Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(23)

“Is this Boston?” Renny asks from the backseat.

“Almost.” Elsa turns to see her gazing out the window at the billboards and strip malls, redbrick schools and chain hotels, clusters of Capes and saltbox Colonials.

The landscape is foreign territory for Renny, but achingly familiar to Elsa and Brett. They lived in Nottingshire in the south suburbs of Boston fifteen years ago, with Jeremy.

“Boston drivers are the worst,” Brett mutters, and Elsa has to agree. At high speed on the highway, or flying through the city streets, drivers in this part of the country tend to careen unpredictably, or tailgate.

Glancing into the rearview mirror, Brett shakes his head. “Look behind you.”

Elsa glances back to see an SUV hugging their bumper. “Just pull over and get out of his way.”

“There’s no place for him to go.”

“No place but into our backseat with Renny,” Elsa tells him pointedly, and he flips on the turn signal and moves into the other lane without a word.

Predictably, traffic slows to a rush hour crawl. Anxious as she is to get to Mike’s, Elsa decides there’s something to be said for sitting in a traffic jam—a momentary reprieve from harrowing drivers and concern about shadowy intruders.

But the longer they sit, the more restless Renny becomes. “Did we forget my Barbies at the gas station?”

“No, they’re in the trunk,” Elsa tells her reluctantly.

“Can we get them out?”

“Not now.”

“Why not?”

“Because…”

Because that bag and everything in it might be evidence.

“Just because.”

For the moment, Renny seems satisfied. Then she asks, “How long until we get there?”

“About another half hour.” Brett jerks the wheel, moving from the slow lane to the less slow lane—which promptly grinds to a halt in front of them. He slaps the wheel in frustration and leans his head back against the headrest.

He’s more anxiety-ridden than Elsa, if that’s even possible. She knows the reaction from Lew when Brett tried to explain why he’d left the office so abruptly—blaming it on Renny being sick—was definitely not sympathetic. Elsa, who’s never held a corporate job in her life, had to bite her tongue to keep from telling Brett to tell Lew to shove it. If he gets fired, they’re screwed.

“How long are we going to be there when we get there?” Renny asks.

“We don’t know,” Elsa replies, looking over her shoulder at the traffic as Brett tries to merge back into his original lane, which naturally is now full speed ahead.

“Why do we have to visit this man now?”

“Because he’s our friend.”

“Do I know him?”

“Go ahead, Brett, he’s going to let you in,” Elsa tells her husband, as a driver in the next lane waves them to get in front of him.

Or maybe he doesn’t. A horn blasts angrily as Brett begins to merge. With a curse, he swerves, narrowly avoiding an accident.

In the backseat, Renny asks again, as though nothing has happened, “Do I know him?”

Brett swears again and shakes his head at Elsa. “I thought you said he was waving me in!”

“I thought he was!”

“Mommy?”

“We could have been killed,” Brett tells her. “All it takes is a split second, and—”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” She presses her palm against her pounding heart.

“Mommy!”

“What?” she snaps. “What do you want?”

“Never mind.”

Elsa turns to meet her daughter’s reproachful gaze. “I’m sorry.”

Renny shrugs, wounded, and Elsa finds herself thinking of Jeremy.

What? What do you want?

How often did those words spill from her mouth in the past? Jeremy was such a demanding child, so needy, so impetuous. He constantly tried her patience.

Renny isn’t anything like him, and yet, just now…

But you didn’t mean to be short with her. You’re only human, Elsa reminds herself. You can’t be the perfect mother, and…

And history doesn’t have to repeat itself.

That’s what’s really bothering her, isn’t it? That’s why she’s on the verge of falling apart here.

She reaches over the seat and touches Renny’s arm. “Remember, I told you before—Mr. Fantoni came to see us in the winter, so he could meet you. He brought you something.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure…it was a toy.” Something age-inappropriate, Elsa vaguely recalls, and remembers noting at the time that Mike seemed to know very little about kids. He doesn’t seem to have any, though she’s pretty sure he’s married—at least, he had been at one point during the long search for Jeremy.

In all those years, she never felt comfortable asking the details of his personal life. Or maybe it was more that she was so absorbed by her own trauma, she didn’t care enough to ask.

Funny how you can know so little about someone who played such a pivotal role in your life. If it hadn’t been for Mike, she’d never know what happened to Jeremy.

Brett has always preferred to keep Mike at arm’s length. He tends to do that with anyone he hasn’t known all his life—a Yankee tradition, he claims.