Look Again (24 page)

Chapter Seventy-five

It was Carol Braverman, standing in a long black coat, a quilted purse slung over an arm. Her hair was slicked back in a chignon, her eyes glittered with emotion, and her mouth made a glossy line. She asked, "Ellen Gleeson?"

Ellen nodded, stunned as Carol entered the house and began looking around the living room.

"I'm Carol Braverman, but you knew that already." Carol turned on her heel, the coat making a chic swish. She looked at Ellen with determined blue eyes. "You adopted my son."

"What? I'm sorry?" Ellen struggled to react. A million thoughts flooded her head. She couldn't process any of them fast enough.

"I came as soon as I had it verified. He's my son Timothy. He was kidnapped in Miami right after his first birthday."

"I don't know what you mean," Ellen said, beginning to think clearly. Will was in the kitchen under a gun. Moore could hear every word through the other entrance to the kitchen, over the landing. She had to get Carol out of here. One distraught mother was enough. Carol was a variable she couldn't predict right now.

"Sorry, but I think you do." Carol's eyes softened slightly. "I can only imagine what you must be going through, and I feel sorry for you, I really do. But we both know the truth. You have my baby, and I want him back."

"No, I don't." Ellen stepped toward her, leaving the front door open, filling the room with frigid air. "Please, leave my house."

"You have my son, don't pretend you don't know. You were in Miami two days ago."

"No, you're wrong." Ellen's mouth went dry. How did Carol know? No matter, a plan was coming together in her mind. She wasn't tied up anymore. As soon as she got Carol out of the house, she'd be free to move. She said, "I don't know what you're talking about. Leave my house, right now."

"Let me explain." Carol put up a hand. "A reporter who works with you called me at home and told me everything. Sarah Liu is her name. She told me about you and the boy you call W."

Ellen felt it like an electric shock. Sarah had called the Bravermans? How? Why?

"She caught you on our website, printing out my son's picture. She called your house and verified that you were out of town. She figured out you'd come to Miami." Carol paused, cocking her head. "Why did you? Did you want to check us out?"

Ellen's mind reeled, then she fought to recover. She had to save W. Moore would be waiting, the gun to her son's head.

"Sarah claimed the reward, of course." Carol smiled in gentle triumph, her diamond earrings flashing. "It's a million dollars, life-changing money. That's why we set it so high. We knew that sooner or later it would bring somebody out of the woodwork, and it did."

"This is insane. Get out."

"I Googled you online, I found the articles you wrote about him. I know you didn't know he was kidnapped, but that's not my problem. He's mine, and I want him." Carol's tone turned indignant. "My husband's on the way. His plane was delayed in the snow, and I didn't want to wait."

Ellen almost spiraled into an emotional stall. She used to think this was her worst nightmare, but now she knew better. Her worst nightmare was in her own kitchen. She had to get Carol out of here. Suddenly a noise came from the stairwell, and they both turned. Oreo Figaro appeared on the stair landing, where he stopped and sat down with a yawn, curling his inky tail around him.

"Where is Timothy?" Carol demanded. "I demand to see him."

"He's not Timothy, he's my son, and he's at a sleepover."

"A three-year-old, at a sleepover?" Carol moved toward the stairway, but Ellen shifted over and blocked her way.

"Stop right there. You have no right to walk around my house." She raised her voice to regain some authority. If Carol took one step closer to the stairway, she'd be able to see the kitchen from its other entrance. She'd smell the gasoline, and they'd all end up dead. Ellen put a firm hand on Carol's coat sleeve. "Get out, right now!"

"I thought we could do this without the police, but maybe not. You have my son, and I won't leave here without him." Carol tried to wrench her arm free, but Ellen held on to it with all her might. She was trying to save Carol's life, but the woman was endangering the son they both loved.

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know he's mine, and I'm appealing to you, mother to mother." Carol's eyes filled with sudden wetness. "I held out hope, all this time, I knew he'd turn up. I knew he was alive. I could feel him."

"Get the hell out!" Ellen fought a rising panic. She could imagine Moore listening. They were running out of time. She could stand losing Will to Carol, but she couldn't stand Will leaving this earth, not while she drew breath.

"We hired a detective, and he confirmed everything Sarah said, including your plane ticket down and back."

