The Jennifer McMahon E-Book Bundle (128 page)

PART TWO

DAY ONE

Chapter 21

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Rockland, Vermont

L
OGARITHMIC SPIRAL
. T
HE SWIRLING
of tropical cyclones, a hawk circling its prey, spiral galaxies, the nautilus shell. Reggie drew spirals on paper, in her head, starting at the center, radiating out, growing. Reggie drew a spiral with a Sharpie, cut it out and glued it to the end of a pencil, twirling it, the pattern moving, hypnotic as she stared into the center. She studied the pattern, trying to put the perfect tiny mobile house inside it.

What did a person really need to live? Protection from the environment. Warmth. Food.

Add to this the ability to move—to pick up and go at a moment’s notice.

Follow your dreams.

Follow your heart.

Run.

Run as fast and as far as you can.

Sometimes I wonder if you remember things the way they really were.

Fuck.

She’d thrown herself into her work since returning to Vermont, doing her best to forget all about her mother and Monique’s Wish. Her home and office had always been her safe haven—the one place where she was in absolute control and nothing could touch her. And now she’d come back there like a dog with its tail between its legs.

Fucking coward.

She’d picked up the phone a hundred times to call since she ran off Sunday, to try to explain herself, but she never had the guts to actually dial. Reggie hated feeling powerless. She was used to being in control, knowing what to do in every situation. But she’d run away like a child and now she couldn’t shake that little-girl feeling of uncertainty. It permeated everything, made her unable to focus.

What kind of daughter leaves her dying mother like that?

“They’re better off without me,” she told herself out loud, thinking of her mother lying naked on the bed, calling Tara an angel while she sprinkled powder over Vera’s shriveled skin.

And if they wanted her, if they needed her in any way, they knew where to find her. She’d half expected George to call and apologize for being so hard on her, to beg her to come back. Or Tara to say,
I thought we had a deal—no more weird shit
.

But the phone didn’t ring.

Reggie looked into the center of the spiral, trying to calm her mind.
Focus, damn it
.
Your work has always been the one thing you can get lost inside, the thing that saves you time and time again.

But it was no good.

She glanced up, looked at the astrology chart Len had made, which was pinned to the bulletin board above her desk. She saw the little blue trident, Neptune in the twelfth house.

“It’s what makes you so intuitive,” Len had told her. “It’s also why you’re so tormented.”

Reggie’s skin prickled. She looked across her desk, her eye going to the coffee cup she used to hold her tools. She touched the handle of the X-Acto knife, then pulled her fingers away.

Restless, she left the office, changed, and went for a run—her usual five-mile loop around the lake. But even this wasn’t right. She couldn’t get into her running groove. She struggled, pushed herself too hard on the hills, muscles screaming, shaking, until finally she had to slow to a jog. “Goddamn it,” she hissed. Feeling pissed off and defeated, she headed for home, relieved to see Len’s truck in the driveway.

“You’re home,” he said, eyes gray and steely.

He was wearing paint-splattered Carhartts and a denim work shirt. His hair, black with streaks of silver, had that just-got-out-of-bed look Reggie loved. She stepped closer to him. He smelled like turpentine and marijuana.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’ve just been working too hard. Trying to get a handle on this new project. Come on in,” she said, unlocking the door.

Len followed her into the kitchen. Reggie got herself a drink of water and gulped it down.

“How was Worcester?” Len asked.

“Draining,” Reggie said, wiping the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve. “It turned out there wasn’t much I could do there, so I came back.” She set down her water glass and walked toward him, thinking that sex with Len might be just what she needed to break this rotten spell she’d been under.

“That’s too bad,” Len said, a strange stiffness in his voice. “When did you get back?”

“Sunday night,” she admitted. “I really am sorry I didn’t call. My head wasn’t on straight after my trip and I just wanted to make some headway with the Nautilus house. You know how I hate being stuck with a project.” She leaned forward and touched his chest, running her fingers up to his throat, along the side of his face where they scratched against the stubble.

“Reggie,” he said quietly, “I know where you were. I know what happened.”

“What?” She jerked her hand away.

