Live to Tell (Live to Tell #1)(24)

Chauncey, lying on the rug, opens one eye to look at her, then closes it again as though he doesn’t have the energy for anything more strenuous.

That’s why they call this the dog days of August, Lauren decides, and yawns.

She should probably just go up to bed.

But that would feel, in some strange way, like giving up. In bed before nine o’clock on a Friday night?

No way. She isn’t giving in yet, no matter how tired she is.

Anyway, the house is cooler downstairs.

Yeah—maybe ninety-five degrees compared to ninety-six upstairs.

This is stupid. When she was married, she had no qualms about turning in early. Nothing to prove, not even to herself.

It isn’t just the thought of her ex-husband living it up on an island tonight with his new girlfriend while Lauren sits here drinking tap water and sweating…

Come on—yes it is. It is just that, and you know it.

Thank God this summer is almost over. It’s time she exited the pity party and reclaimed her life.

Last year at this time, she was wistfully thinking about all the home improvement projects she could do if she just had a couple of kid-free days. Nothing major, but over the years, she taught herself how to paint and wallpaper and slipcover…

She’s no longer in the mood to do any of that. Why bother when they might end up selling the house? The only smart thing to do would be to pare down their possessions in anticipation of a move—and Trilby’s reminded her several times that she needs tag sale donations.

Tomorrow, she decides. A rainy Saturday is perfect for cleaning out drawers and closets.

Lauren sets the dripping water glass on a coaster and picks up a magazine. The pages feel damp—all the paper in the house feels damp at this time of year. She leafs past an article about weight loss, an interview with a country singer, a list of clever household hints, most of which seem to involve baking soda.

Bored, she exchanges the magazine for the remote and turns on the television, wondering if there’s anything on worth watching.

Then again, even if there is, she’s not sure she possesses the patience or stamina tonight to be enlightened, or educated, or even entertained. Maybe she should just turn off the TV and read a good—

“Mommy!”

Lauren sighs. Not again.

There had been a time when she’d have leaped to her feet at the sound of Sadie shouting from upstairs long after she’d been tucked into bed. A time when Chauncey, too, would have come alert at the sound, no matter how hot it was.

Those days are over. Now it’s routine for Lauren to be regularly summoned to Sadie’s bedside for everything from a knock-knock joke to a mosquito bite that needs maternal scratching.

“Mommy!”

Chauncey doesn’t even bother to open one eye.

“I’m down here, sweetie,” she calls back and adds—for what feels like the hundredth time tonight—“Go to sleep!”

Aiming the remote, she clicks through a couple of channels. There must be something…

“Mommy!”

Some nights are worse than others. On a good night, Lauren has to climb the stairs to Sadie’s room only a couple of times. On a bad one, it can be a dozen or more.

This has been a bad one.

She closes her eyes wearily and calls, “What’s the matter now, Sadie?”

“I need you!”

Yes. She does. She needs me.

Sadie’s just a little tiny girl, afraid of the dark and the bogeyman and, tonight, of lions and tigers and bears and the Wicked Witch of the West.

The Wizard of Oz scared the living daylights out of poor Sadie.

She needs to watch more age-appropriate television.

No, she needs to watch less television, period.

She needs her mommy.

Her daddy, too.

This is so not fair.

She tosses the remote aside, steps over Chauncey, opens the doggy gate, and heads up the stairs.



The small pub off Vanderbilt Avenue is conveniently located within spitting distance of Grand Central Terminal’s west entrance. Earlier, the bar was jammed with commuters. But happy hour is long over, and the crowd has thinned considerably, leaving Byron Gregson with a clear view of the entrance from his barstool perch.

He checks his watch, then looks again at the door. Still no sign of the man Byron knows only as JT, who said he’d be here twenty minutes ago, with or without the information.

If he brings what Byron asked for, JT will be rewarded well for his efforts.

Even if he doesn’t, Byron promised to give him a token tip—his way of ensuring that he won’t needlessly spend an entire night sitting here nursing ridiculously expensive draft beer, waiting for someone who can’t deliver and has no incentive to show up.

But maybe the tip wasn’t incentive enough. Again, he looks at his watch.

“Another Guinness?” the bartender asks, swirling his rag across the polished wooden surface of the bar, close to Byron’s nearly empty mug.

Again, he checks the door.

“Sure,” he tells the bartender with resignation. “Another Guinness.”



“It’s hard to believe New York is out there somewhere,” Nick comments, sitting beside Beth on the sand and gazing out at the western sky, where the water remains tinged with faint pink traces of a spectacular sunset.