"Go!" Ellen shoved her to the threshold, but Carol shoved back, her expression fierce.

"I'm not going!" She braced herself in the threshold, rooted as a tree. "I've waited two years to see him and that's long enough. I'll stand on your porch all night if I have to. I want my son!"

"He's not here!" Ellen shouted, loud enough for Moore to hear. "Go! NOW!"

"Call the police then." Carol folded her arms. "But you won't do that, will you? Because you know that you're keeping my child."

"Get OUT!" Ellen shouted louder, fighting a wild impulse to run to the kitchen, grab Will, and go like hell, but Carol's eyes narrowed with a new suspicion.

"Your eyes just moved. You just looked somewhere in back, behind you. He's back there, isn't he?"

"No, I didn't."

"I know he's here!" Suddenly Carol hit Ellen in the face, and she reeled backwards, off-balance, recovering too late.

"No, stop!"

"Timothy!" Carol broke free and bolted for the dining room.

"NO! STOP! WAIT!" Ellen chased her, took a desperate flying leap, and caught Carol by the hem of her long coat. The two women fell to the dining room floor, sliding on the hardwood and knocking into the dining room chairs like bowling pins.

"I want my son!" Carol screamed, as the two mothers wrestled on the dining room floor, bumping the chairs aside.

"NO!" Ellen struggled with all her might to pin Carol to the floor and had almost succeeded when they both heard the sound of raucous laughter.

"What was that?" Carol asked, her back on the floor.

Ellen felt her heart stop with fear, and she twisted behind her.

Rob Moore stood over them, his legs spread like a commando. He aimed his gun down at them. "Girl-on-girl action," he said.

"You!" Carol said, hushed, and Moore smiled slyly.

"Carol? Long time, no see."

Chapter Seventy-six

"Let's get this party started." Moore gestured toward the kitchen with the muzzle of his revolver. "In the kitchen, ladies."

"I could kill you!" Carol shot back, scrambling to prop herself up on an elbow. "You kidnapped my baby!"

"Boo hoo, princess." Moore snorted.

"I got you the money, and you were supposed to give the baby back! That was the deal. You were never supposed to keep the baby. Never!"

"The deal changed."

Ellen looked from Moore to Carol, dumbfounded. They had a deal? She straightened into a sitting position, incredulous. Meanwhile she wracked her brain for a way to save W. She had to get him out of this alive.

"Why did you do it, why?" Carol cried. "All you had to do was give him back to me. You got your money."

"My girlfriend wanted him. She was always sayin' she couldn't have a baby, and when I tol" her no, she split with him."

Ellen needed to stall, to give herself time to think. "Was that Amy? Was Amy Martin your girlfriend?"

"Yeah. The dumb bitch."

"You killed Amy?"

"Duh," Moore answered.

"And the lawyer, too? Karen Batz?"

"Sure."

"But why? Did she know?"

"I wasn't leavin' a loose end. If she figured it out, she woulda squawked. Carol woulda had the best lawyers money could buy, and I woulda gone to the joint."

"You bastard!" Carol's gaze bored into him. "That was my baby! I thought about him every minute! You ruined my life!"

"You ruined your own life, you brat. You went through your money like water."

"This isn't about me, it's about you. You told me you'd give the baby back. You lied! You took him!"

Ellen kept thinking about how to save W. Sooner or later, she'd get an opening.

"Do you know what you did?" Carol scrambled to stand up, and Oreo Figaro walked into the dining room. "You almost killed my husband. You ruined my marriage."

"You shoulda told him the truth, then. You shoulda said to him, "Honey, wifey-poo isn't the good girl you think." I used our kid to pay for my little hobby.""

"She used her kid?" Ellen said, stalling. "She did it?"

"Yeah, it was all her idea." Moore sneered. "You didn't think that, did you? You didn't figure that out. Little Miss Goody-Goody here, she gambled up all her money, so she needed to tap her kid's."

"Shut up!" Carol shouted, but Moore ignored her.

"She knew me from the casino, Miccosukee. I was parkin' cars for rich bitches, and she hired me to kidnap her kid. She got the ransom from the kid's trust fund. She told me the nanny would be there and—"

"Stop it, stop it!" Carol shouted louder, startling Oreo Figaro, who ran under the dining room table. "You weren't supposed to kill her. You weren't supposed to keep the baby!"