“We get the news up here, too, remember? Did you really think I wouldn’t find out? Christ, I saw the picture of you and your mom. It’s a huge headline, Reg, Neptune’s final victim showing up after all these years. Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice sounded slightly strangled, the way it did when he was trying to keep his temper under control.

“Oh shit.” She sighed. “I . . . I really don’t know.”

“Right,” he said disgustedly.

“Maybe you were right,” Reggie said. “Maybe it’s because my sun and moon are at war with each other, and having Neptune in the twelfth house makes me prone to self-inflicted isolation?” She gave him a hopeful look.

“You don’t believe in any of that,” Len said, “and even if you did, having some hard shit in your chart is no excuse for treating the people who love you like crap.”

It was like being slapped in the face. “When have I ever treated you like crap?”

“You lied to me, Reggie. If I really mattered to you, you would have told me about your mother.”

“Of course you matter to me! Jesus, Len, how could you say that?” Her heart hammered its way up into her throat, the words
I’m sorry
getting stuck there until she swallowed them back down.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he said in a dull voice, backing away slowly, like his legs were extra heavy. He walked out of the house, closing the door behind him gently.

Reggie felt frozen, numb, the sweat on her body giving her cold chills. What the hell had just happened? “Len?” she called after him. “Len, wait!”

His truck started in the driveway, the sound of the engine jolting her to action. She ran across the room, threw open the door, and got outside just in time to see his taillights pulling away.

“Len!” she yelled after him, but he did not slow. “Shit!” she yelped again, hitting her open palm against the door frame. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” She hit the wood again and again until her hand was red and aching.

What you need,
she heard a little voice tell her,
is something sharp
.

Inside the house, her phone was ringing.

She hurried back into the kitchen to answer, suddenly worried that it might be Lorraine with news about Vera:
Your mother took a sudden turn for the worse and you weren’t here.
Or maybe, just maybe, it would be Neptune
: I gave her back to you and you ran away like a spineless, heartless little girl.

“Hello?” Reggie said, nearly breathless, her throbbing hand wrapped tight around the phone.

“Regina?”

Reggie felt a lump in her throat. It was Lorraine. Reggie held her breath, waiting, trying to brace herself for the worst.

Lorraine was silent.

“Is Mom okay? Has something happened?” Reggie asked.

Reggie could hear her aunt breathing, panting almost, her breath ragged and desperate-sounding.

“He’s back,” Lorraine said at last. “Neptune. He left another hand on the steps of the police station this morning.”

“What?” It didn’t make sense. It had been twenty-five years.

“It’s Tara,” Lorraine whispered. “He’s got Tara this time.”

Chapter 22

June 20, 1985

Brighton Falls, Connecticut

R
EGGIE HAD ONLY BEEN
inside the police station twice before. Once, shortly after losing her ear to the dog, Lorraine had deposited her on a bench just inside the entryway with a
Josie and the Pussycats
coloring book and a Baggie of broken and wrapper-less crayons. When Lorraine returned, Vera was with her, staggering a little, her makeup smeared.

“Idiot cops,” Vera spat. “I’m going to sue them for police brutality. They had no right to even pull me over. If they think for one goddamn minute—”

Lorraine silenced her with one deadly look.

They all went back to Monique’s Wish, no one saying another word, and Vera was gone the next morning before breakfast.

The last time was on a class trip in second grade, which Reggie had done her best to forget about. But now, smelling the floor wax and hearing the hum of police radios and voices, it came back like a kick in the stomach.

She remembered the officer giving the tour had a sweet face that reminded her of John-Boy Walton. When he’d asked who was brave enough to get locked inside the holding cell while their teacher took the rest of the class to the dispatch room, Reggie’s hand shot up, eager to prove herself. He had locked her and four other classmates behind bars. There was a wooden bench bolted to the wall, a sink, and a metal toilet with no seat. The walls were painted white cinder block. The place smelled so strongly of ammonia that the back of Reggie’s throat burned. Then John-Boy had disappeared, jiggling the keys happily. Several minutes went by. The children called out to the officer, who didn’t return. Reggie had to pee terribly but was unwilling to sit on the seatless toilet in front of the other kids.

