Live to Tell (Live to Tell #1)(77)

“Sadie told me that someone was there, though, while she was gone. You might want to talk to your cleaning ladies again,” Dr. Prentiss suggests, “to make sure they understand how important it is not to violate your daughter’s private space. A few dust bunnies won’t kill her.”

“I know that,” Lauren murmurs, deciding she doesn’t like Dr. Prentiss, who seems to have her pegged as one of those fussy women who need everything perfect—which couldn’t be farther from the truth.

“Really,” she says, “the cleaning ladies weren’t in Sadie’s room while we were gone today. Or if they were, Sadie would have no way of knowing about it. We haven’t even been home since this morning.”

“No, it happened yesterday. Not today.”

“The cleaning ladies weren’t there yesterday. They were there today. They come on Tuesdays.”

“Someone was there yesterday, Mommy.”

Lauren turns to see Sadie in the doorway.

“Oh, sweetie…” She gets up and hurries toward her daughter.

“Someone was there! In my room! I set a trap so I would know.”

A trap. Lauren remembers how Sadie examined an invisible something—a trap?—in the doorway of her room before she was willing to leave this morning.

She has an active imagination, but still…

“Maybe it was your brother or sister or even me,” she tells Sadie, her thoughts whirling. “I go into your room all the time, to put away your laundry and open your blinds and—”

“It wasn’t you or Lucy or Ryan! It was when we were all out. I set the trap before we left, and I checked it when we got back. Someone was there.”

What if she’s right? What if someone really was there?

Come on…this is crazy. You’re overreacting.

“What kind of trap was it, Sadie?”

“It was an invisible piece of fishing wire. I taped it across the doorway. And when I looked, it was all unstuck. That means someone walked through the door.”

Lauren and Dr. Prentiss exchange a glance.

She wants me to say something, Lauren realizes. But what am I supposed to say? That Sadie’s on to something? That someone really might have been there?

Absolutely not, she decides, remembering Lucy’s frightened reaction back at the pool, when Lauren admitted her own vulnerability.

“That’s a really smart idea for a trap,” Lauren says gently, “but I think maybe the tape fell off the door, because really, no one was in the house while we were gone yesterday.”

Obviously, that was the wrong thing to say, because her daughter immediately opens her mouth—to protest, cry, scream.

Dr. Prentiss cuts her off. “How about if when you get home, you and your mom can check everything out and make sure it’s all just the way you left it?”

It will be, Lauren tells herself. Of course it will.

But it’s all so creepily coincidental. What if something strange is going on at home…all around them? Something to do with Nick?

“I have an idea, Sadie,” Dr. Prentiss goes on. “Maybe you can get your crayons and color some signs to put on your door and Mom will help you hang them up.”

“What kind of signs?”

“You know—‘Sadie’s Room. Keep Out.’”

“I don’t know how to spell that.”

“I bet your mom will help you, right, Mom?”

“Sure, Sadie.” Lauren pushes stray strands of hair back from her daughter’s worried face. “We’ll go home and make some signs, okay?”

Sadie shrugs grudgingly. “You don’t believe me.”

Lauren glances at Dr. Prentiss, who nods slightly.

“I believe you, Sadie,” Lauren tells her daughter.

“You do?”

She nods. Who knows? Maybe I do.



Elsa’s cell phone rings just as she passes the Rhode Island border into Connecticut, creeping along at about ten miles an hour.

That’s got to be Brett, looking for her. Thanks to rush hour traffic, the reverse trip is taking twice as long as this morning’s drive to Boston.

She grabs the phone from the passenger’s seat and glances at the caller ID window. Sure enough, her husband is at home. He’s wondering why she’s not.

Should she answer the call?

No. She’ll be there soon enough. Let him worry for another fifteen minutes. That’ll give her a chance to figure out what she’s going to tell him.

It isn’t as if she hasn’t had a few hours to come up with something. But she’s spent the time going over every detail of the meeting with Mike, analyzing everything they said, trying to figure out whether…

It seems crazy, but…

Was he hiding something when he told her there’s been nothing new?

It doesn’t make sense that he’d lie, yet something didn’t ring true.

Maybe it wasn’t about Jeremy—not directly, anyway. What if he has, as Elsa requested, broken past the barrier of sealed records? What if he’s picked up the trail of the shadowy woman who wanted to put the past behind her?

By the time she reaches her driveway, Elsa is no closer to knowing what to tell Brett. She takes her time getting out of the car, and pauses in front of the flowerbeds to check on the impatiens. Today, the plants are standing straight and tall, with bright red blossoms.