Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(48)
Now Nick’s mother wants to meet her grandchildren. She’s flying in tomorrow morning on the redeye, before Lucy and Ryan leave for sleepaway camp in the Adirondacks.
“Sounds like it’s going to be an intense visit.” Marin fiddles with one of her gold earrings.
“I just hope it’s a positive experience for my kids. They don’t need any more stress in their lives right now.”
“Maybe you should keep this woman away, then. She hadn’t even seen Nick in years.”
“She’s still his mother—their grandmother.” Lauren changes the subject. “How are your girls doing with the move and everything?”
“We haven’t talked much about it. I guess it won’t seem real until this place is officially on the market.”
Remembering the media encampment in front of the Quinns’ apartment building last year, Lauren can just imagine the barrage of nosy strangers—and even worse, undercover reporters—likely to descend on the Quinn household, posing as buyers.
“The whole world knows where Garvey lived. How do you know that people won’t just show up to snoop around?”
“For one thing, they might know the building, but it’s a high-rise with over two hundred and fifty apartments. They can’t know which one is ours.”
I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Lauren wants to tell her…but then, if Marin feels secure after all she’s been through, why instill paranoia?
“Plus, we bought the place under an LLC years ago, and my lawyer said it would be almost impossible at this point to trace it back to Garvey.”
“So even the Realtor doesn’t know who you are?”
“Well, she knows—but she’s a friend of my friend Heather’s, and I trust her, and anyway, we have a confidentiality agreement in place for the sale. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
Really? Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?
Marin changes the subject, asking again about her kids and camp.
“I’m dreading letting them go,” Lauren admits, “but Dr. Rogel—he’s the child psychiatrist—thinks it’s best for them to get some distance and have a normal summer.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t listen to him and never let them out of your sight again, after what happened.”
After what happened…
That’s how they refer to last summer’s events: “what happened.”
It’s as if neither of them can find the words to accurately depict the horror. Lauren’s stomach churns as she remembers what it was like to come face-to-face with every mother’s worst fear.
But it’s over. Her children survived. She survived.
And they can’t spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders. Nor should Marin Quinn.
Seeing her friend’s fraught expression, Lauren feels another stab of concern. Something tells Lauren that Marin is on the brink…of something. Some kind of breakthrough, or maybe a breakdown.
I’m afraid for her. But I have no idea how to help her as long as she refuses to let me in.
Gotta love a woman who digs her own grave.
Granted, the freshly turned patch of dirt at the back of the property probably wasn’t meant to conceal a corpse…
Probably?
Okay, it definitely wasn’t meant to conceal a corpse. Apparently, she’d dug it in anticipation of planting all those fresh herbs in the nursery flats she’d left on the back steps.
Well, lady, now the seedlings are in the ground—and so are you.
The good man upstairs has even seen fit to water the new garden. A drenching rain is giving the new little garden a good soaking—effectively washing away the fresh blood, with the added bonus of keeping the neighbors safely in their houses.
Not that anyone in a surrounding yard can possibly see into this one—or into the Cavalons’ yard next door, for that matter.
But there’s always a chance that someone might come along, and then what?
Then things would get even messier. You’d need another grave, and this time, you’d have to do the digging yourself…
No, thank you.
Time to get in out of the rain.
“Next stop: Stamford, Connecticut…Staaaaamford, Connecticut will be your next stop.”
Hearing the announcement, Elsa glances at her watch. Less than an hour from now, the train will be pulling into Penn Station. Then she and Renny will really be on their own.
Not that they aren’t technically on their own right now. Yet she can’t help feeling relatively safe here. Nothing is going to happen to them sitting in a brightly lit, crowded railroad car. Once they arrive in New York, though…all bets are off.
Needing distraction, Elsa tries to grab the magazine in the seat pocket. It’s out of reach unless she shifts her position, which would disturb Renny, sound asleep with her head in Elsa’s lap.
It was all she could do to calm her daughter’s frayed nerves after her full-blown panic attack, with plenty of disapproving passengers looking on.
She looks around the car. A few people are sleeping, others tap away on laptops, and an older couple is playing cards on their tray tables. Across the aisle, a young man plugged into an iPod bobs his head slightly to an audible beat.
As if he senses Elsa watching him, he suddenly glances at her, gives a little nod, looks away.