Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(75)

“Exactly.”

Caroline frowns. “What does that mean?”

“I asked you to take care of things around here.”

“That’s your job. Not mine. Anyway, where were you? What were you doing in Westchester?”

Her mother’s blue eyes flash. “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you, and Annie, and how you could have been so irresponsible to—”

“Stop it!” Caroline bolts from her bed. “Stop blaming me! Not everything is my fault!”

As they stand there glaring at each other, Caroline waits for her mother to soften and offer an apology.

It never comes.



Renny barely stirs when Elsa tucks her into bed in the master bedroom, still wearing her clothes. She had considered trying to get her into pajamas, but that would be sure to wake her, and she’d start talking, and that might be dangerous.

She leaves the bedroom door open and tiptoes out.

Well aware that the house might be bugged, Elsa is careful not to make a sound as she walks through the rooms with a small flashlight. Every door and window is securely locked, the shades are down, the lights are off. She casts light into the far corners, making sure no one is lurking, doubting she could even defend herself and Renny if someone were.

Right now, she barely has the energy to stay on her feet, much less fight off an assailant, or flee into the night with her daughter.

In the kitchen, she checks her own wooden knife block. The handles are all there. She stands with her hand poised over it for a moment. Then she pulls out a utility knife and examines the honed blade glinting in the flashlight’s beam.

Are you really capable of using this to harm a human being?

Remembering what happened to Jeremy fifteen years ago when someone violated their own backyard, she knows the answer.

If she had been armed then, and standing guard over her child, she would have killed to protect him. No question about it.

I’d do the same thing now, with Renny.

About to turn away from the counter, she sees a slip of paper with some writing on it. A note from Brett?

She snatches it up.

Mr. and Mrs. Cavalon: I’ll be Renata’s new caseworker…

Elsa’s heart sinks as she reads on. The last thing they need right now is this—this person—snooping around.

The signature is illegible, but there’s a phone number.

She paces, holding the note and the knife, wondering whether Brett called the number on the note, wondering whether she should call him after all.

But if she uses the phone and the line is tapped, all bets are off. She’d have to get Renny out right away.

I just need some time to rest and regroup, figure out what to do.

Brett won’t call here—that much is certain. Why would he? He thinks she’s in New York; he might be headed there himself.

He doesn’t have the keys to Maman’s apartment. What happens when he arrives and no one is there to buzz him up?

Is Tom the doorman still on duty?

Is he even a doorman?

He’s the one who helped Renny, remember? He could have hurt her, and he didn’t. He wasn’t the one stalking us in the apartment.

But why did he think he’d seen Maman in the lobby?

Was she really there?

I can’t even call her to see what the hell is going on. Not from here, anyway.

Peering through a crack in the shade, Elsa sees that Meg Warren’s driveway is still empty; the house still dark.

She should be home from work by now. She must have gone out afterward. Of all the nights for someone who frequently complains of having no social life to depart from her regular routine…

Oh well. She can’t stay out all night—can she?

Her kids are away. Maybe she has a secret lover, and she’s spending the night.

No. Meg has made the Cavalons privy to every detail about her life. If she had a lover, Elsa would know about it.

She’ll be home soon. When she gets here, Elsa will go over—with Renny, of course—and use her phone.

For now, there’s nothing to do but sit on the couch, clutching the knife, and wait.



Still shaking from the confrontation with Caroline, Marin jerks open the drawer on her bedside table and grabs an orange prescription bottle. It takes her a few tries to open the childproof cap. She dumps a couple of pills into her hand and steps into the bathroom to wash them down with a palmful of tap water.

She turns off the faucet and catches her reflection in the mirror above the sink.

“What’s happened to you?” she asks the haggard woman in the mirror, who stares back at her with haunted eyes.

She’s a mess; utterly depleted. When was the last time she ate anything, or actually even sat down, other than in the cab home from Lenox Hill?

Marin turns away from the mirror and goes back to the bedroom. For a moment, she stands looking at the door she slammed closed a few minutes earlier—after storming out of Caroline’s room and slamming her door closed as well.

Should she go apologize?

Maybe.

You shouldn’t have lashed out at her like that. She’s your daughter.

But so is Annie. When Marin thinks of what might have happened to her, lying on the ground in Central Park, all alone, struggling to breathe…

Awash in fresh fury, she turns away from the door and climbs into her big, empty bed to wait for sleep to overtake her.