All the Way Home (29 page)

I can’t take any chances.

No. It wouldn’t be worth it.

I’d better wait.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

O
n Monday morning, a uniformed police detective shows up at the Connollys’ front door shortly after Maura and Sister Theodosia have left for daily mass.

It’s Rory who opens it to see him standing there, and the first thought that runs through her mind is that something has happened to someone. Mom was in an accident on the way to church, or Kevin has been injured in Europe—

“Are you Molly Connolly?” the officer asks doubtfully.

She shakes her head, careful not to slosh the coffee in the full, steaming mug she’d just poured herself in the kitchen. “I’m Rory. Her older sister.”

“I’m Detective Mullen from the Lake Charlotte police. I need to ask your sister some questions. Is she here?”

This is about Rebecca’s disappearance. They want to ask if Molly knows anything. God, I hate to put her through that.

She remembers the hot summer morning ten years ago when she was questioned by Detective Doug McShane about her sister’s disappearance.

“Did Carleen mention anything to you about running away, Rory?”

Of course she did,
Rory had thought.
Carleen told anyone
who would listen that she was dying to get out of here. But she didn’t run away. I know she didn’t.

To Doug McShane, she’d simply said,
“No, she didn’t.”

“Do you know if your sister had any enemies, Rory? Anyone she mentioned having problems with recently?”

Definitely. My father. And Sister Theodosia, this nun friend of my mother’s who’s been underfoot all summer. And, me. My sister can’t stand me.

“No, Officer McShane, she didn’t have any enemies that I know of.”

“Rory, did your sister ever mention dating anyone special? Did she have any boyfriends that your parents might not have known about?”

You’d better believe she did. She had tons of boyfriends. She liked older guys. And she sure as hell wouldn’t have told my parents about any of them. She was always sneaking around with guys she shouldn’t be with.

“My sister had boyfriends, Officer McShane, but I didn’t know their names.”

Then, a few weeks later, Doug McShane was back, asking Rory whether Emily Anghardt had mentioned running away, or had any enemies, or had a boyfriend . . .

Endless questions, and Rory had known somehow that they weren’t going to lead anywhere, known that there was no way she had information that was going to solve the mystery
.
She was as mystified as anyone else about what had happened to her sister and her best friend and those other girls.

But as Doug McShane questioned her, she found herself feeling guilty, and filled with renewed anguish, as though there was something she should have known so that she could have stopped these horrible things from happening to her sister and Emily; as though there was something she should be able to tell the police so they could march right out and know where to find them.

She doesn’t want Molly to go through that. God, no. She doesn’t want Molly to suffer any more emotional trauma than she already has.

Rory looks at Detective Mullen standing on her front porch, at his crisp uniform and his gun holster and his no-nonsense expression, and she says firmly, “Molly is here, but she’s still upstairs sleeping.”

“Would you mind waking her?” the officer asks, and it’s more of a command than a request.

Rory had checked on her sister on her way downstairs a short time ago. She’d knocked on Molly’s closed door but there was no answer, and after a moment’s panic, remembering that Rebecca had vanished from her bedroom, just as Carleen had, Rory had opened the door and peeked in.

Thankfully, Molly was there, sound asleep, looking so peaceful that for a moment Rory had stood there remembering what she was like as a tiny girl—so sweet, so helpless, an innocent victim of the dark secret they had all been forced to keep.

“Actually, I would mind,” Rory says, folding her arms across her chest and looking him in the eye. “My sister had an exhausting day yesterday, and she needs to rest.”

“Listen, Ms. Connolly, I’m sure you know what this is about. And I don’t need to tell you that your neighbors, the Wasners, are beside themselves over the disappearance of Rebecca. They’ve told us that Molly was her best friend. She might know something that can help us to find her.”

“I doubt that,” Rory mutters. “When she wakes up, I’ll have her—”

“Please wake her up, Ms. Connolly.”

She stares at the man for a long moment, and then, realizing he’s not going to budge, sighs and says, “Fine. I’ll wake her up. But I can guarantee that when I tell her why, it’s going to be a while before she pulls herself together and comes down to talk to you.”

“I’ll wait.”

“I figured.” She turns away from the door and starts up the stairs.

“D
ig, Mommy? Dig in dirt?”

Michelle glances at Ozzie, notices that his Winnie the Pooh video has ended and automatically started rewinding. She shifts her feet on the padded footstool, trying to find a comfortable position, and takes another sip of her decaffeinated tea before saying, “Ozzie, we’re not going to go outside and dig this morning. Mommy needs to rest.”

“But Mommy, you already rested.”

No kidding. Any more rest and I’m going to go stir crazy,
Michelle thinks grumpily.

Still, she had promised Lou, before he left for the office, that she would try her best to do nothing but take it easy all day.

“Just turn on the TV for Ozzie and let him watch videos all day,” he’d said when she pointed out that caring for a toddler isn’t very restful. “Or get Molly to come over and help you for a few hours.”

But Molly had looked so wan and exhausted when they arrived home last night that Michelle hated to do that to her. Poor kid just found out her best friend is missing, and she was nice enough to bail Michelle and Lou out yesterday so they could go to the hospital. No, Michelle can’t ask her to come over and baby-sit again so soon.

Besides, she doesn’t feel like resting, no matter what Lou and the doctor say. After all, she slept ten hours last night, waking only to scurry to the bathroom every hour or so, and, for a change, falling immediately back into a deep sleep whenever she climbed back into bed. When she got up this morning, she was surprised to feel more energetic than she had in days.

