Live to Tell (Live to Tell #1)(104)

At last she emerges in a tiny clearing.

There’s a small wooden shack, and there are cops, and dogs, and…

“Lucy! Ryan!”

“Mom!” they scream in unison, and Lauren dives toward them.

Thank God, thank God, thank God…

She hugs them hard, and she kisses their hair, and she looks around for Sadie, too…

A chill shoots through her.

Uniformed officers are gathered in small, concerned knots, looking off into the trees, searching the ground.

“Where is Sadie?” Lauren asks frantically. “Oh God, where is she?”

“She went for help, Mom,” Lucy tells her.

“She was so brave.” Tears are streaming down Ryan’s face. “She didn’t want to go, but we made her.”

“Sadie!” Lauren shouts, and renewed dread creeps over her. “Sadie!”



Thirsty, exhausted, bug-bitten, bleeding from where she scraped the splinter out of her hand, Sadie sits with her back against a big tree, worried about her brother and sister.

Lucy and Ryan are counting on her to save them, but how?

She’s been walking in circles, and the woods are getting darker and darker, and she keeps hearing rustling in the branches surrounding her.

Lions? Tigers? Bears?

If night comes, they’re going to get her.

Mommy said they won’t…

But that was back at home, in her room, where it was safe. Now she’s lost in the middle of the jungle, all alone.

Ryan was right. She should have told the bad lady the truth—that she had snuck back down the stairs that day and taken the pink stuffed dog out of the tag sale box. That she couldn’t bear to part with it, because even though it wasn’t Fred, her father had given it to her.

But now look what’s happened, all because she told a lie.

Sadie wipes tears from her eyes, and the salt stings the cut on her hand.

She has to keep moving, but in which direction?

She forces herself back to her feet, brushes off her shorts, and looks around.

Nothing but trees.

This is it.

She’s had enough.

She wants to go home.

Opening her mouth, she screams out the one word that’s been on her mind since she ventured out on her own.

“Mommmmmmyyyyy!”



Staring at a rare, smiling picture of her son standing between her and Brett, Elsa recalls that it was taken on the day the adoption became official.

Even now, she’s amazed to note how much Jeremy resembles her, with his dark hair and eyes. No one ever questioned that she’d given birth to him.

Somewhere out there, the woman who did must have the same questions that cross Elsa’s mind every day.

Where is Jeremy?

What does he look like now?

Is he happy?

Is he alive?

His birth mother has no real reason to wonder about that last one, though.

Elsa had briefly toyed with the idea of trying to find her after Jeremy disappeared, to let her know what had happened. But she opted not to.

She’s not sure why. Maybe she resented the woman whose gene pool might have contributed to Jeremy’s problems. Maybe she didn’t want to meet someone who had willingly given away the child Elsa would give anything to hold in her arms. Maybe she was worried that if she let Jeremy’s birth mother into their lives, she’d have to share him when he came back home.

It wasn’t until last winter, facing the prospect of returning to New England, that Elsa changed her mind.

She called Mike.

“Can you find her?”

“I can sure as hell try.”

The records were sealed. But there are ways of getting around any obstacles, Mike told her, if you’re not hung up on legalities.

Mike isn’t.

But if he did manage to find out the birth mother’s identity, he’s chosen not to share it with Elsa.

It’s probably just as well. What good would it do now?

Staring off into space, Elsa remembers how she’d considered the born-again impatiens as some kind of sign about Jeremy.

Wrong again, she thinks, closing the photo album and wiping tears from her eyes.



“Mommmmmmyyyyy!”

Of course there’s no reply.

The only sounds are the birds calling to one another overhead, the crickets and frogs chirping; a breeze rustling the leaves; and the lions and tigers and bears prowling around in the shadows beyond the trees, waiting for the sun to go down so that they can attack Sadie.

“Mommmmmmyyyyy! Help me!”

But it’s no use. Mommy is a million miles away.

Sadie is never going to see her again.

Or Daddy.

Or Ryan, or Lucy. She tried to save them, but she couldn’t. The bad lady is going to come back and shoot them. Maybe she has already. Maybe she’s killed Mommy, too, and Daddy…

Maybe I’m alone forever.

A tear plops onto Sadie’s scraped and dirty leg. And then another. And then…

Suddenly, she hears something.

A shrill, high-pitched whistle.

For a moment, she thinks it came from a bird.

But then she hears a far-off shout.

Did someone hear her calling for her mother?

Is someone out there?

Is it the lady with the gun?