Live to Tell (Live to Tell #1)(100)

Sam Henning.

He must have been sneaking over here, and Jessica saw him and shot him…

Oh God. Oh my God.

This woman is a cold-blooded killer. Lauren doesn’t stand a chance against her. Telling her what she wants to know didn’t save Nick; it won’t save Lauren and the children, either.

There’s only one way out of this…and no time to waste.



Fired.

Again.

Now what?

Sharon makes her way along Park Avenue amid the usual pedestrian horde: executives on cell phones, roaming groups of teenagers, nannies pushing their charges along in strollers.

Sharon was among them just this morning, pushing Avery over to the park and back for their daily stroll. He screamed the whole time, miserably sunburned.

“I’m so sorry, little guy,” Sharon told him over and over, brushing tears from her own eyes. “What have I done to you?”

But no—it wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t the one who had hauled him up to the suburbs and failed to sunscreen him before he spent hours in the sun and water.

You were the one who loaned him out for the day, though.

A favor in return for a favor.

“I helped you land the nanny job in the first place, Sharon, remember? I gave you a great reference when you needed it, and you asked me how you could ever repay me. Now you can.”

Yeah, right. She’d been a damned fool to go along with it. It had cost her a job that was even cushier than her last one: “babysitting” Congressman Quinn’s two teenage daughters—another job her cousin had managed to land for her.

So when her cousin called in the favor, accepting the offer had been a no-brainer. It seemed like a win-win situation—Avery would get to spend the day as a baby extra on a movie shoot; Sharon would receive a thousand dollars for letting him go.

Not bad for a day’s work—rather, a day off, lounging around the Camerons’ apartment watching the soaps.

The only hitch: Sharon couldn’t tell a soul. Not even Avery’s parents.

That was fine with her. She had a feeling Molly and Andrew Cameron wouldn’t approve. And it wasn’t as if they’d ever find out. Their son would be onscreen for only a few seconds, Sharon was told. Plus, he looks like a thousand other babies. What were the chances that Molly and Andrew would even see that movie or recognize him?

Anyway, Molly was away on business, and Andrew was never home during his son’s waking hours on week-days. Sharon was promised that Avery would be safely delivered back home again by five-thirty—and he was. No harm, no foul.

A few hours later, though, he fussed as she undressed him for his bath. That was when she saw the sunburn. He screamed bloody murder when she put him into the tub, and the water wasn’t even that hot.

By the time Mr. Cameron came home, the baby had cried himself to sleep. His father didn’t bother to look in on him. He never does.

Sharon tried to reach her cousin that night, to tell her what had happened and ask her what to do. But she didn’t pick up her phone, and she didn’t call back last night or today, and that isn’t like her.

Sharon has no idea where Beverly is, but she has a bad feeling.



“Sadie… Sadie!”

She opens her eyes.

Or does she?

All she can see is pitch black.

She blinks, and it’s the same. But then she turns her head, and there’s a sliver of light.

“Sadie, wake up.” Lucy’s voice is hushed.

“Is she okay?” Sadie hears Ryan ask.

And then it all comes rushing back to her.

That scary woman at the front door…

The way she threatened them, and herded them all to the car…

And then the gun went off outside, and Sadie knew she had shot someone, and she prayed it wasn’t Mommy…

But Ryan told her that it wasn’t. It was some man, sneaking around the back of the property, maybe another bad guy…

Then the car ride, and being locked in this tiny room in the dark…

“Sadie?”

“I’m awake,” she tells Lucy.

“We need you, Sades.” Ryan sounds hoarse. “We got this board loose enough to make an opening. But you’re the only one who’s going to fit through it.”

“I’m scared.”

“It’ll be okay,” he tells her.

“I don’t want to go alone!”

Lucy says, “Ryan, maybe—”

“Sadie, listen to me. You have to do this. Please. No one else can save us. If you don’t go for help, we’re going to die.”

Sadie swallows hard.

Then she nods and says, in a small voice, “I’ll do it.”



Staring into Lauren Walsh’s terrified eyes, Beverly knows the time has come to make up for her own past shortcomings.

This time, unlike last, she’ll follow through on what Garvey asked her to do.

This time, there’s no way around it. Not like before.

Fourteen years ago, Beverly had honestly believed she would do anything for Garvey. Anything at all.

She had boldly abducted a little boy from his own suburban backyard. She had traveled overseas with him under false identification. She had gone along with Garvey’s scheme, pretending to be Jeremy’s mother at the foreign hospital, assuring him he was going to be just fine when, sobbing in terror, he was wheeled into surgery.