"Enough!" Moore gestured with the gun, his gaze shifting toward the kitchen. "You wanna see your son? He's in there."

"He is?" Carol's face flooded with happiness. She rushed to the kitchen, and the sudden movement sent Oreo Figaro scooting to Ellen.

Just then a lethal glimmer flickered through Moore's eyes. Ellen didn't have time to think, only to act.

And everything happened at once.

Chapter Seventy-seven

Carol reached the kitchen threshold and saw Will, lying on the floor. "My baby!" she cried.

Moore raised the gun and aimed it at the back of Carol's head.

Ellen scooped Oreo Figaro off the floor and threw him right at Moore's face.

"Reowwh!" The fat cat screeched in protest, his thick body twisting this way and that, and the surprise knocked Moore off-balance. He raised his hands and fell backwards. The gun fired into the ceiling. Oreo Figaro fell to the floor, righting himself and scampering off.

Ellen launched herself like a missile, aiming for Moore's gun. She barreled into him, and he staggered backwards into the kitchen. She grabbed the gun with all her might and struggled to wrest it from his grip.

"Get offa me!" Moore howled. He held on to the gun, whipped Ellen around, and slammed her into the doorway. Her head banged against the wood but she hung on to his wrist, fighting for the gun even as he pointed its muzzle at Carol, who had picked up Will and was taking him out the other doorway.

"RUN!" Ellen screamed.

"Shut up!" Moore threw her against the stove, shaking her hand loose and training the gun on Carol.

Carol looked over her shoulder, and in one motion, put Will on the landing behind her, blocked him with her body, and raised her arms protectively, facing Moore. She shouted, "Don't you dare hurt my son!"

Moore squeezed the trigger, firing point-blank, and Ellen screamed in horror.

Carol's chest exploded in wool tatters. Her mouth dropped open. Her head snapped forward. She dropped onto the kitchen floor, crumpling at the knees, her legs grotesquely askew.

"NO!" Ellen hurled herself at Moore, but this time, in her hand was the cast-iron burner from her stovetop. She swung the burner as hard as she could into Moore's face. The spiked end speared his forehead, and a gaping hole appeared. In the next second, it spurted a gruesome freshet of bright red blood. Moore's eyes flew open, and he slumped against the wall, then slid down, insensate.

Ellen heard herself shouting something, but even she didn't know what she said. The gun fell to the floor, and she picked it up and aimed it at Moore as he landed in a sitting position. She pointed the gun at him, not knowing whether to shoot him or save him. A crooked grin crossed his face before his eyes cut away and his gaze fixed.

Ellen hurried over to Carol, picking her up with care and feeling under her chin for a pulse. There was none. Blood soaked her coat from the hole in her chest, right over her heart.

Ellen leaned Carol back down on the floor, bent over her and listened for breath. No sound. She opened Carol's mouth and began to breathe air into her, but it was too late for CPR. She tried anyway, but it was no use. Carol's head fell back, too loose on her neck, her mouth hanging open, and Ellen heard herself moan, stricken. She set her down on the floor carefully, saying a silent prayer.

W.

Ellen half crawled, half stumbled to the landing, where Will lay bundled, sobbing. His terrified eyes met hers, so much like Carol's that for a minute, it gave her a start. She picked him up and hurried out of the kitchen with him, shielding him from the grisly scene and telling him everything was going to be all right. She hurried him into the living room and sat with him on the couch, putting him on her lap and comforting him as she unpeeled the duct tape from his mouth. She started slowly, but he cried even harder, his nose bubbling.

"Hold on, sweetie, it'll only hurt for a second." She yanked off the duct tape, letting it fall, and he erupted in the full-blown wail of a newborn.

"Mommy! Mommy! It hurts!"

"It's all over now, it's all over." Ellen kept talking to him, grabbing a Kleenex from the coffee table and wiping his nose. The tape had pulled some of the skin around his mouth off, leaving it irritated and sticky, and the adhesive made an ugly pattern around his lips.

"It hurts!"

"Here we go, it'll stop soon." Ellen dried his eyes with a new tissue, then tried to comfort him as she untaped his hands and feet, the stench of gasoline filling her nostrils. She was sliding him out of his wet snow-suit when she caught a glimpse of blood dripping behind his right ear.

