Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(45)

She turns onto Elm Street and looks for the painted lady Lauren described over the phone. There it is, about halfway down the block: a tall mustard-colored Queen Anne Victorian with brick red gingerbread trim.

Her heart pounds as she pulls up in front. She can’t help but think of Garvey, pitilessly shattering the lives of the children who live here, just as he shattered his own children’s lives, and Marin’s.

I shouldn’t be here. I need to go.

But before she can act, she hears someone calling her name through the open car window. Looking up, she sees Lauren waving from the wraparound porch.

The few times they’ve come face-to-face, it’s been over lunch in the city—private booths in restaurants where no one would recognize either of them. Lauren has worn skirts, jewelry, makeup. Today, she descends the porch steps in sneakers, jeans, and a T-shirt, her long, reddish-brown hair caught back in a casual ponytail.

Marin immediately relaxes a bit, despite feeling overdressed.

“Hey, you made it!”

“Yeah—after a narrow brush with the paparazzi,” she tells the one person she knows who’s also been there, done that.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. Someone snapped my picture on the street. I don’t think it was really the paparazzi, though—just someone who recognized me.” Not that that’s much better. Plenty of amateur photographers sold candid shots to the press last summer when the news first broke.

“Oh, Marin—I thought that had died down. It has here.”

“Well, you don’t run into thousands of people when you step out your door.” Marin gestures at the quiet street.

“Not usually, no.” She smiles.

Marin reaches back for a Saran-wrapped platter on the passenger’s seat. “This is for you.”

“Cookies? Are these homemade?”

“Yes, but I can’t take credit. My daughter Annie loves to bake. Now that school is out, we’ve got cookies coming out of our ears, so…”

“Ryan will devour these in five minutes flat. I think he’s about the same age as Annie.”

“She’s almost fourteen.”

“Ryan’s thirteen.” Lauren leads the way up the porch steps, adding somewhat stiffly, “Lucy’s fifteen. Sadie’s only five. She’s at Splashdown today; Ryan and Lucy are at school. So you won’t get to meet any of them yet.”

Marin hopes her relief doesn’t show. Not that she has anything against Lauren’s kids. But she doubts she’s ready to handle meeting them so soon, and she’s willing to bet they feel the same about her—if they even know she’s here.

The conversational ball is in Marin’s corner, and she tries to think of something to say. What happened to the easy conversational flow she and Marin share over the phone, and whenever they meet on neutral ground?

At last, she asks, “School is still in session?”

“Just finals. Public schools go later than private. So your older daughter is…?”

“In private school. So is Annie.”

“No, I meant her name—is it Caroline?”

“That’s right. Very good!” Marin tries for a light tone, deciding maybe she’s just uncomfortable talking about the kids—hers, and Lauren’s.

Maybe Lauren is, too, because there’s an awkward silence as she opens the screened wooden outer door. Marin can hear rainwater dripping from the gutters above the porch.

Stepping into the high-ceilinged foyer, she’s greeted by the smell of vintage wood and fresh paint. She takes in the old-fashioned wallpaper, the floral draperies, and the ornate woodwork on the stairway, crown moldings, and half-closed pocket doors off to one side.

It’s magnificent; the kind of house you often see preserved in touristy New England towns, with guided tours and a brass plaque by the door.

This one looks lived-in, though—kids’ shoes scattered near the doormat, a baseball cap draped over a newel post, and a pile of books and spiral-bound notebooks on the bottom step, obviously waiting to be carried up.

“You’ll have to excuse the clutter,” Lauren tells her, bending to scoop up a stray tennis ball. “Between the kids emptying out their desks and lockers now that it’s the end of the school year, and being under construction, I can’t seem to keep it under control.”

“You’re under construction?”

Lauren doesn’t reply immediately, and when she does, Marin realizes that it’s going to be impossible, here on the Walsh family’s home turf, to avoid awkward moments and the subject of what happened last summer.

She shouldn’t have come. Why is she here? Why didn’t she at least take something for her nerves before she left home? That’s what Heather would have advised, had Marin told her where she was going.

But the pills can make her sleepy, or loopy—in no condition to drive. It’s been long enough, as it is, since she was behind the wheel.

“I had the kitchen gutted,” Lauren tells her.

The kitchen. Of course. That’s where it happened—the final bloody showdown.

“Want to see?”

Marin really doesn’t, but she says, “Sure,” anyway.

Maybe it’ll be cathartic, she tells herself as Lauren leads the way toward the back of the house.