Don't Cry Now (32 page)

Where else might they have gone? There was a little park back on Blueberry Hill Road, but it was tiny and had only a few swings, and Amanda didn't like it much. And there was the playground behind her school, the playground beside the small alleyway that was Alphabet Lane, where someone had emptied a pail of blood over Amanda's head. “Oh God,” Bonnie moaned. Surely, Lauren wouldn't try to hurt her now, not so soon after Diana's murder.

Bonnie sped up Wellesley Street to School Street, turned left. She tore up the long driveway of the combination school—day care center, jumping out of the car in the same second she pulled the key from the ignition, running along the small walkway to the back of the school, the fully equipped playground popping into view.

There was no one there. Bonnie spun around. “Where are you?” she cried. “Goddamn it, Lauren, where did you take my baby?” And then she saw it, discarded in the sand at the foot of one of the swings. She raced toward it, bent down, scooped the bright pink Barbie bag into her hands. So, they'd been here. Been and gone. Was it possible they'd returned home?

Bonnie raced to her car, almost skidding into a tree at the side of the road as she backed it onto the street. “Slow down,” she told herself, easing her foot off the gas pedal as she made a sharp right turn onto Winter Street. “You're almost there.”

The house appeared at the second bend in the road and Bonnie pulled into the driveway and jumped from the car. “Amanda!” she called even before she reached the front door. “Amanda! Lauren!” She fumbled with her key and pushed open the door, tripping over her feet into the front hall, taking the stairs two at a time.

She saw the blood as soon as she reached the upstairs hall. Just a few red drops on the white tile of the bathroom
floor, but they were unmistakable nonetheless. “Oh my God.” Bonnie threw her hand across her mouth to keep from screaming. “No, please, no.” Slowly, as if her feet were encased in cement, she approached the bathroom.

And then she heard a tiny squeal from behind the closed door to Amanda's bedroom and she spun toward the sound. “Amanda?” she cried, her voice as shaky as a single tear. Her hand reached toward the door, gently pushed it open, her breath stilled in her lungs, her eyes afraid to focus.

Amanda was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the room, one hand on her knee, the other extended toward Lauren, who sat beside her, her tote bag in her lap, holding Amanda's wrist in one hand, a razor blade in the other.

“Oh my God.”

“Please don't come any closer,” Lauren said simply.

“I fell, Mommy,” Amanda told her, lifting her hand from her freshly scraped knee. “Lauren was pushing me on the swing, and I fell off and hurt my knee. I was crying, but Lauren told me not to cry, and she cleaned it up for me.”

“I'm sorry the bathroom's such a mess,” Lauren said, as if this were the most normal conversation in the world, as if she weren't holding a razor blade to Amanda's wrist.

“Amanda,” Bonnie began, her eyes glued to her daughter's delicate veins, “why don't you go downstairs and get some milk and cookies….”

“Not now, Amanda,” Lauren said with authority. Amanda didn't move.

“Lauren says we're going to become real sisters. Blood sisters,” Amanda emphasized. “She said it wouldn't hurt.”

Bonnie felt the air around her suddenly turn to ice. Her breath had to fight its way through. “What?”

“What did Mary have to say?” Lauren asked. “I know you went to see her. She told you I was there, didn't
she?” Her voice assumed a faraway cadence, as if she were speaking from another room.

“Yes.” Bonnie took a step forward.

“I wouldn't come any closer,” Lauren said. “I might get nervous. My hand could slip.”

Bonnie stopped dead. “Don't hurt her,” she begged. “Please don't hurt her.”

“Lauren said it wouldn't hurt, Mommy. Not like when I scraped my knee.”

“That's right, Amanda.” Lauren gave her hand a little squeeze. “I wouldn't do anything to hurt you. You're my little sister.”

“Please,” Bonnie begged. “Let go of Amanda's hand. Let's talk. I'm sure that we can work everything out.”

“What if I don't want to talk?”

“Then we don't have to talk,” Bonnie agreed immediately. “We don't have to say anything.”

“Just wait for the police to get here so you can talk to them?” Lauren asked.

“I have nothing to say to the police.”

“No? That's strange. I thought you'd have a lot to tell them.”

