Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(14)

“I just can’t believe you never told me you had a child who was kidnapped and murdered!” she mused, after discovering—via the satellite news trucks parked at the curb—her neighbors’ tragic past.

Karyn, who runs Tidewater Animal Rescue, where Elsa sometimes volunteers, said exactly the same thing.

They’re not the only ones. In all the places they lived after Jeremy’s disappearance, Elsa never told anyone about Jeremy—other than her therapists, of course. Not that she made new friends, ever—or even kept in touch with the old ones. Isolation was easier.

But now that she has closure, and Renny’s here, maybe it’s time to branch out, let people in.

She lets Meg talk for a few minutes more about the benefits of fresh herbs, until she inevitably segues down a familiar path.

“…and do you know I read that there are herbal remedies for bunions? Turmeric, for example, is—”

“Mommy?” Renny, mercifully, cuts in. “Can we go do something now?”

Ordinarily, Elsa would reprimand her for interrupting. Now she apologetically tells Meg they have some mother-daughter time planned, and they’ll have to excuse themselves. After an extended good-bye, Meg leaves at last.

“Okay, so…want to swing?” Elsa asks Renny, gesturing at the cedar play set she and Brett bought last fall, right after they received their foster parenting approval. They were supposed to be shopping for a new washer and dryer, and they couldn’t afford both, but somehow this seemed more important.

At the time, Elsa couldn’t help but think how much Jeremy would have loved the towering playhouse topped by a lookout tower with a plastic telescope and striped awning. It was impossible—and felt so wrong—to imagine another child romping on the slide, swings, and climbing wall…

Then Renny came along.

“I want to build a sandcastle.” She tugs Elsa toward the sandbox. Molded of pink plastic, it arrived not long after she did—and already Elsa had gotten over the feeling that this backyard, like so many others over the years, should have belonged to Jeremy.

“A sandcastle. Great idea. I’ll help you.”

Together, they remove the plastic cover and assemble the necessary tools: buckets, molds, shovels.

“We need water, Mommy.”

Elsa glances down at the pale yellow sleeveless shift she put on this morning, when she assumed they were going to the seaport. She should probably change into something more sandbox-friendly.

Then again, now that Renny’s had a breakthrough, she doesn’t dare risk losing momentum. Who cares if her outfit gets wet and dirty?

Maman would care.

As she picks her way through overgrown pachysandra to reach the coiled garden hose against the wall of the house, Elsa can almost hear Sylvie Durand chiding her about mixing sand, water, and French silk. She’d undoubtedly have plenty to say about the pink striped top and orange plaid shorts Renny chose to wear this morning, too.

When she visited over Christmas, she voiced her disapproval over Elsa’s habit of allowing her daughter to pick out her own clothes. When Elsa explained that it’s important for children to express creativity, her mother’s legendary blue eyes rolled back to her fake lashes.

“And it isn’t important to learn to look halfway decent in public?” asked Maman, who favors fully accessorized designer outfits, complete with one of her trademark veiled chapeaux, often riding atop one of her elaborately coiffed auburn wigs.

Elsa long ago learned to accept her mother’s limits. She is who she is. But sometimes, she simply has to be put in her place.

“Believe me, Maman, wearing plaid with stripes isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a child.”

Yes, that shut her up—for the time being, anyway.

As she unspools a length of green garden hose, Elsa glances over the foundation shrubs. The rhododendron was in full bloom just a day or two ago, when she cut some fat pink blossoms to bring into the house. Those that remain are droopy and faded. She read somewhere that you’re supposed to deadhead them so that they don’t go to seed. Maybe she should—

Elsa’s random thoughts skid to a screeching halt.

A large, freshly snapped bough dangles from the shrub that sits directly below Renny’s bedroom window…and a footprint is plainly visible in the dirt beside it.





CHAPTER THREE




All morning and well into the afternoon, people have been coming and going at the luxury apartment tower across the street. Deliverymen, maintenance workers, and the well-heeled residents themselves.

Sooner or later, Marin Quinn or her daughters are bound to appear at the building’s front doors, and when they do, they’ll be easy to spot from here.

Sooner would be much appreciated; the odor is becoming stronger as midday heat permeates the narrow alleyway between a pub and a sushi restaurant: stale beer and rancid fish. A few feet away, something scurries between the foundation and the row of metal garbage cans.

Not a creature is stirring…

Except for a rat.

Make that plural. How fitting that there are dozens, maybe hundreds of the filthy rodents here, just a stone’s throw from the Quinns’ fancy doorstep.

Fitting—and convenient.

Undaunted by human companionship, another rat brushes past, just as the doorman across the street tips his hat to a familiar-looking female exiting the building.