mike and Deb spoke to her fiancé, her parents, and her brother, all of whom remain convinced she had cold feet about her upcoming wedding and ran off. They all cited several e-mails they received well beyond the day of her birthday as evidence of her well-being.
Maybe they’re right.
Quincy doubts it. Anyone can send e-mail if they can get into someone’s account. And it’s next to impossible to trace at this level, though he’s got someone on that.
For now, unless Cassie—or her body, or at least a trail of evidence—turns up, there’s nothing he can do for her or her family.
Quincy despises that feeling of helplessness. It keeps him up nights. After too many of those, absorbed in the case, he’s gone back to drinking coffee. But it’s killing him; he can feel it eating away at his guts. Literally.
Saint Vincent’s is packed to standing room only. In the front pew on one side of the altar are Fiona Fitzgerald’s parents, drawn and stoic. It’s no secret around town that there’s been no love lost between them and their daughter.
Make that daughters. Fiona’s identical twin, Deirdre, also estranged from their parents, sits in the front pew on the opposite side of the altar. Throughout the service she keeps a steadying arm around her niece, Ashley, whose pitiful sobs echo through the church whenever the organ falls silent. Fiona’s ex-husband, Pat, flanks Ashley’s other side, with Brynn and Garth Saddler seated a row behind.
She’s a wreck, Brynn Saddler—and predictably so.
Because she’s lost her best friend…
And because she’s afraid she’s next.
The public doesn’t realize that, though. Nobody other than those involved in the investigation has been privy to the tale Brynn revealed about Rachel that night ten years ago. To them, the murders are somewhat random; any Zeta Delta Kappa sister, or even any woman celebrating a thirtieth birthday, might be a potential victim.
No one is aware of the chilling fact that is obvious to Quincy’s team: that the killer is picking off a finite group, one by one.
And Brynn Saddler’s turn is coming.
Quincy’s got her under police guard 24/7.
He also posted a couple of uniforms over at the Zeta house at the request of the shaken housemother.
He’s certain the sorority house security is superfluous, but there was no arguing with Mama Bear Puffy Trovato. Anyway, if the killer is in their midst, watching the progress of the investigation, it’s best to keep the focus as broad as possible.
Brynn Saddler’s security detail is probably just as superfluous at this point.
For another couple of days, anyway.
“Don’t you think it’s a little too coincidental that all four of these girls have October birthdays?” Deb asked on the heels of Fiona’s death.
Yes, he did…until he learned that they had become friends, as freshmen, because of their mutual October birthdays.
“That’s how we were grouped in the dorm,” Brynn told him, wearing a sad, faraway smile. “Rachel was on the September hall, but she said she liked us better.”
Rachel.
The press might have written her off as another victim of the Birthday-Girl Killer, but Quincy Hiles isn’t convinced. Not by a long shot.
He can’t help but think about that scrap of sorority sweater left at the scene of Tildy’s murder. And about the thick lock of curly dark hair that was inside the wrapped gift box found in Fiona Fitzgerald’s hands.
Hair that was tied with thin lengths of both red and gray satin ribbon, and appears to be very similar to Rachel Lorent’s color and texture.
Forensics is testing it, using DNA samples provided by Rachel’s mother in California. Having long since given up hope of seeing her daughter again, she assumed her blood was needed so that her daughter’s remains can potentially be identified.
She was not told that the investigators believe her daughter might very well still be alive.
As far as Quincy’s concerned, with no body ever found, there’s no evidence to the contrary.
And if Rachel Lorent is still alive…
Well, Quincy has a feeling she’ll be making another appearance in just a few days.
On the twenty-ninth: Brynn Saddler’s birthday.
And this time, I’ll be waiting for her.
Isaac deposits a stack of non-jazz CDs on the table and picks up a flattened cardboard box from a stack at his feet.
There’s no way in hell that he was going to attend Fiona Fitzgerald’s funeral. He made that mistake once before, and opened the door to a police investigation of his past.
He’s no closer to uncovering the truth about Rachel after all that, and he’s succeeded in further complicating his relationship with Kylah.
With a deft movement, he transforms the box to three dimensions and closes the flaps.
She’s pulled away emotionally ever since he told her about his missing sister. She’s here, in his life, in his bed, same as always, but she’s detaching herse
lf from him. He can feel it.
Maybe she senses that there’s more to the story than he’d shared.