“No,” Bonnie said. “Nothing.”

“I killed them, you know,” Lauren said evenly. “I killed all of them.”

Bonnie felt her heart grow heavy and sink into the pit of her stomach. “You killed your mother?” she asked, though the question had already been answered.

Lauren's voice turned petulant. “It was her own fault. If she hadn't gone snooping in my room, she never would have found my scrapbook. That's what started it all.”

“The scrapbook was yours?”

Lauren nodded. “Pretty neat, huh? I started keeping it the day you married my father.”

“But why?”

A cloud passed across Lauren's eyes, threatened rain. “My father loves me, you know. He's always loved me.
Even when he went away. Even when you tried to take him away from me.”

“Lauren, honey, I never tried to keep your father away from you.”

“You tried,” Lauren insisted. “Everybody tried. But I wouldn't let them.”

Bonnie tried desperately to make sense of what she was hearing, her eyes never leaving her daughter's delicate wrist. Perhaps if she could keep Lauren talking long enough, she'd loosen her grip. “That's why you shot Diana?”

“She was really something, wasn't she? Pretending to be your friend. Sneaking around behind your back. Screwing my father. You know when I found out?”

“When your father showed up at Diana's?”

“No.” Lauren shook her head. “I had it figured out way before then. I knew the first time Sam and I went over there, the time Amanda was with us. You know what Amanda found when she was looking through Diana's dresser? You found all sorts of sexy undies, didn't you, Amanda?”

The child nodded, mesmerized, though clearly confused by the direction the conversation had taken.

“You know what else she found?” Lauren continued. “Those silly little scarves, like the kind you had tied around your wrist that night I was so sick. The same kind of scarves my father tied you to the bed with when you were having sex.”

“Mommy, why did Daddy tie you to the bed?” Amanda asked, eyes like saucers.

Bonnie lowered her eyes to the floor, the memory of that night filling her head, like the smell of rotting fruit.

“God, that made me sick,” Lauren said. “Almost as sick as the arsenic.”

“You gave yourself arsenic?”

“Smart, huh? I saw it in a movie once. That way you never suspected it was me, even after you found out you were being poisoned. Of course, I had to do it gradually.
I could only give you a little bit at a time, so everyone would think it was the flu.”

“And you put the snake in Amanda's bed,” Bonnie stated rather than asked.

“He was supposed to wrap himself around her neck and give a little squeeze, but it didn't work out that way. It was no big deal. I knew I'd get another chance. Accidents happen to little kids all the time. Like falling off a tricycle. Or a swing.” She laughed. “Besides, it was fun watching you worry.”

“Is that why you threw the blood on her? So I'd worry?”

Lauren smiled at Amanda. “You should have seen her before they cleaned her up. She was quite a sight.”

“You threw blood on me,” Amanda repeated indignantly, trying to pull away. “I don't like you anymore.”

“Come on, Mandy,” Lauren cajoled, tightening her grip on Amanda's wrist. “You're not afraid of a little blood, are you? I thought you were a big girl.”

“I don't like you anymore. You're not nice. I don't want to be your sister.” Again she tried to pull away.

Lauren quickly lifted her onto her lap, held the razor to her throat.

“Please, no!” Bonnie cried. “Please don't hurt her. Don't move, baby,” she cautioned her squirming child.

“It's all your fault, you know,” Lauren told Bonnie.

“My fault?”

“You were supposed to get arrested for killing my mother. Then I could have moved in with my father, and taken my time about getting rid of Amanda. It would have been much simpler. I wouldn't have had to hitchhike and take all those damn cabs back and forth everywhere. I wouldn't have had to ask Haze to get me the blood.” She giggled. “He's such a jerk. He thought we were just playing games. He even fixed your car so it wouldn't start.”

Tears began falling down Amanda's face, one veering off, distracted by the tiny scar along her cheek. “Don't cry now, baby,” Bonnie told her, wondering if there was
some way to distract Lauren, to get Amanda to safety.

“What about Sam?” she asked, playing for time. “Was he involved?”

“Are you kidding? Sam thinks you're the greatest thing since Leggo.” She made a sound halfway between a laugh and a cry. “It must have been some shock when he went to collect his money and found Diana dead on the floor.”

