Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(54)

Back in the kitchen, she finds Renny staring bleakly off into space, cartoon gone to commercials, cookies and juice untouched.

Time for a new distraction. “Hey, Renny, want to see my old bedroom? I had a collection of dolls when I was your age, and they’re still here.”

“Can I play with them?”

“Definitely,” Elsa tells her with a touch of smug satisfaction. When she herself was young, Maman insisted on keeping the antique Jumeau porcelain dolls displayed well out of her reach, behind protective glass.

She leads Renny back down the hall to her room and shows her the dolls. “What do you think? Should we take them out and play with them?”

“I don’t know…maybe later.”

“I guess Barbies would probably be more fun, huh?”

“Pro’ly.”

Renny is equally unenthusiastic when Elsa points out the row of first edition leather-bound storybooks in her bookcase, offering to read to her.

“Maybe later.” She wanders across the room.

Watching her stop abruptly at the bombé chest, Elsa sees that she’s staring at the Mardi Gras mask. She can’t recall ever having mentioned that she herself got into trouble once for touching the mask, but she must have, because her daughter takes a wary step back, dark eyes troubled.

“Don’t worry, Renny. You can touch it if you want to.”

“No, thank you.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The monster.”

“What?” Startled, Elsa looks around. The room is empty, and Renny is fixated on the mask.

“Renny? What monster?”

“The one in my room, back at home.” She shudders, and Elsa feels sick inside. “He had on a mask.”

“Are you sure? You mean it covered his eyes?”

“No, it covered his whole face. Like a scary monster on Halloween.”

“You mean he was wearing a rubber mask?”

Renny nods vehemently.

Dear God. It never occurred to Elsa that the intruder really was masquerading as a monster.

“I’m afraid, Mommy.”

“Don’t be afraid.” The words are automatic, but it’s such a stupid thing to say. Don’t be afraid?

“You are, and so is Daddy.” As if sensing that Elsa is about to deny it, Renny adds, “I heard you talking.”

Oh no. How much did she hear? There’s no use denying anything now. Renny’s a smart kid. Smarter, perhaps, than Elsa even suspected.

“Tell me about the monster, Renny. What was he wearing?”

“A mask.”

“What else?”

“A jacket.” Renny responds so readily that Elsa realizes the vivid image is fresh in her mind, poor little thing.

She wants more than anything to drop the subject, but now that it’s out in the open, she has to get as much information as possible. She has to let Brett know, and Mike, too, as soon as they reach him.

“What kind of jacket was he wearing?”

“The kind with a zipper and a hood. It was black.”

“Did you see his hair?”

“No. The hood was up.”

“Was he tall or short?”

“Tall.”

That doesn’t help. Anyone would seem tall, looming over a child in the dead of night.

And anyone who would do such a thing really is a sick, twisted monster.



Last October, around Halloween, Jeremy found his way from Groton back to Nottingshire, in the Boston suburbs.

Thanks to all the news accounts that recapped his kidnapping, he knew where he’d lived—not just the town, but the street as well. He was pretty sure that if he drove along Twin Ponds Lane, he’d recognize the two-story house where he’d lived with the Cavalons.

He didn’t know why it seemed so important to return to the scene of the crime, but it was all he could think about.

He drove around and around Nottingshire that day, checking street signs, looking for landmarks. He found a few that seemed familiar: a big blue water tower, a redbrick library, a Shell gas station.

The gas station had—and still has—an attached mini-mart where Elsa once bought Jeremy an ice cream Drumstick on a hot summer day. She told him it wouldn’t drip out the bottom of the cone because the point was plugged with a chunk of fudge.

“I always loved to eat my way down to it,” she told him. “It was like a bonus treat at the end.”

Intrigued, Jeremy couldn’t wait; he bit off the bottom of the cone first. Somehow, it didn’t taste as good as he’d expected. He spit it out on the ground, dismayed.

When they went to get back into the car, Elsa saw the melted ice cream dripping all over his hands and realized what he’d done.

He’d expected her to get angry. But she didn’t. She just seemed disappointed that he hadn’t saved the fudge for last the way she used to, and that he hadn’t even liked it. Her disappointment made him feel worse, probably, than he would have if she’d yelled at him for making a mess.

It was so long ago, it’s pretty amazing that he even remembers the incident—especially since he didn’t even remember her until recently.

But ever since the dam burst, he’d been piecing together his childhood, the only childhood he ever had, even though it was another decade—an endless, excruciating decade—before he actually became an adult.