Live to Tell (Live to Tell #1)(101)

She had done it all for Garvey, because she loved him, had loved him from the moment they met. It was a bitter cliché—the dashing, married politician and the na?ve campaign aide. Stories like theirs had been played out in bedrooms and headlines all over the world.

He was a family man; he told her he’d never leave his wife.

“But I’ll be there for you,” he promised Beverly. Because of him, she had a job, a place to live, someone to love.

She’d had a lousy childhood, a lonely life. Her father abandoned her mother; her mother killed herself. The only person who ever took care of Beverly was her older cousin Joanne. She’s been dead for years, though. Now Beverly looks out for Joanne’s daughter, Sharon, keeping her deathbed promise.

And Garvey looks out for Beverly. She vowed never to ask more from him than he was willing to give; in return, she would give him anything he wanted.

Almost anything.

When the time came to prove her loyalty, she crumbled.

She couldn’t bring herself to kill the little boy who had been terrified of her at first, and now clung to her hand on the crowded streets of Bombay.

“All you have to do is triple up on his pain meds tonight,” Garvey told her. “Maybe quadruple, just to be sure. Then tuck him into bed and go straight to the airport. Your flight leaves at eleven. By the time the hotel maid finds him, you’ll be safe in New York. No one there will have any way of tracing you.”

He’d made sure of that. No one she’d encountered in India knew her real name. She’d never get caught.

But that wouldn’t change the fact that she’d have killed an innocent child in the process of saving another.

How could Garvey live with himself?

How could she?

That was the first time she’d ever toyed with the idea of taking her own life, as her mother had.

Mom had put a gun into her mouth and pulled the trigger. Beverly found her, and the note that read simply, Suicide is painless.

But it didn’t have to be that violent. Maybe she could just swallow a handful of pills along with Jeremy.

Suicide is painless…

The idea was much more appealing than killing him and living with her conscience afterward.

Or not killing him and being abandoned by Garvey as a result. She couldn’t live without Garvey.

But in the end, she realized there might be an alternative to both those grim scenarios.

She tucked some money into Jeremy’s pocket and took him for a long walk. With his dark hair and eyes, he blended in with the hordes of children on the teeming streets of Bombay—so many of them orphans or beggars.

When he turned his head to watch an elephant plod slowly by, Beverly slipped away.

She caught her flight back to the States. Garvey called her right after she landed.

“Did you take care of it?”

She hesitated only briefly. “Yes,” she told him. “I took care of it.”

Maybe not in the way he’d asked, but for all intents and purposes, Jeremy Cavalon had vanished forever.

And Beverly still had Garvey in her life.



Lauren pointedly shifts her eyes to a point just beyond the right shoulder of the woman she knew as Jessica. She focuses hard on the empty doorway behind her, as if someone is standing there.

She can tell Jessica is unnerved, but she doesn’t turn around. “Now, Lauren, do you want to do this the easy way, or the hard way?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you want to tell me what I need to know, or do I have to force it out of you? Because the children aren’t alone. All I have to do is give the word that you refuse to cooperate, and one of them will be shot.”

A wave of nausea swishes through Lauren’s gut, but she manages to stay strong. She keeps her eyes on the empty doorway.

“I will,” she says. “I’ll cooperate.”

Jessica frowns, watching Lauren closely.

This is it. I have her.

Still focused on the doorway, Lauren gives a slight nod, as if signaling someone.

Sure enough, Jessica darts a glance over her shoulder.

In one swift movement Lauren lunges for the floor, snatches a large, dagger-shaped shard of glass, and plunges it into the woman’s right arm—the one holding the gun.

With a howl, Jessica drops the weapon. Lauren grabs it and scrambles backward across the floor with it, slicing her bare legs on the broken glass.

Aiming the gun in both outstretched hands, Lauren sees that the woman’s right arm is bleeding badly. Clutching it with her left hand, blood pouring over her fingers, she looks up at Lauren in fury.

“Tell me where my children are, or I’ll kill you.” Lauren fights to keep the gun steady in her hands.

“No, you won’t,” Jessica says calmly. “You can’t. Because without me, you’ll never find them.”

Lauren wants to cry out in frustration. She’s right. There’s no way Lauren is going to pull the trigger now.

But…there might just be another way to get control of the situation.

“How do I even know they’re still alive?” she asks.

“You don’t. But they are. And you’ll see them again when you give me the stuffed animal.”

Lauren weighs her options.

It’s a huge gamble.

Yes, and it might pay off.