Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(34)
Married to a closeted lesbian, and he never had a clue. Intuitive? Mike Fantoni? What a joke.
But this hunch…it actually makes sense. He’s not going to discuss it with the Cavalons, though—not yet, anyway. If he’s wrong, they’d be devastated all over again. And if he’s right…
They’ll be devastated anyway.
He was up all night going back over the situation, just to make sure he had the details straight.
He did.
Garvey Quinn said his girlfriend had killed the kid—probably on his say-so, but of course he’d never admit it. He said he’d already left the country, with his daughter, when the kid was killed. Claimed he didn’t know what had happened until weeks later, when she told him.
What if she hadn’t obeyed his orders?
No reason to think that she wouldn’t, but…
What if…?
Putting himself into her shoes, Mike could imagine what she’d been thinking.
What if she’d simply abandoned Jeremy there, in Mumbai—or Bombay, as it was called back then? Who would ever know the difference? He’d never find his way back. In fact, he’d probably wind up dead anyway, sooner or later—but at least she wouldn’t have a kid’s blood on her hands.
Somehow, the theory he’d initially considered impossible no longer seems so.
Anything is possible. Anything at all.
Even Jeremy Cavalon being alive.
Yeah. It makes sense.
So what next?
There he is—a seven-year-old kid, abandoned in a foreign country swarming with abandoned kids. Eleven million in Bombay alone that year, according to a conservative UNICEF estimate.
What, most likely, would have become of him?
There’s only one way to find out.
As luck would have it, a direct flight to Mumbai leaves from Logan in just a few hours—and there’s an available coach seat.
Mike dumps the folded clothes into an open duffel bag, adds another pair of boxers for good measure, and heads for the door.
When the phone rings at precisely nine o’clock, Lauren Walsh is standing on a ladder, paintbrush in hand, about to apply the first coat of semigloss onto the primed molding above the kitchen window.
She hesitates, wondering if she should bother to answer. She just hung up with Sam a few minutes ago, and doubts it’s him again. Her two oldest kids, Ryan and Lucy, are both at school this morning in the midst of finals, so it won’t be them, either. And her youngest, Sadie, is in the next room, playing with the dog.
Other than Sam and her children, there really isn’t anyone else whose call Lauren would jump to answer these days. Her parents, her sister Alyssa, her friend Trilby…they all mean well, but every time they call, Lauren feels as though they’re checking up on her, convinced she’s going to snap any second now.
There had been a time, before she met Nick, when she was strong and independent, a career woman in the city. Marriage changed that—but her marriage didn’t last forever. She was already in the process of relearning, last summer after Nick left, how to survive on her own. So she more or less had a head start on widowhood before her soon-to-be-ex-husband entangled himself in Garvey Quinn’s web and paid the ultimate price.
But the fact that she and Nick were on the verge of divorce didn’t change the fact that she’d loved him once, that he’d been brutally murdered, that her children had lost their father, leaving her to raise them single-handedly, without a break from the overwhelming emotional, physical, and financial responsibility.
Thanks to time, therapy, and a healthy new relationship, she’s managed to pick up the pieces, building a new life for herself and her kids.
These days, they’re doing as well as can be expected—perhaps better.
Even little Sadie has gone back to sleeping in her own bed, after months of night terrors. She’s made her first friend: a girl named Lily, whose mother invited Sadie to visit a water park with them today. And after a rough start to the school year, Ryan and Lucy are now fully back into the swing of academics and athletics.
For their sake, Lauren has no choice but to be strong. After all they’ve been through—all they’ve lost—she can only give them strength by example, and love them. She’s not going to let them down.
Yes, Lauren believes in herself—even if her family and Trilby do not.
The phone rings again.
Lauren glances down at the paint-coated bristles, not entirely sure about this russet color for the trim. Why was Autumn Mist so much more appealing on a small strip of paper in the store?
Maybe she should hold off on painting for a few minutes. In fact, maybe she shouldn’t have let Trilby talk her out of plain old white.
But Trilby is convinced Lauren’s fresh start in life calls for a fresh palette—not just in the house, but in her wardrobe, even cosmetics.
It didn’t take long for Lauren to realize she’s just not a red lipstick or slinky gold dress kind of girl. Maybe, she decides, climbing down the ladder to answer the phone, not an Autumn Mist kind of girl, either.
“Hello, Lauren?”
“Marin! How are you?”
“Oh…you know…”
Yeah. Unfortunately, she does know. She isn’t quite in Marin Quinn’s shoes, but close enough.
It was Sam’s idea to usher in the new year—their first as a couple—with resolutions designed to put the tumultuous past behind them. For Lauren, the first logical step was to get in touch with Marin Quinn. It proved to be a wise decision. Unlike just about everyone else in her life these days, Marin gets it. Gets her.