Live to Tell (Live to Tell #1)(81)

But he knows all that. She’s said it before—and so has he. Just…not in a long time. Years.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going, Elsa?”

“Because I knew you wouldn’t approve.”

“You just don’t get it, do you? It’s not that I don’t approve. It’s that I’m trying to protect you. Going down this road again…” He shakes his head, drinks from his martini. “I don’t want to lose you, too.”

“You won’t. You won’t lose me, Brett, if you let me do what I have to do.”

He looks at her. Shrugs. “The same is true for me.”

For a long time, they just look at each other.

Then Brett sets down the glass, leans toward her, and holds out his hand.

She hesitates only for a moment. Then she takes it.



At last alone behind the closed door of the bedroom she shared with Nick, the kids safely tucked in down the hall, Lauren clutches the phone in one hand, a piece of paper containing a scribbled phone number in the other.

She can’t put it off any longer.

She dials.

The phone rings. Rings. Rings.

“Hi, it’s Beth, I’m out, leave a message.”

Beep.

“Beth, hi, it’s Lauren Walsh. The kids have been trying to get in touch with Nick, and I’m wondering if you can have him call them back. Thanks.”

After uttering the speech she memorized word for word over the course of the last few hours, she hangs up, feeling shaken.

There.

Done.

She exhales through puffed cheeks and goes over to the open window, where a cool breeze stirs the curtains.

What if Beth calls her back?

She might, now that Lauren has made an overture. Never mind that she only did it because she’s been backed into a corner. Beth might decide the two of them should talk.

But that’s not what I want. Not in a million years.

All I want is to know where Nick is, and that he’s okay. For the kids’ sake.

Hearing a telltale rustling in the boughs beyond the screen, she wonders if the rain that’s been threatening all evening is about to roll in at last.

Flipping off the lamp, she peers outside. Most of the neighboring houses have darkened windows. In a bucolic town like Glenhaven Park, no one bothers to leave lights on timers when they go on vacation.

Elm Street is deserted in the glow of the streetlamps. No strange shadows or Peeping Toms tonight.

Lauren tries not to think about what happened to her in the kitchen, when she thought she saw someone out there in the yard. No reason to get spooked by that now. It was her imagination, right?

Right.

And it was Sadie’s imagination that someone was prowling around her room, too, she tells herself firmly.

But if it wasn’t…

A chill slithers down Lauren’s back.

She’s done her best to make as light of Sadie’s suspicion as she has of her own. Lauren helped her make several “Keep Out” signs before bed and taped them up outside her room. That seems to have helped, because Sadie has actually stayed in her own room so far tonight. She’s probably worn out from all that swimming—not to mention all the worry, and the visit to the psychiatrist.

Thunder rumbles in the distance.

Nick always loved to fall asleep listening to the rain, Lauren finds herself remembering—and then wondering, like a teenage girl with a crush, about Sam Henning.

Does he like the rain?

She wonders what he’s doing now, just a block away over on Castle Lane. If she were Lucy’s age, she might find an excuse to call him, or even walk by his house. But he lives on a dead end street, and she’s not Lucy’s age; she’s a grown woman with more baggage than a 747, and there is no way she’s going to get into another relationship—even if someone was interested in her.

Which Sam seems to be, though God only knows why.

Pushing Sam—and, for that matter, Nick and Beth—from her mind, she turns away from the window and flips the light on again.

There. That’s better. She climbs into bed with the new issue of People magazine she’d thrown into her cart at the checkout line earlier. She figured some fluffy reading might help to take her mind off her problems, but now she finds herself absently flipping pages, listening to the rain and thinking about Sam Henning.

When she hears her cell phone buzz with an incoming text, the first thought that pops into her head is, It’s him! Sam!

Who else would it be? Not Beth. She wouldn’t text…would she? No, and besides, she wouldn’t have Lauren’s cell number…would she?

No. No way.

God, I hope not.

Lucy and Ryan occasionally text her, but they’re both home tonight.

Lauren leans over the bedside table, where the phone is plugged into the charger.



We need to talk. Meet me at my place tomorrow at noon.



Whoa! Talk about forward. Does Sam Henning actually think she—

Oh.

It’s not from Sam at all.

It’s from Nick.



“This is absolutely insane,” Garvey hisses into the phone, having snatched it up on the first ring. “Where the hell have you been?”

“What do you mean where have I been? In Glenhaven Park, looking for the file.”