The Last to Know (25 page)

Every time her mother-in-law brought up the murder, Tasha tried to shush her. “The kids don’t know,” she told her in a whisper more than once. “Please, Ruth—we don’t want to scare them.”

“You can’t hide this from them forever,” her mother-in-law said disapprovingly. “They’re going to find out somehow, if you don’t tell them.”

Unfortunately, Tasha knows she’s right. When Hunter goes back to school on Monday he’s bound to find out. But she isn’t ready to tell him yet about Rachel. Maybe she and Joel can do it together, before Joel leaves for Chicago.

She doesn’t want to think about that, though. She never likes to be alone in the house at night. How is she going to manage two nights alone—especially after what’s happened?

Don’t think about that now. You’re supposed to be having fun.

Tasha sighs, shuffling her feet through the loose carpet of fallen leaves. She’s been looking forward to this harvest festival for weeks. Now, with her in-laws tagging along and her best friend lying dead in the morgue, she only wants it to be over so that she can go back home—and barricade herself in the house.

The fear that took root at the first news of Jane Kendall’s disappearance has been growing, poking at the back of her mind all day. Now, it threatens to burgeon into full-fledged panic—but only if she lets it.

You can’t give in to it, Tasha. You can’t let it take over.

She glances at her mother-in-law. Ruth, with her short, dark hair sprayed into place and her attractive face expertly made-up, is chattering away to the children, swinging their arms as they walk.

Irv, his silver hair hidden beneath a cotton brimmed hat he always wears on visits up here “to the country,” is two steps behind his wife. His expression is bland, his gait unencumbered as he strolls along with his hands in the pockets of his neatly-pressed khakis.

Joel has shed that distracted appearance and is speaking intently to his father, no doubt about something dry, like the stock market or foreign affairs.

Isn’t anybody else thinking about the murder? Isn’t anybody else wondering who killed Rachel? And why? And how can something so utterly horrifying have happened in a place like this?

Tasha looks around, beyond the infuriatingly oblivious members of her own family.

The crowd on the town green is thinner at this year’s festival than it has been in the past. Is it because of the murder and disappearance?

Maybe it’s the weather
, Tasha tells herself, looking up at the overcast sky. The Weather Channel forecast predicts a big nor’easter moving up the coast into the area later tonight or tomorrow, as her mother-in-law keeps reminding her. Ruth is worried about driving home to Brooklyn in bad weather and has already informed Tasha and Joel that they’ll be leaving before dark.

Which is absolutely fine with Tasha, of course.

Anyway, it hasn’t started raining yet and isn’t supposed to until much later. Last year it drizzled on and off during the festival, and still there was a big crowd. Tasha specifically remembers it. Enormously pregnant, she was seized by a fierce craving for fried bread dough with cherry pie filling smeared on top. She was forced to wait on a long line at the concession stand, and when she finally had the coveted treat in her hand, someone jostled her arm and she dropped it.

Today, there are no lines and no crowds to jostle her.

In fact, the few dozen people milling about the commons seem subdued. Most of them are teenagers or men who are volunteers from the local civic club that runs the festival. There aren’t many families this year. There are a couple of reporters with camera crews, though, stopping passersby for man-on-the-street interviews.

Tasha passes a young mother standing by two toddlers in a double stroller and notices that she’s clinging tightly to her husband’s hand.

Another woman is seated on a nearby bench beneath the sweeping, dazzling foliage of a maple tree, bottle-feeding her baby. Her gaze meets Tasha’s and she realizes that the woman’s expression is wary, almost as if she’s ready to bolt and run if she has to.

But the killer would never strike here in public, in broad daylight. He would wait until he could find his victim alone. . . .

If he even is going to strike again. There’s no reason to think that he is.

But then, there’s also no reason to think that he isn’t.

And if he does
 
. . .

Tasha glances at the young mother feeding the baby.

At the young mother holding her husband’s hand.

At her own reflection in a puddle as she steps around it on the sidewalk.

If he does
 
. . .

Who’s going to be next?

I
t can’t be.

Concealed in the trees at the edge of the woods, Jeremiah gazes in disbelief at the sign in the clearing before him.

