Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(21)

They stare at each other, and Brett is glad Elsa can’t read his mind.

Just because she had some problems before, years ago—that doesn’t mean she’s unbalanced now. It doesn’t mean she herself is responsible for the Spider-Man doll being here. It doesn’t mean that, fueled by Renny’s nightmare, Elsa imagined the intruder, and there’s a logical explanation for footprint and the broken branch—if they do exist.

He wants desperately to believe that they don’t, even if it means accepting that his wife is still suffering the psychological fallout of Jeremy’s kidnapping—or that learning of his death triggered a relapse into dissociative behavior.

Anything is better than believing that Renny is in danger.

“What’s Roxanne going to say, Brett? If we call the police and she finds out?”

“She will find out, and what do you think she’ll say? It’s her job to make sure that Renny’s in a safe environment.”

“That’s our job, too.”

“And we’re doing it.”

“Roxanne might not agree.” She shrugs, hugging herself, her thin arms bared by a simple, butter-colored dress.

Even now, Brett finds himself marveling at his wife’s striking beauty: black hair and eyes offset her flawless complexion and delicate French features.

Before Jeremy came, and after he was gone, Brett had convinced himself that he could be happy if it were just the two of them for the rest of their lives. Yes, they longed for parenthood, but they had each other. Maybe that was enough.

Now he knows that it can’t be; that their lives wouldn’t be complete without Renny. Now that he’s had a true taste of what it’s like to love a child so completely…

He would never admit to Elsa that it was different with Jeremy. Maybe she knew, deep down, that try as he might, Brett couldn’t quite connect with him, couldn’t quite…

Love him?

Even now, acknowledging it only to himself, shame sweeps through him.

He’d cared for his son, had tried to protect him, had thought he was doing everything in his power to help Jeremy overcome all his problems. Even after what happened that day at Harbor Hills Country Club…

Brett rarely allows himself to think about that particular incident. But whenever the memory rears its ugly head anyway, he’s swept by the same sense of helpless foreboding he experienced when he saw what his son had done to the sweet, innocent little girl with the big blue eyes and blond braids.

“I didn’t mean it,” Jeremy had said, standing there with a red-streaked seven-iron in his hand. “She laughed at me, and I got mad.”

Mad.

Violently so. All that blood…

He’ll never forget those terrified blue eyes, dilated with shock, staring up at him as he stood over her holding his son’s shoulders—holding him back.

The child survived, thank God. Miraculously, her wealthy parents didn’t press charges, reportedly wanting to avoid a messy lawsuit.

Even after what Jeremy had done that day, Brett would have given anything to find him after he vanished.

But maybe you didn’t really love him. Not enough. Not like you love Renny.

“Sometimes I think it’s a miracle that we were even approved as foster parents after what happened.”

Brett looks up, startled, wondering if Elsa really has read his mind, or if she’s known all along about Brett’s secret failure as a father.

“That wasn’t our fault,” he tells her. “Jeremy.”

Elsa says nothing to that; of course she disagrees. She was the one who was home the day he was abducted, not Brett. She was in the kitchen making dinner as Jeremy played in the fenced backyard, same as every sunny afternoon. She kept an eye on him, same as always—but not every second.

And in a split second, a child can disappear forever.

Brett always wondered if Jeremy had run away. He was a troubled child. It wouldn’t be all that far-fetched.

Intuitive Elsa never bought into the runaway theory. She was certain he’d been kidnapped, and she blamed herself. But when she finally found out why Jeremy had been taken, and by whom…

It wasn’t her fault, can’t she see that? No parent spends every moment of every day standing guard over a seven-year-old. Every mother has to turn her back at some point. And someone was there, watching, waiting for Elsa to do just that.

Jeremy never had a chance.

“This is unbelievable, Brett. Spider-Man…” Elsa clutches his arm, and he can feel her body quaking. “Spider-Man just appearing out of the blue on the day after someone broke into our house, and was in Renny’s room—”

“That was probably—”

Your imagination.

“—just a burglar,” he says instead. “I’m sure it has nothing to do with what happened to Jeremy.”

“Just a burglar? You’re sure? Come on, Brett, you’re not sure of anything.” She keeps her voice low, but he has a feeling that if Renny weren’t sleeping a few feet away, she’d be shouting at him.

“So you think that it does have something to do with Jeremy?”

“Or with Renny. Who knows? Her birth mother is a lunatic, and her birth father might be out of jail again. What if—”

“Elsa, come on. They signed away their rights without batting an eye. Do you really think they’re going to track us down and—and do you really think they know about Spider-Man?”