Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(105)
An envelope is taped to their apartment door at the top of the stairs. Plucking it off as she stomps the slush from her boots, Lucy sees that it’s addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Jeremy Cavalon in handwriting she doesn’t recognize.
Odd.
The building, a duplex, is kept locked. No one should be able to get in here other than the first-floor neighbors, or—
Carl Soto?
Having torn open the envelope and spotted the landlord’s signature, Lucy quickly skims the typewritten page. Her eyes widen in dismay.
This can’t be right…can it?
Rereading, she sees that it is, indeed, an eviction notice giving her and Jeremy just thirty days to vacate the apartment. That’s it. No further explanation.
So much for sleeping through the weekend, Lucy thinks grimly, resting a hand on her stomach.
When it’s over, Sylvie Durand’s limp body, now stripped of the white bathrobe, lies facedown in the bathtub, partially obscured by a foamy drift of perfumed bubbles. The wineglass sits undisturbed, the candles remain aglow, and Edith Piaf croons a new song.
“Thy will be done.” With a satisfied nod, still wearing the surgical gloves, she swiftly takes off her hooded cloak, soaked in the struggle. After hanging it on a hook beside Sylvie’s dripping robe, she picks up the thick white bath towel Sylvie had lain out on the heated towel bar.
The label is familiar—Le Jacquard Francais.
Long ago—before she’d been condemned to using thin, scratchy prison-issue towels—she herself had lived in a grand home whose marble bathrooms were stocked with fine European linens.
Now that home—and everything in it—belongs to someone else.
Not, however, to the Cavalons. It was sold before they won a sizeable portion of her family’s assets in the damages settlement.
Back when that happened, her attorney, Andrew Stafford, relayed the news gingerly, as though he thought she might explode in anger or grief at the news that Jeremy Cavalon and his adoptive parents had been awarded what should rightfully have belonged to her.
She didn’t explode. She clenched her handcuffed fists so hard her nails drew blood from her palms. But of course, Andrew couldn’t see her hands. He could only see her face, and she was an expert at masking her emotions. She remained as stoic as she had the day Andrew told her that Jeremy had married Lucy Walsh.
It’s been over a year now since she’s had any contact with her lawyer—or anyone from prison life, other than Chaplain Gideon. He had been her one true confidante through all those years in prison, visiting her in her cell and praying with her.
Now, presumably, he’s the only one in the world who knows she didn’t die along with dozens of fellow inmates when the building collapsed and burned, rendering most victims’ charred remains unidentifiable.
She surveys Sylvie Durand’s waterlogged corpse. Having made good and sure to slam the woman’s head hard against the edge of the tub, she’s not worried about anyone suspecting foul play.
An elderly woman, living alone, slips getting into the bathtub, bangs her head, is knocked unconscious, and drowns. A terrible accident, the medical examiner will conclude. But the kind that happens every day.
Pooled water on the floor and spatters on the walls and mirror are the only signs of a struggle. She easily obliterates them with the thick, absorbent towel. After draping it over the hook with the other soggy things, she opens a linen closet.
The shelves are stacked with neatly folded white towels identical to the soggy one. That’s how it is in wealthy households like Sylvie’s—and her own, long ago: everything belongs to a luxurious linen set, no mix-and-match.
With her gloved fingers, she lifts a towel from the top of the nearest pile and drapes it over the heated towel bar. Then she rolls the wet things into a tight bundle and tucks it beneath her arm.
Better to risk taking the bathrobe and towel than to arouse suspicion should someone show up here unexpectedly and discover the wet evidence. Surely the Cavalons will be too caught up in grief and shock to notice anything is missing.
After taking one last look around the bathroom, she slips out and closes the door behind her.
Acknowledgments
With gratitude to John Gullo, Gregg and Kristin Casalino, Wendy Zemanski, and Michael Dwyer, all of whom patiently answered my research questions; to my editor, Lucia Macro, and the many talented folks at Avon Books who had a hand in this endeavor; to my agents, Laura Blake Peterson and Holly Frederick, Tracy Marchini and the rest of the gang at Curtis Brown, Ltd.; to Carol Fitzgerald and staff at the Book Report network; to Peter Meluso, who keeps www.wendycorsistaubcommunity.com up and running…and, most of all, to my loyal readers, who make it so worthwhile.
About the Author
USA Today and New York Times bestseller Wendy Corsi Staub is the award-winning author of more than seventy novels. She lives in the New York City suburbs with her husband of eighteen years and their two children. Learn more about Wendy at www.wendycorsistaub.com Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.