Live to Tell (Detective D.D. Warren, #4)(45)

Evan lets Ronnie go. The little boy bolts for his mother, who scoops him up immediately into her protective embrace. Evan walks to my side and takes the phone. He holds it to his ear only a second, then hands it back.

“You lied to me.”

“Why did you take Ronnie away?”

“You tricked me.”

“Why did you take Ronnie away?”

My angelic son smiles at me. “I’ll never tell.”

I slap my son across the face. Vaguely, I’m aware of screaming. Becki, I think. Only later do I realize that it’s me.



Becki doesn’t call the cops. Maybe she should. But with Ronnie still clutched against her chest, she grabs the diaper bag and bolts out of the park. My hand-drawn maps never made it into her bag. The haste of her departure scatters them across the playground. I watch them flutter about.

Directions to the life I used to live.

Beside me, Evan’s sobbing, holding his red-stained cheek. My unexpected act of violence has shocked him, transforming him into a confused eight-year-old, attacked by his own mother.

I should hate myself for what I’ve done. I should feel remorseful, guilt-stricken. But I can’t feel anything. Nothing at all.

After another moment, I cross to the park bench. I pack up the muffins, the strawberries, my travel mug of coffee. I tuck each item into my flowered bag, arranging them just so. I cross to the slide. Pick up Evan’s shoes, lay them carefully on top of the containers. Evan has stopped crying. He stands, shoulders hunched, hands cupping his thin face, hiccuping miserably.

I could leave him. I could throw the bag over my shoulder, start walking, and never look back. Someone would find him. The authorities, unable to contact me, would call his father. Michael could have him back. Evan would be happy about that.

Maybe I could walk to Mexico. Drink a pi?a colada. Dip my toes into the sand. I wonder how warm the water would feel this time of year.

“Mommy,” Evan whimpers. “Mommy, I want to go home.”

So we go home, where I give us both Ativan and we go to sleep.



Later, three hours, four, six? It’s hard to say. Evan sits on the couch watching SpongeBob. I hide in the kitchen, dialing a number I’m not supposed to dial anymore. We’re on a break. He needed some time. Things had grown strange in the past month. Once, he’d even scared me.

Now none of that seems to matter. Not that last episode, and the way his eyes had turned into black pools and I’d felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Not the strange, guttural way his voice had sounded when he said he needed to go away. Had some business to tend to. But he’d call me on Monday. He’d have a surprise for me on Monday.

It’s Saturday afternoon. Monday is forty-eight hours. I can’t make it that long. I need him. Dear God, I need someone.

Ringing. Once. Twice. Three times.

I almost hang up. Then:

“Hello?”

The second I hear his deep baritone, it hits me. The stress, the terror, the unrelenting fear. Not that my son will kill me, but that despite my best efforts, he will hurt someone else. He’s growing older, getting bigger, stronger, smarter. How long can I keep this up? How much longer before he wins at his own game?

The deep freeze gives way. I start to cry, and once I start, I can’t stop.

“I can’t do it,” I sob into the phone. “I just can’t do it anymore. I’m not strong enough.”

“Shhh, shhh, shhh,” he soothes. “I’ll help you, Victoria. Of course I’ll help you. Now take a deep breath and tell me everything.”





| CHAPTER

SIXTEEN





Andrew Lightfoot lived in Rockport, about thirty minutes north of Boston. The quaint little town was perched on the edge of the Atlantic coast and offered all the requisite tourist amenities, including hand-scooped ice cream, saltwater taffy, and pounds of homemade fudge. D.D. would love to live in Rockport, assuming she ever won the lottery.

The GPS system obediently directed them to Lightfoot’s DMV address. D.D. followed the long narrow driveway until a house suddenly burst out of the windswept landscape in front of her. Beside her, Alex whistled. She simply stared, craning her head to see better through the front windshield.

Andrew Lightfoot owned a mansion. A staggeringly tall, modernistic structure that rose straight up from the rocky coastline and featured towers of glass oriented toward the vast gray-green sea.

“Three to four million, easy,” Alex price-tagged the home. “How many auras do you have to cleanse to earn this kind of real estate?”

“Don’t know, but next major hurricane, whole house is a do-over.”

“I think they use a special glass now,” Alex commented.

D.D. remained dubious. “I think builders have forgotten how major the hurricanes we can get up here are.”

She parked the car next to a gurgling waterfall that flowed down a pile of decorative rocks. Next to the waterfall stood discreet piles of smaller stones, granite pavers engraved with Japanese symbols and a sparse collection of dainty flowers and ornamental grasses. Very Zen, she supposed. It put her immediately on edge.

D.D. and Alex made their way up the sinuous walkway. An oversized front door, fashioned from glass framed in maple, enabled them to see all the way through the house to the ocean on the other side. Seven-foot-high windowpanes on both sides of the door expanded the view. A small brown dog sat in the right-hand window. It spotted their approach and started yapping.