Maybe she even senses that Isaac was in love with Rachel; that if Rachel walked back into his life right now, he’d drop everything to be with her.
Everything—and everyone.
Kylah included.
He’ll never be able to lay the past to rest.
Not like this, always wondering if she’s out there somewhere…perhaps with his child.
He picks up a roll of packing tape and runs it along the closed cardboard flaps a few times, reinforcing the seam. Then he begins transferring the stacks of books and CDs from the table to the box.
Kylah left this morning for Chicago on business. She won’t be back until after the weekend. By then, he’ll have all his stuff moved back into his apartment.
He’ll be here, though, waiting for her, when she gets home. Just as she made him promise.
Isaac never breaks a promise.
That’s why he rarely makes them.
The postfuneral reception in the church hall is a longstanding tradition at Saint Vincent’s. Brynn is surprised that Fiona’s parents went along with it, though. It can’t be easy for them to stand there in the corner beneath a flag and a mounted crucifix and greet the hundreds of mourners—many of whom saw more of their daughter than they did in recent years.
“Do you want to go over there to see them?” Garth asks, handing her a white foam cup of coffee and keeping one for himself.
“In a minute.” Brynn watches Fiona’s father shake hands with the dashing James Bingham, one of Fee’s more recent clients. He was responsible for the towering, voluminous spray of red roses that loomed above the altar in church, dwarfing a similar one, far smaller in scale, that came from the Zeta Delta Kappa girls.
A gray-haired woman hurries past, head down, going toward the door. Recognizing her, Brynn reaches out to touch her black-clad arm.
She jumps as though she’s been branded and whirls around. “Oh. Brynn.”
“Hi, Sharon. I just—” Brynn’s voice breaks. She reaches out to give Fiona’s former assistant a hug. She seems stiff in Brynn’s embrace; nothing like her old self. “I’m glad you’re here. You remember my husband, Garth?”
Sharon nods, seemingly at a loss for words.
“It’s good to see you, Sharon.” Garth shakes her hand gently. “Not under these circumstances, though.”
“No.”
The three of them look at each other for another awkward moment. Brynn tries to think of something to say to the woman, who, for these last few years was more of a mother, really, to Fiona than her own mother was.
She settles on, “She really missed you, after you left. She couldn’t find a replacement worth one fraction of what you were to her. She even asked me to come work for her after she fired her last assistant.” She offers a strained laugh.
Sharon matches it. “I missed her, too,” she says, looking around almost skittishly. “I just…I’m sorry, but I have to go. I wanted to pay my respects, but I need to get back on the road.”
“All right. Take care of yourself.”
“She seems different,” Garth comments as they watch Sharon scurry toward the door as though she can’t wait to escape.
“She’s devastated. Like everyone else. No one will be the same after this.”
Brynn swallows a lump of grief-laced nausea as she looks at the coffee, knowing she’s not going to drink it. The smell alone is making her even sicker than she already felt. She’ll hang on to the cup for a bit, then set it down when Garth isn’t looking.
“Maybe we should call home and check on the boys,” she suggests. “Do you have your cell phone?”
“I do, but I’m sure they’re fine. You know they’re in good hands.”
Her father and Sue are here in town. They came right away, without having to be asked, and will be staying through tomorrow morning.
Having them around the last few days has been a mixed blessing. They’ve kept the boys occupied and shielded them from the horror of their Auntie Fee’s death. But Brynn keeps catching her stepmother watching her knowingly, making her all too aware that she has yet to tell Garth about the baby.
Several times these last few days, she’s come close to spilling it.
But she can’t bring herself to do it. Not in the midst of all this sorrow.
And not with this unsettling new strain between them. It isn’t that he’s pulled away physically. On the contrary, he’s spent a lot of time at home, most of it just looking at Brynn. It’s almost as though he wants to say something but can’t bring himself to do it. She’ll be going about her business, feel the weight of his gaze, and find him staring.
Is he going to tell her that he wants to leave her?
Instinctively, she doesn’t think so.
He’s even been spending nights in their bed again, not just to make love but holding her close all night the way he used to when they were first married, before the boys.
But Garth’s presence in the master bedroom isn’t necessarily meaningful. It’s probably just because her father and Sue are out in the living room, sleeping on the air mattress they brought.