God, no.

"It's okay now, honey," she said, but his tears kept flowing. She pulled a Kleenex from the box, held it to the wound, and flashed on Moore's big boot crushing Will's face in the same spot. She felt stricken, but masked her emotions. She didn't know if Will was bleeding internally, inside his ear or even behind his eye. He needed an ambulance. She pressed the tissue to his wound, hurried with him to the living room phone, and called 911 with Will crying in her arms.

"What is your emergency?" the dispatcher asked, and Ellen collected herself, composing a lead paragraph on the spot.

"An armed intruder broke into my house tonight. He tried to kill me and my son, and I killed him in self-defense." Ellen felt her throat catch. She couldn't believe her own words. She had never harmed another human being, much less killed one. "He shot and killed a woman named Carol Braverman. He also injured my son, who's three, and he's bleeding from behind his ear. I need an ambulance right away, and the police."

"You say there were two people killed?"

"Yes. Listen, I need an ambulance for my son. His head was' stepped on and it's bleeding. He's crying, and I'm worried."

"Mommy!" Will cried harder, and Ellen struggled to hear the dispatcher.

"Keep him awake, and the ambulance will be there right away. You can stay on the line until they get there."

"Mommy! Mommy!" Will cried, louder.

"No, that's okay. I'd rather take care of him. Just hurry, please, hurry!" Ellen hung up, hugged Will close, and rocked him a little like the old days until his tears finally slowed. She grabbed a few more Kleenex and cleaned him up, then got a fresh one for the wound behind his ear. "What hurts, honey? Tell me."

"My head!"

Please, God, no. "That's why we're going to the doctor, so he can fix it."

"Dr. Chodoff?"

"No, a special doctor."

"I want Dr. Chodoff!" Will sobbed.

"Let's get your coat," Ellen said, narrating her actions to calm them both as she walked to the closet, took his corduroy hoodie from a hook, and sat back down on the couch with him, slipping his arms into the puffy sleeves, getting him ready. His sneakers reeked of gasoline, so she took them off.

"Stinky shoes, huh?" Ellen asked, as part of the narration, and Will nodded, his small chest shuddering from his final sobs. She touched lightly behind his ear, and in the lamplight she could see a large cut on his scalp, bleeding. She prayed there wasn't a skull fracture and reached for another tissue, pressing it over the wound.

"Mommy, what?"

"You have a boo-boo behind your ear. We're going to take a ride to the doctor. We have to get you looked at."

"Who was that man?"

"In the kitchen? A very bad man. A terrible man, but he's not going to hurt you anymore."

"Did he hurt you, Mommy?"

"No, I'm okay. So are you. You're going to be fine after we see the doctor." Ellen cuddled him, and Will rubbed his eye with a balled-up fist.

"My head hurts."

"Stay awake, okay, honey?" Ellen jiggled him a little and talked to him about nothing, even as the bright red blood from his cut soaked Kleenex after Kleenex until they looked like the tissue-paper poppies he made in school. She hid them from his view until the bleeding finally slowed, which only worried her more. Oreo Figaro wandered in, sat down in front of the couch, and tucked his legs underneath him.

Will sniffled. "You hurt Oreo Figaro, Mommy."

"No, I didn't. I knew he'd be okay."

"You throwed him."

"I know." Ellen didn't correct his English. He could make all the grammar mistakes he wanted, from here on out.

"That wasn't nice."

"You're right." Ellen turned to Oreo Figaro. "I'm sorry, Oreo Figaro."

The cat signified his forgiveness by looking up and blinking, and he kept watch over them both until the police cruisers arrived, their red lights slashing the cozy living room with blood-red splotches, spattering the stenciled cows and country hearts.

"What is that, Mommy?" Will asked, twisting to see.

"It's the police, here to help us, buddy." Ellen rose and looked out the windows to the street, which had been transformed to a staging area. Police cruisers were parking out front, their exhausts billowing into the snowy air and their high beams slicing the dotted darkness. Uniformed cops sprang from the cars, black figures against the whiteness, running up her front walk to the porch.

"Here they come, Mommy."

"Right, here they come." Ellen crossed to the door as the cops hustled onto the porch, their shoes heavy as soldiers as they reached the front door.

They were coming to save W.

And to destroy the only life he knew.