Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(63)

Stairs or elevator?

Stairs or elevator?

Stairs…

No. They’d be out in the open, easily spotted descending the stairwell from anyone on a landing above.

Once they got into an elevator, though, they’d be safe—as long as it showed up in a hurry. There are six of them; the odds are good. They’ll take the elevator.

She pushes through the door and heaves a sigh of relief that they’ve made it this far.

She’s about to press the down button when her daughter speaks for the first time.

“No!”

“What? What’s wrong?”

Oh—oh no. Renny shrinks back, staring fearfully at the elevator doors.

“I can’t.”

“You can. Please, Renny…” Elsa jams her palm down hard on the button, repeatedly, and hears an elevator lurching up from below.

“No!”

“Shh! You have to.” It’s all Elsa can do to speak over the awful lump in her own throat. “We need to get out of here, and I promise it’s going to be okay.”

The doors glide open; the elevator is empty. She reaches for Renny, pulls her inside, and hesitates, thoughts careening again.

Lobby or ground floor?

Lobby or ground floor?

The security desk is right in the lobby—along with creepy Tom.

There’s a service entrance in the basement, along with the door to the adjacent parking garage. They’ll sneak out one way or another, and once they’re on the street, she can figure out where to go next.

Elsa presses the ground floor button. The doors start to close.

Relieved, Elsa leans back her head, closes her eyes, and at last breathes a sigh of relief.

With an anguished cry and a fierce lurch of her little body, Renny wrenches herself free of Elsa’s grasp. She throws herself back out through the elevator doors at the last second before they slide closed.

In a panic, Elsa presses the door open button, but it’s too late. The descent is under way, and she’s helplessly trapped inside without her daughter.



“Is there anything I can do from here?” Brett asks Mike’s friend Joe.

“Do you pray?”

Brett hesitates, remembering all the years he’d gone faithfully to church—and all the years he hadn’t.

He and Elsa were married at St. Mary’s, the parish where he’d been christened, confirmed, served as an altar boy, and eventually cried at his parents’ funerals.

“Will you accept children lovingly from God?” Father Nolan asked solemnly during the wedding ceremony. Brett and Elsa vowed that they would.

And they did. They accepted Jeremy lovingly from God—by way of the foster care agency back in Boston—and they did their best to make him their own. Brett even took him to church a couple of times, thinking it might be good for both of them.

Looking back, he remembers the disapproving glances from other parishioners and his own discomfort over Jeremy’s behavior more than he remembers anything spiritually positive.

He thinks about what Jeremy did to the Montgomery girl, and of Jeremy’s disappearance, and how he finally stopped going to church for good when his prayers weren’t answered.

Then he thinks about Elsa, who tried to kill herself, and Renny, so close to becoming their daughter…

“Yeah,” he tells Joe. “I pray.”

“Then pray for Mikey. That’s all anyone can do.”



Elsa keeps pressing buttons, but the elevator descends to the ground floor without stopping.

Trapped inside, on the verge of panic, she flashes back to the first moments after she realized Jeremy was missing from the backyard.

She remembers running back into the house, thinking he might have gotten past her and was safely inside; screaming his name; racing back outside, combing the yard, the block, a nearby field…

Later, years later, she wondered if her own terror had precluded her from getting to Jeremy while there was still time. If she’d only stayed calm; if she’d called the police right away; if she hadn’t been hysterical…

Yes. She blamed herself. All these years, she’s blamed herself.

And the same familiar firestorm of panic is sweeping toward her now.

Yet she’s helpless, trapped; there’s nothing to do but wait for the elevator to hit bottom.

The second it does, she jabs the button for her mother’s floor.

The elevator begins the excruciating ascent and Elsa prays it won’t stop along the way, prays Renny will be right where she left her.

Of course she will. Where else would she go? She’d know I’m coming back for her.

Wouldn’t she?

Yes. She’d know I wouldn’t just abandon her, ever.

But what if he gets to her first?

What if…?

At last, at last, the elevator bumps to a stop. The doors begin to open. Elsa springs through the opening the moment it’s wide enough.

Renny is gone.

It’s all she can do not to collapse in despair, or shout her daughter’s name.

No. Don’t. Stay focused.

Think. Think…

Would Renny have left of her own accord? Or did someone grab her?

Dizzy with fear, Elsa rushes over to the wrought-iron railing and leans over, scanning the vast stairwell for Renny.