At first, it was fun. They rattled the bars, talked about how they’d break out, teased each other about what kind of crimes had been committed by the bad guys who’d been held there. But the mood began to change, and a scared silence had descended upon the five of them. Finally, one of the boys said in a hollow voice, “He’s not coming back. Is he?”

Panic swept through Reggie’s body, clenching every muscle, and her bladder let go, the warmth spreading down the front of her jeans.

The squeals of laughter and disgust from her classmates—“You shoulda worn your diaper!” Becky Shelley cawed—finally brought the officer back. He was smiling cockily as he unlocked the cage.

“Didn’t think I forgot you, did ya?” he asked.

When he saw Reggie’s wet jeans and the puddle on the floor, he’d frowned and shook his head.

“Jesus,” he muttered and called for the teacher.

A
S
R
EGGIE STOOD AT
the front desk between Tara and Charlie, her face reddened with that old sense of shame. She had wrapped up her ankle in an Ace bandage, dressed in a clean white button-down and tan chinos, thinking that might help the police take her seriously. She made herself stand tall. She was no accident-prone little kid anymore.

Going to the police station had been Tara’s idea. She’d called Charlie, then told Tara’s mother they were going to hang out and do some shopping, and could she give them a ride downtown? Lorraine was nowhere to be found. As soon as Tara’s mom pulled away, they crossed the street and helped Reggie hobble up the steps of the police station. Two uniformed cops were standing guard outside, watching over the stairs. The left side of the granite steps had been closed off by yellow crime scene tape, and Reggie stared, picturing the milk carton with her mother’s hand inside.

They’d had to weave around the knot of reporters and television crews who stood in the front hall, anxiously waiting for an update. Reggie heard one of them say, “It won’t take them long to find who it belongs to. Not many ladies have hands all scarred up like that.”

“We need to see my dad,” Charlie told the desk sergeant once they pushed their way through to the sliding window below a sign: all visitors stop here.

“He’s busy, son,” the desk sergeant said. He was a uniformed cop with a ruddy face, small eyes, and a strange patch of pale skin on his cheek. A burn, Reggie decided. Reggie considered herself a connoisseur of scars.

“It’s important, Sergeant Stokes,” Charlie said, lowering his voice. “We’ve got information about the hand.”

Stokes squinted at Charlie. “What kind of information?”

Charlie gave Reggie a gentle tap on the shoulder. “Go ahead. Tell him.”

Reggie glanced back over her shoulder to make sure there were no reporters listening. They were all still standing in a tight mass by the front doors, being held back by an officer who was promising another press conference soon.

Reggie cleared her throat. “I know who she is. The scars are mostly between the thumb and index finger, right? They’re from a dog bite.”

The desk sergeant studied the three kids a minute, then turned, picked up the phone, and mumbled into it. A minute later, a side door opened and Stu Berr appeared. He’d always been a heavyset man, but Reggie could see he’d put on weight since she’d last seen him. His navy blue suit jacket was buttoned but straining around the middle. His face was ruddy and bloated, his eyes small and bloodshot with dark circles under them. He had a mustache and hair that was starting to go gray.

“Detective Berr!” one of the reporters shouted, pushing past the uniformed cop in the hall and coming their way. “Do you know who the hand belongs to?”

Stu gave him a disgusted look. “If you can’t stay back in the area reserved for the press, I’ll have you escorted from the building.”

“But the hand—the scars—”

“Officer MacMillan,” Stu called to the uniformed cop, “please see that this gentleman is removed from the station.” He watched the reporter leave through the double doors, then turned to face them.

“Hello, Charlie,” he said. He studied Reggie a minute, blinking. “Regina? Good to see you again.” Then his eyes moved to Tara and seemed to narrow. “Hello, Tara,” he said.

Tara stuck out her hand. “Nice to see you again,” she said, voice chipper and bright. He shook her hand with a puzzled and wary look. Tara pumped his hand up and down, her whole body bouncing like she had a giant spring inside her.