In fact, she actually wouldn’t mind getting outside with Ozzie for some fresh air this morning. It would do them both some good. She hates to plunk him in front of the television for hours on end. She’ll be doing enough of that when the baby comes, especially if she has to have a C-section.

The baby’s breech position and the prospect of facing major surgery are thoughts she doesn’t particularly want to entertain right now. Nor does she want to brood about the state of her marriage. Things seemed better this morning, after she and Lou had both gotten a good night’s sleep, but their relationship is far from rosy. Either the stress is getting to them both, or he really is having an affair.

Or, she amends, maybe keeping some equally devastating secret that’s putting distance between them. She remembers what he said about the financial pressure and how he’s being forced to work such long hours. She actually finds herself wondering if it’s possible that Lou has some secret vice that’s been eating away at their money—maybe a drug problem, or maybe he’s a compulsive gambler like his stepfather Murray was.

Right. That’s totally realistic. He’s shooting up or flying to Atlantic City when I’m not looking.

She shakes her head, deciding she has way too much time to sit around and think crazy thoughts. Besides, if she hadn’t long ago left all their finances up to him, she would know exactly what’s going on.

But no, she was always content to let him balance the checkbook and pay the bills and make investments. She never bothered herself with details like that, not having the slightest interest in anything remotely mathematical. Even in school, she’d always gotten As in art and music and English, and Ds in math and science, figuring she’d never need to know that stuff anyway, since she was going to be a famous artist.

And now look at me.

No wonder Lou’s been impatient.

“Come on, Ozzie. Let’s go outside and dig,” she says abruptly, reaching for the remote control and clicking the television off.

“Yay!” Ozzie claps his hands together and races out of the room.

She hoists herself out of the chair, jams her swollen feet into a pair of sandals—open-toed shoes are the only ones that fit—and shuffles to the kitchen. She finds Ozzie waiting impatiently by the back door, holding his little orange shovel.

“Know what?” she asks him, seized by a sudden impulse. “Those berries must be perfect by now. I’m going to pick a huge batch of them and make a raspberry pie. That’ll be a nice surprise for Daddy when he comes home tonight.”

“Pie,” Ozzie echoes agreeably.

Lou had always loved her mother’s raspberry pie, invariably served warm, with vanilla Häagen-Dazs. He had loved the way Joy Panati pampered him while they were living with her, taking care of him in a way his own mother never had. Michelle remembers how she had promised herself back then, sitting at her mother’s kitchen table watching Lou heap praise on Joy’s cooking, that she would always remember to do nice little things for her husband, to compensate for his rough childhood and Iris’s lack of maternal nurturing.

When’s the last time you did anything for him?
she asks herself guiltily, as she rummages through the cupboard for a bowl big enough to hold a few quarts of raspberries.
You never cook dinner anymore. He eats takeout, if he gets to eat at all.

Her defenses kick in.

It’s summertime. It’s hot out. I’m huge and pregnant. And anyway, he’s never home for dinner.

Still, you should at least try. Try and pamper him a little. Maybe he really misses that. Maybe he needs it. Maybe it’ll get things back to normal between the two of you.

She finds a big stainless-steel bowl in the cupboard and tucks it under her arm, saying to Ozzie, who’s doing an impatient jitterbug by the back door, “Okay, okay, sweetie, Mommy’s ready now. Let’s go.”

They step out into the glorious morning and Michelle feels better instantly. The sky is the purest of blues, with a few fluffy clouds sailing high. The sun is dazzling, warm on her bare arms, but not uncomfortably hot as it was a few days ago. The air is almost crisp by comparison to the humidity that vanished with Saturday evening’s storm.

Ozzie races toward the dirt pile at the back of the yard, and Michelle follows as fast as she can, realizing she’s moving more quickly than she has in weeks. Is it the lack of humidity, or is she simply energized by the thought of making a pie for Lou, making things right between them?

Her son settles himself in the dirt, plopping right down with a toddler’s lack of concern for the little white denim shorts she thoughtlessly threw on him this morning.

“So I’ll use Shout on them,” she says aloud to herself, not willing to let anything stress her in the least.

Michelle goes past him to the tangle of berry shrubs climbing along the back of the property, separating their yard from the woods. She holds her bowl in one hand and lifts the nearest vine, careful not to let the thorns pinch her fingers as she inspects it for ripened berries
.
Remembering the abundant pale-pink buds she had noticed the other day, she knows that by now most of them will be a lush, deep red color, so ripe they’ll easily slip into her hands as she picks them.

What’s
going on?

Michelle stares at the clumps of stark yellowish nubs that had only days before been dotted with raspberries
.
She moves on to another branch, and then another. All that’s left are the bare stems, and a few hard greenish-pink berries that have yet to ripen.

Must be birds,
she tells herself.
Or deer. Or bugs.

But she knows that’s not the case. Birds peck at the fruits, fully ripe or not, leaving some half eaten, and deer devour the whole thing, stems and all. Bugs eat only the fleshy part, and chew holes in the leaves as well.

But birds or deer or bugs wouldn’t manage to eat every single ripe berry in the entire crop and leave the ones that aren’t yet fit for human consumption.

These briars have been picked clean with methodical precision.

Somebody has obviously been back here, eating them.

So?

It could have been Lou.