Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(72)

Now she’ll probably never see him again.

Oh well. His loss.

Mine, too, she thinks wistfully, watching Jake sling his backpack over his shoulder and walk away.



Sick with fear, Marin paces the apartment clutching both the cordless and her cell phone.

How can this be happening?

Her younger daughter is missing, her older daughter doesn’t give a damn, and…

My son is dead.

And Lauren was wrong. I’m not strong enough to deal with all this.

Her hands are trembling so violently that it takes her a couple of tries to dial Annie’s cell phone number again. As before, it goes straight into voice mail.

“Annie, it’s Mom again. Where are you? I’m home, and you’re not, and I’m worried, and…”

She trails off and hangs up, swallowing over the painful lump in her throat.

Should she call the police again?

When she called the first time, the desk sergeant transferred her to a female officer who asked a few questions—including Marin’s full name, which didn’t seem to strike a chord—and wanted to know whether she had reason to believe her daughter might be in danger.

“Of course she might be in danger! She’s out there somewhere alone! And—oh God—yesterday, someone put a live rat into her sister’s purse.”

There’s a pause. “Excuse me? What was that?”

Even as Marin hurriedly explained about the rat and the text message, she could tell it wasn’t making much sense to the officer.

“And this happened to your daughter just yesterday?”

“To my other daughter. Her sister. We thought it was a prank.”

“It sounds like one. Getting back to today—are you sure your daughter didn’t just go for a walk, or to a friend’s house, or maybe out with a boyfriend…?”

“She doesn’t even have a boyfriend!” Marin shrieked into the phone.

“Ma’am, please, I’m trying to assess the situation.”

She managed to control herself long enough to answer several other frustrating questions, all of which allowed the officer to conclude that this isn’t an emergency.

“You don’t think a missing child is an emergency?” Marin asked incredulously, certain she was being regarded as an incoherent, overreaching maternal lunatic.

“At this juncture, we—”

“You have to do something!”

“Ma’am, please,” the officer said again, all but sighing. “You’re welcome to come down to the precinct with a recent photograph of your daughter and a description of what she was wearing—”

“I have to come down there? How can I leave here when she might show up any second? You can’t send someone here?”

“At this stage, no. As you said, she’ll probably turn up safe and sound any second, but—”

“That isn’t what I said!”

“Ma’am, please—”

That was when Marin banged the phone down in frustration.

The woman has no idea. No idea who Annie is, or what their family has been through, or why they don’t take missing children lightly.

Marin should have told her.

Why didn’t she tell her?

What the hell is wrong with me?

God, I wish Garvey were here.

It isn’t the first time she’s missed him, but it’s the first time she’s needed him. For all his faults, at least he’d know what to do. He always did. He was the one in control, the one who took care of things—of her; the one who—

Her phone rings in her hand, startling her. She answers with a breathless “Hello?”

“Is this Marin Quinn?” an unfamiliar voice asks.

“Yes…”

“I’m calling from Lenox Hill Hospital. It’s about your daughter Anne.”



According to the GPS planted in Brett Cavalon’s car, he’s on the move again.

Surely he’s not on his way to rescue his wife and daughter—unless he thinks they’re somewhere up north, toward Boston.

Are they?

That’s highly unlikely. They’re probably holed up in a hotel somewhere here in New York. Who knows? Maybe even this one.

It doesn’t really matter where they are, though.

I’m finished with them for tonight. They’ve had enough, and so have I.

It’s been such a long day—so tempting just to stay in Manhattan for tonight, as planned, and let Brett go wherever he’s going.

But then, Elsa’s husband might be dangerous, left to his own devices. More dangerous than Elsa herself, for the time being.

So much for a reprieve.

Might as well hop a shuttle to Logan and see what he’s up to.

One quick phone call, a cursory check of the room, and it’s time to go.

Downstairs, the Times Square hotel is teeming with weekend tourists checking in, bellhops pushing luggage carts, and locals grabbing pre-theater cocktails at the posh lobby bar.

A doorman opens the door with a friendly tip of his hat. “Do you need a cab?”

Yes. But I’m not going to let you get one for me.

“No, thank you.” It wouldn’t be a good idea to draw any extra attention. That would only increase the risk of being remembered later, should anything go wrong and investigators find their way to the hotel.