Maybe Garth is waiting for things to die down before he tells her that he can’t stay married to a woman who has kept something so darkly significant from him for all these years.
Or maybe he’s just terrified that something is going to happen to me.
I know I am.
Her husband’s voice startles her out of her grim reverie.
“You know, I swear, every time I catch sight of her, I get chills.”
Brynn looks up to see Garth staring at Fiona’s twin sister, Deirdre, who is sitting with Ashley on the steps to the right of the stage. They aren’t talking, just sitting together bleakly, Deirdre chewing on what looks like a wooden coffee stirrer.
Pat is nearby, conversing quietly with a couple of lawyers from the firm where he works as a paralegal. He keeps shooting worried, sidewise glances toward his daughter, though.
Ashley isn’t doing so well. She’s been staying at Pat’s apartment. He told Brynn she’s been crying incessantly, and waking up screaming every night. Nightmares are to be expected after what the poor child has been through. Pat is looking into getting Ashley into therapy. He’s also talking about moving into a bigger place with her.
“Would you live in Fee’s house?” Brynn asked him, thinking of how much that notion would have bothered her friend.
But Pat shook his head. “Ashley doesn’t ever want to go back there after what happened, and I don’t blame her.”
Nor does Brynn. After what she herself witnessed under that roof, she can’t imagine ever crossing the threshold again without picturing Fiona’s desecrated corpse.
“Come on,” Brynn tells Garth now, eager to rid herself of the haunting, grisly image. “Let’s go over and see Ashley. I want to talk to Deirdre. I haven’t really had a chance to yet.”
She merely gave Fee’s twin sister a sobbing hug when they first saw each other at church. Sitting behind Deirdre during the mass, Brynn, like Garth, was repeatedly struck by the haunting resemblance to her dead friend.
Now, as Deirdre looks up when she and Garth approach, Brynn finds herself cloaked in goose bumps.
It’s almost as though Fiona has come back to life.
The facial features are the same, though Deirdre’s hair is worn loose, hanging down her back, as opposed to Fiona’s always-constrained chignon. She’s wearing a flowing black dress that would never have a place in the tailored wardrobe her sister favored. And she’s got a coffee stirrer in her hand, not a cigarette—though she’s holding it like one.
The starkest difference, though, is the absence of Fee’s omnipresent crackling nervous energy.
Deirdre is positively bereft, her body almost limp as Brynn gives her another hug.
“How are you holding up?” Stupid question, Brynn thinks immediately, and one with an obvious answer.
/>
She hates herself for resorting to common funeral fodder, but she can’t help it. She, too, is utterly depleted.
First Tildy, and now Fiona. It’s too much.
And then there’s Cassie. Brynn e-mailed her the terrible news, though she figures that unless Cassie is on a remote island somewhere without access to television, radio, or newspapers, she’s already heard.
There’s been no reply.
The silence is ominous.
Brynn is beginning to wonder if she’s the only one—of the five girls who were up at the Prom that night—who is still alive.
But she’s well aware that the clock is still ticking.
Deirdre is saying sadly, “I was telling Ashley earlier that her mother and I used to jump off this stage when we were kids, holding umbrellas, pretending we were Mary Poppins. It was our favorite movie.”
“I’ve never seen it. But Aunt Deirdre is going to get it for me and we’re going to watch it.”
“That sounds like fun.” Brynn musters a smile for Ashley, and notices that Garth has stepped away to greet one of the other professors from Stonebridge.
It’s the first time he’s left her side all day, but he’s keeping a watchful eye on her even now.
“I still can’t believe it,” Deirdre is saying, shaking her head and unwrapping a stick of gum. “What a shock.”
“Where are you staying while you’re in town, Deirdre? With your parents?”
“Are you kidding?” She folds the gum into her mouth. “At a hotel.”
“Have you spoken to them?”
“They tried. I just…I can’t.” She shrugs, clearly guarded in front of Ashley. She rakes a hand through her hair and shakes her head at Brynn, as though wishing she could say more.
“Which hotel are you staying in?” Brynn asks Deirdre, even as she’s suddenly struck by a thought so preposterous she tries to push it right back out of her head.
“Up at Cedar Ridge Inn.”
“Why don’t we get together and catch up?” Brynn suggests. “Maybe I’ll come up and see you there later.”
“That would be so good, Brynn. I have so many questions about what’s been going on.”
Don't Scream Page 36