The Remains (27 page)

“Pancakes,” Franny said, that smile still
illuminating his round face. “Pancakes and blueberries and
syrup.”

I laughed.

Caroline laughed.

“Pancakes it is, Franny,” I said. “I know a
great little diner right around the corner.”

Together the three of us made our way for
Caroline’s truck.

It seemed strange in a way, a little more
than an hour before I was about to be killed by a homicidal maniac.
Now I was going out for pancakes. I recalled one of my mother’s
cherished sayings, God works in mysterious ways.

I looked up at the blue sky, smiled at Molly.
I saw a patch of clouds and I swear I saw her face. In the clouds I
made out Molly’s face as though she were looking down at me and
smiling. I might have been the only one to recognize the face. But
it was there all the same. You just had to know how to look for it.
Molly was in heaven, and she was watching out for me, for my life.
Just as she always had.

There was no mystery in that.

DEAR MOL:

A lot has changed since I last wrote
you.

After spending a year with the Scaramuzzis
on their farm, I decided to move back into mom and Trooper Dan’s
house. Robyn has moved in with me and together we have started a
private art school called, appropriately enough, The School of Art.
We run it out of the house now. We have over fifty students, most
of them young children. There are so many paintings, drawings and
sculptures hanging around we also decided to renovate the barn and
turn it into a gallery featuring the student’s artwork. Franny
himself contributed five pieces before he passed away in his sleep
just before last Christmas. We were able to afford the barn’s
renovation with the sale of just one of those paintings. A quirky
abstract on traditional landscape he called ‘Listen.’

After he appeared on MSNBC, the demand for
his work quadrupled, along with the price per piece. Before he
died, Franny had become a rock star before our very eyes. He saved
my life and I will miss him with all my heart. I will never forget
what he did for me, and for us. I will always love him.

Little Michael is walking now. He gets along
so well with Robyn’s little Molly that you would think they are
brother and sister. Twins. They are inseparable and are permanent
fixtures around the studio. Sometimes I like to think that you and
Michael can see them from up in heaven. You would be so proud.
Caroline has taken on the job of Nanny. I wonder if one day we’ll
allow them to play flashlight tag behind the house. Naturally, the
woods and Mount Desolation will be strictly forbidden
territory.

Speaking of Robyn, the FBI finally caught up with her
attacker. They found him inside a motel outside Chicago where he
was awaiting the arrival of his latest conquest. The FBI arranged a
sting operation based upon some information delivered by a
Match.com
client who suspected a red flag
when her new love interest insisted on meeting at a strange
motel-no-tell. True to form, once he was caught, he couldn’t resist
bragging about his exploits all over the country, including a
beautiful brunette in Albany, New York by the name of Robyn. Robyn
with a “y.” Safe to say the man will be put away for decades to
come. God willing, he will spend his final days behind
bars.

You’ll be happy to know I’m painting again. Mostly
landscapes. Nothing too difficult. Just enough to get the rust out.
I’ve also decided to try my hand at completing Michael’s final
novel. It’s a story about a young woman who finds herself lost and
alone in Europe. Paris to be precise. When she meets another woman
who is identical to herself in every physical sense, she discovers
that her remembered past is far different from reality. In typical
Michael fashion, he didn’t leave me with a title. But for now I’m
calling it
Lost and Found
.

I miss you Mol.

I know you were with me on that night two
years ago when Whalen made his final move. I know you were there
because I felt your presence with every one of my five senses. I
smelled your skin, I heard your voice, I felt your touch. You
entered my body and gave me strength. You made me fight my fear.
You helped me survive. You are never far from my thoughts, my
memories, my dreams.

Sometimes when I wake up early in the
morning, I go outside with my coffee and I look out over the field
to the woods and the mountain. I still see you walking through the
tall grass in your cut-off jeans and Paul McCartney and Wings
T-shirt. I see your blonde hair bobbing in time with your every
step. I still feel that little pang of fright in my stomach the
closer we come to the woods. I don’t know how our lives would have
turned out had we not entered the woods that day; had we not broken
Trooper Dan’s rule. But I guess it’s silly to imagine that we would
have turned out any differently. We are what we are at any given
moment in time. Dead or alive.

I’m going to end this now, because I hear
Michael singing in his crib.

It’s morning and I need to make the coffee
before I get him out. I may not write you for a while. There’re too
many things I have to do now; too much life to live. Besides, I
want to save up all the good juicy bits for when we meet up again,
identical face to identical face. We’ll have a lot of catching up
to do. I’d like to say I can’t wait, but it’s probably going to be
a while.

All my love.

Your twin sister,

Rebecca Rose Underhill

The End

Vincent
Zandri is an award-winning novelist, essayist and freelance
photojournalist. His novel
As Catch Can
(Delacorte) was touted in two pre-publication articles
by
Publishers Weekly
and was called “Brilliant” upon its publication by
the
New York
Post
. The
Boston
Herald
attributed it as
“The most arresting first crime novel to break into print this
season.”

Other
novels include
Godchild
(Bantam/Dell) and
Permanence
(NPI). Translated into several languages, including
Japanese and Dutch, Zandri’s novels have also been sought out by
numerous major movie producers, including Heyday Productions and
DreamWorks.
Moonlight Falls
(R.J.Buckley) is Zandri’s fourth novel.

Presently, he is the author of the blogs
Dangerous
Dispatches
and
Embedded in
Africa
for Russia Today
TV (RT). He also writes for other global publications,
including
Culture 11
,
Globalia
and
Globalspec
.
Zandri’s nonfiction has appeared in
New York Newsday
,
Hudson Valley Magazine
,
Game and Fish Magazine
and others, while his essays and short fiction have been
featured in many journals, such as
Fugue
,
Maryland Review
and
Orange Coast Magazine
.

Zandri holds an MFA in writing from Vermont
College and is a 2010 International Thriller Writer’s Awards panel
judge. He currently divides his time between New York and
Europe.

www.vincentzandri.com

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