HIGH RIDGE PARK

All this time, he’s been going in circles.

He’s back in Townsend Heights.

Now what?

Where is he supposed to go from here? What is he supposed to do?

One thing is certain. Nothing could be worse than spending another night alone in the woods. Not even jail.

He wants to go home. To his own bed. To his father . . .

But after all that’s happened, that won’t happen. Dad will never understand.

Torn, Jeremiah stares at the sign.

As he does, an idea formulates in his mind. A brilliant idea.

Maybe he doesn’t have to go home just yet.

That is, not to Uncle Fletch’s house.

Maybe he doesn’t have to face whatever’s waiting there until he’s ready.

If he ever is.

There’s another place. Somewhere he can be safe.

Somewhere nobody will think of looking . . .

Or will they?

Maybe eventually. Or maybe they already have searched and dismissed it.

He’ll be taking a chance by going there, but what other option does he have? The woods. And night will be falling soon.

His mind made up, Jeremiah retreats from the clearing. He doesn’t dare make his way through the park, or through the streets of Townsend Heights. But now that he knows where he is, he knows how to get where he’s going through the woods. It’s a long, roundabout path, but if he takes it he’ll be able to skirt the park, the streets, and the neighborhoods until he gets to his destination. Maybe he’ll even reach it before dark.

But before he goes, there’s something he has to do.

Looking down at the bundle in his hands, he wishes he had a shovel.

Well, he’ll just have to make do.

The important thing is that he bury it where nobody will ever find it.

P
aula reaches the top of the steps outside her father’s room just in time to see a white-uniformed nurse come through the doorway into the second-floor hall.

She hurries along the corridor toward the nurse. Some doors are closed, but most are open, and the occupants of the rooms call out to her as she passes. That has always given her the creeps: the pathetic moans and mutterings of her father’s fellow residents. Sometimes she thinks his silence is preferable to that.

“Excuse me . . .” Paula comes to a halt beside the nurse, whom she’s fairly certain she’s never seen before. “Were you on duty in this room yesterday?”

The woman looks up at her without recognition, then shakes her head. “No, I’m only here on weekends.”

Paula frowns. That’s what the woman at the desk downstairs said, too.

“Would there be anyone here today who worked yesterday?” Paula asks the nurse, who has gone back to writing something in her chart.

She looks up from the folder. “Not unless somebody on the weekday staff called in sick and one of us was called to replace them.”

“So there are two different staffs? Weekday and weekend?”

“Yes. We’re part-time. They’re full-time.” She eyes Paula. “Are you here to visit somebody, or do you need to speak to a staff member?”

“Both,” Paula tells her. She gestures at the doorway leading to the room the nurse just exited. “My father is in there.”

“Mr. Bailey?” The woman shakes her head. “That poor man. He had a terrible night.”

“Yes, I know. He hasn’t been sleeping?”

“Actually, he is now. He’s been so agitated. The doctor was here a little while ago and prescribed something to calm him.”

“How long will it last?” Paula asks in dismay.

“He may not be alert while you’re here,” the nurse says apologetically. “But Mr. Bailey is usually noncommunicative as it is, so . . .” She trails off and shrugs, as if to say,
so your visit won’t be much different if he’s asleep
.

Paula moves past her into the room. It’s small, with a single window above the lone guest chair. Having spent considerable time in that spot looking out, Paula knows that the view below is of the woods at the back of the house.

She looks around.

White.

Everything here is stark white, Paula notices, not for the first time. The walls are painted hospital white, their only decor Mitch’s drawings that are taped here and there. The floor is covered in white linoleum. There’s a white paper cup on the bedside table. Paula peers into it and isn’t surprised to see two white capsules. More of his sleeping medication, probably.

The bed is made with white sheets and a white blanket.

And in it lies her father. Pale, sunken skin. Angular, withered features. More white—a shock of snowy hair against the pillow. His head is thrown back, mouth open, snoring slightly.

Paula stands over him, looking down for a long time.

“Pop?” she murmurs at last.

No response.

