Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(93)

Caroline is out somewhere…

But that’s not why the police are here.

They’re here because Elsa Cavalon’s daughter is missing, and for some reason, they thought Marin might have had something to do with it.

They still might think that, judging by the way they’re watching her every move.

But they’re definitely concerned about Caroline’s absence. Maybe because they’re wondering if Marin has something to do with that, too.

She told them about the argument they had last night. “Just normal mother-daughter stuff,” she’d called it.

They didn’t seem convinced.

They’ve called Caroline’s friends. None of them are even in town, and none has heard from Caroline in the last twenty-four hours.

Marin sets down the half-empty water glass, shaking so badly that droplets slosh over the rim. Annie reaches for her hand and squeezes it.

“Annie…” Marin leans her head on her daughter’s surprisingly sturdy shoulder. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being here with me. For me. You…you’re the only one I can count on. Ever.”

Annie strokes her mother’s hair in silence.

It should be the other way around, Marin thinks. Mother comforting daughter. No matter what happens—no matter what—things are going to change around here.

She’s going to change.

I know what I have to do to make that happen.

Right now, before I lose my nerve.

She starts to rise, thinking only of the pill bottles in her bedside drawer.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Wait. There is one thing…”

Marin sits again. “What is it?”

“I don’t want to get into trouble.” She glances anxiously at the police officers who are watching and listening with interest. “You have to swear you won’t tell Caroline.”

“Tell her what?”

“I’ll be right back.” Annie gets up quickly and disappears down the hall.

Marin and the cops wait in strained silence, but not for long.

Annie returns clutching something in her hand. “I was kind of…looking through Caroline’s room…I do that sometimes…”

Marin closes her eyes. How many times has her older daughter accused her kid sister of snooping?

I always stuck up for Annie.

But Caroline was right.

“I found this in her drawer.”

“I’ll take it.” The cop closest to her stretches out his hand. She looks at Marin, who nods slightly.

Annie hands him what looks like a crumpled napkin.

He inspects it. “Whose phone number is this?”

“I don’t know. But maybe it has something to do with where she went.”



Caroline hasn’t said much since Jeremy met her at the train station, and he wonders what’s wrong with her.

Is she having second thoughts about being here?

He’s having second thoughts about it, that’s for sure. Maybe he isn’t ready to tell her the truth yet. Or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t want La La here when he tells her.

Maybe?

Hell, he doesn’t want La La around anywhere. She’s smothering him. He can’t take it anymore.

Guilt brought him here in the first place; guilt has kept him coming back.

But he’s had enough. He was going to tell La La that this morning—tell her it’s over.

She was gone, though, when he woke up, and then Caroline called, and now…

Now everything’s a mess.

He turns on to Regis Terrace, thinking again of the first time he came here, last fall.

La La had made the first move that night, but he hadn’t fought her off very hard.

Oh hell, he hadn’t fought her off at all. She was a beautiful woman, and despite all he’d been through with Papa, he was a red-blooded man. Women had been drawn to him ever since he ventured out the front door of Papa’s house and made his way to Texas.

He’d known it would be wrong to get too close to any of them, though. As much as he craved love and acceptance, he was nowhere near ready for a real relationship. Not after what he’d been through.

But it was different with La La Montgomery—or so he’d tried to convince himself just before he got carried away and fell into bed with her. Different because she wasn’t really a stranger, and because she wasn’t like the carefree young girls he’d met in bars. La La had been through her share of pain; she was, in many ways, older than her years, with a nurturing quality that enveloped him, made him feel momentarily safe and warm.

And yet, after he left her that first night, he’d promised himself it would never happen again, just as he had with the others who’d come before her.

La La might understand him better than anyone, but he still wasn’t capable of a relationship, and they both had too much baggage, and anyway, there was something about her—about the intensity of her gaze—that made him uneasy.

He would never have gone back if not for the hysterical phone call from La La the next morning, saying she’d just found her mother, tragically killed in a drunken fall down the stairs.

“Please, Jeremy—please come. I need you.”

She’s always telling him how much she needs him, how much she loves him, how he’s all she has…