Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(98)

But the familiar spots fall away as Detective Gibbs takes them into a part of town they rarely visited. Here, the homes are massive, set wide apart and back from the wide, leafy streets.

As they turn on to Regis Terrace, Elsa spots police cars and ambulances. An icy tide of dread sweeps through her.

Detective Gibbs parks quickly at the curb across from the hub of the action: a stately home Elsa knows belongs to the Montgomerys.

“You folks sit tight for a minute.” The detective is out of the car in a hurry, striding toward a cluster of uniformed cops out front.

Elsa’s pulse races as she and Brett wait in silence, watching the house.

Renny…

Jeremy…

Her children…

Detective Gibbs strides back to the car. Elsa grips her husband’s hand.

“Amelia Montgomery is in custody—and injured, in critical condition,” he announces without ado. “Jeremy has been shot, but he’s safe. So is Caroline Quinn.”

“Caroline Quinn?” Looking bewildered, Brett voices the question Elsa can’t bring herself to ask. “What about Renny?”

Detective Gibbs clears his throat. “We don’t know where she is. I’m sorry, Mr. Cavalon. But we’re doing everything we can to find her.”



Propped on the couch where they moved him, away from the bloody kitchen, Jeremy winces.

“Sorry…does that hurt?” asks the motherly paramedic who’s wrapping a bandage around his wounded arm. A uniformed police officer hovers nearby, keeping a wary eye on things.

On Jeremy.

“It’s okay,” he tells the paramedic. “I’m good with pain.”

She raises a dubious gray eyebrow. “This is more than just pain, honey. You’ve been shot.”

Yeah, well, he’s been through worse.

Much worse.

“All right,” the woman says as she finishes up. “They want to talk to you now.”

“Who does?”

“The detectives.” She gives him a sympathetic pat on the arm and disappears.

The police officer looks at Jeremy as if to say, Don’t try anything.

It was self-defense! he wants to shout. I had to do it. She was going to kill—

Several men stride into the room, the one in the lead saying briskly, “I’m Detective Gibbs. Are you Jeremy Cavalon?”

Jeremy Cavalon…

It’s been years since he heard the name. Tears spring to his eyes.

They know.

They know it’s me.

“Yes,” he says simply. “I’m Jeremy Cavalon.”



Isolated in the den of the Montgomery mansion with a pair of female police officers, Caroline tries hard to focus on their questions.

But they have so many, and some don’t even make sense.

They just showed her a photo of a little girl she’s never even seen before, and asked what she knew about her.

“Absolutely nothing.”

“So you have no idea where she is?” one of the officers—the one who looks like her face would crack if she tried to smile—asks Caroline.

“I don’t even know who she is.”

“She’s missing. Amelia Montgomery abducted her from her home in Groton.”

“Amel—”

“La La,” the other officer says. “That’s what she was called.”

Caroline nods. “But I don’t know anything about this.”

“She didn’t say anything about a little girl?”

“No. Nothing at—” Caroline stops, remembering. “She did say something.”

The officers wait, pens poised over their notes.

“She said…” Caroline closes her eyes, trying to remember. “She told Jeremy he was like a little girl, afraid of everything…she kept talking about stuff like that.”

“Like what?”

“You know…fear. Like, she said something about how some people are afraid of being trapped in small spaces…”

The two women look at each other, then again at Caroline.

“The child we’re trying to find has a severe case of claustrophobia,” the humorless officer tells her. “She might have hidden her somewhere to scare her. Do you have any idea where she might have—”

Caroline gasps. “Yes! The basement!”



“Excuse me…I’m sorry to interrupt, but this is urgent.”

Looking up to see a female police officer poking her head into the living room, Jeremy welcomes the interruption. Sitting here, telling the detectives about Papa—about what he went through, in Mumbai, and here—it’s harder than he ever imagined it would be.

The only other person he’s ever told was La La—but that was almost as if he were talking to himself, purging his soul of the horror.

Little did he realize she was registering every last detail, planning to use the information to launch her vengeful crusade.

“We think she might have hidden the little girl somewhere in the basement,” the female officer announces from the doorway. “There must be a closet down there, or something.”

“There are a few,” Jeremy speaks up. “And there’s a wine cellar too, and a voice studio.”