Well, she didn’t expect one, did she? The nurse said he was drugged. But somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought—hoped—that the sound of her voice might stir him.

“I’m here,” she goes on. “They said you were calling my name, and I came as soon as I could.”

Silence, except for the rhythmic, snorting breaths coming from his throat.

“I wish you’d wake up, Pop,” she says, touching his hand. “It’s me, Paula. Come on. Wake up, Pop.”

Nothing.

“Please, Pop. I need to know. If I could only ask you . . .” She exhales heavily, realizing it’s futile, but going on just in case there’s some glimmer of a chance for a response. “After all these years, why the hell was Frank here yesterday? What did he say to you, Pop? What did he do to you?”

B
ored with his electronic game, Mitch turns off the PlayStation and tosses the control onto the floor beside the television.

Now what?

He looks around his room, taking it all in. The entertainment center with the PlayStation, television, DVD player, and stereo. The queen-size four-poster bed with its nautical red-and-navy quilt. The big wooden armoire that matches the bureau and desk. The overstuffed red-upholstered chair. The closed double doors that lead to his walk-in closet and the opened single one that leads to his bathroom. The navy shades half-drawn over the oversize windows that overlook the pool out back. The built-in bookshelves lined with novels his stepmother thought he would like: the Harry Potter series, Animorphs, Goose Bumps. She keeps buying more, too. Hasn’t she noticed that Mitch doesn’t really like to read?

He can’t help but compare Shawna to his mother. Shawna tries too hard. She doesn’t know anything about kids. She doesn’t give him much space. How many times has she poked her head into his room since lunchtime, checking up on him?

“I just wanted to make sure you were still here,” she said the last time, and it was all Mitch could do to keep from saying, “What do you think I’m going to do, run away?”

He tells himself to be fair, that she probably means well. But how can she not know that you shouldn’t smother a person?

His mother doesn’t do that.

His father doesn’t, either.

In fact, Dad isn’t even here. He’s been gone all day. When Mitch woke up and went downstairs, he found Shawna in the smoke-filled kitchen burning the French toast. After she stopped crying about having ruined his breakfast, she told him that his father had left for the day. Upset, Mitch went straight back to his room, where he’s been ever since.

He ate the sandwich Shawna brought him for lunch, but he realizes now that he’s hungry again. Well, there wasn’t much besides lettuce between the two thin slices of whole-grain bread, and she probably used low-fat cheese and mayonnaise.

Shawna’s a health nut.

Another difference between her and Mom.

Mitch has spent enough time with his stepmother to know that Shawna thinks people shouldn’t eat meat, and that they should exercise every day, and that smoking is a disgusting habit. He agrees on that last one and has been trying to get his mother to quit ever since the school nurse handed out a little booklet about the dangers of cigarettes. Mitch doesn’t want his mother to die of lung cancer.

But that’s pretty much the only place he and Shawna agree—about cigarettes being unhealthy, that is.

Mitch doesn’t like exercise, and he really likes to eat meat.

And right now, he’s so starved he can no longer hide away in his room.

Reluctantly he gets to his feet and goes out into the hallway, where he pauses, listening.

With any luck, his stepmother is taking a nap, or maybe she even went out to do some errands or something. But he knows that’s unlikely. She barely leaves him alone in his room for fifteen minutes at a time; she wouldn’t leave him alone in the house.

He hears the low rumble of a masculine voice below. His heart leaps. Dad is home!

He’s halfway down the stairs before he realizes the sound is coming from the television in the family room.

Oh.

“Mitch, is that you?” Shawna hurries out into the hall at the foot of the stairs.

Geez, she’s like a security guard
, Mitch thinks.

Aloud, he asks, “Do you know when my dad is coming home?”

“I don’t,” Shawna says. “Probably later tonight. He didn’t really say.”

“Well, where is he?”

“I don’t know exactly,” she tells him.

Something about that strikes him as odd. Did his father really not tell her where he was going? Maybe their marriage is in trouble, Mitch thinks. It would be cool if Dad split up with Shawna. Then Mitch would have him all to himself when he visits. Just like he has Mom all to himself at home. When she’s not working.