Amanda fidgeted in Lauren's tight embrace. The razor pressed deeper into her throat. A tiny dot of blood appeared.

“Please,” Bonnie begged, “you don't want to hurt Amanda. You don't really want to hurt her. She's your baby sister.”

There was silence.

“I don't want a baby sister,” Lauren said, her voice cold and hard, like the granite of a tombstone. “I never wanted a baby sister.”

Bonnie felt her entire body go numb as the realization of exactly what Lauren was saying began seeping its way into her bones. “What are you saying?” she asked slowly.

“I think you know.”

Bonnie shook her head back and forth. “Are you telling me that you killed Kelly? That her death wasn't an accident?”

Lauren stared at her with ghostly eyes.

“But you were almost a baby yourself. You were only six years old when Kelly drowned.”

“It doesn't take much strength to hold a baby's head under water,” Lauren said matter-of-factly. “She was only a little bit of a thing. That's what Daddy always used to say, that she was just a little bit of a thing.” Lauren's eyes flashed in sudden anger. “Everything was all right until she was born.”

Bonnie thought of Joan, of her long, sad decline after the death of her youngest child. “Your mother knew it wasn't an accident,” she said.

Lauren nodded. “She lied to protect me. She did everything to protect me.”

“But you killed her.”

“I didn't want to kill her,” Lauren protested. “But she didn't leave me any choice. After she found my scrapbook, she got so suspicious. She started watching me all the time. I tried to reason with her. But when she discovered her gun was missing, she panicked, called you. She was going to tell you everything. Just like she told my grandmother everything one night when they were drinking.” She stared accusingly at Bonnie. “It's your fault my grandmother's dead,” she said. “You had to go and find her. You couldn't just mind your own business.”

“Lauren….”

“And now my father's going to be angry at me. He's going to think I'm a bad girl. He's going to go away again.”

“Your father's not going anywhere, Lauren. He loves you. He loves you very much.”

“Do you think so?” Lauren asked, wide oval eyes filling with tears. “That's all I ever wanted, you know. For him to love me. Can you understand that?”

Another silence, then, “Yes,” Bonnie told her honestly. “I can understand that.”

Lauren swatted at her tears with the back of her hand, rubbing them into her cheeks.

Like a little girl, Bonnie thought, looking back at Amanda.

“Bonnie,” a voice called suddenly. “Bonnie, are you there?”

Lauren's head snapped toward the sound, temporarily loosening her grip around Amanda's throat, as footsteps bounded up the stairs. In the next instant, Amanda propelled herself out of Lauren's arms and across the room.

“Mommy!”

Bonnie caught sight of Lauren fumbling furiously inside her tote bag. The gun, Bonnie realized, lunging toward the bag, grabbing hold of Lauren's arm just as her hand grasped the gun's handle.

Lauren's arm stiffened, resisted, refused to surrender.
Like a goddamn snake, Bonnie thought, slamming Lauren's wrist against the floor, hearing it snap, watching the gun fall from her limp hand.

And suddenly, Josh Freeman was at her side, kicking the gun out of reach, pulling Bonnie away. “Where the hell did you come from?” Bonnie asked, eyes still on Lauren, watching as she curled into a fetal ball.

“The front door was wide open. I just walked in. Are you all right?”

“I will be,” Bonnie said, eyes closing with relief.

Amanda ran into her mother's arms, buried her face in her neck. “Mommy, Mommy!”

“My sweet angel, are you all right?” Bonnie's shaking fingers touched the drop of blood beneath Amanda's chin.

“What's the matter with Lauren, Mommy?”

“She's not well, sweetie.”

“Will she get better?”

Bonnie kissed her daughter's cheek. “I don't know.” She smoothed some hairs away from Amanda's forehead. “What about you? How are you feeling?”

“I'm okay.” She gently extricated herself from Bonnie's grasp, cautiously approached the young girl lying motionless on the bedroom floor. Bonnie watched, holding her breath. “Don't cry now, Lauren,” Amanda told her. “Everything's going to be all right. You'll see. Don't cry. Don't cry.” Then she sat down beside her, stroking her long auburn hair until the police arrived.