Exposure (6 page)

Lorraine glanced at the clock. Where
was
Martin? He should have been home an hour ago.

The phone rang. Lorraine snatched up the receiver from a worn end table. “AC Storage.” Her boss had told her and Martin they could use the business line for personal use, as long as they paid for long distance. It saved them money, but it did mean having to answer customer’s calls day or night.

“Hi, it’s me.” Martin’s voice sounded tight, his words clipped.

“Where are you? What’s wrong?”

Lorraine heard an intake of breath. “The bank was robbed tonight.”

“Oh!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Nobody got hurt.”

“Not at all?”

“No, really. I was there, and two women. We’re all fine.”

“Is it Daddy?” Hope lit Tammy’s face.

“Yes, honey, he’s coming home.” Lorraine threw her a fake smile, then headed for the bedroom, the phone smashed against her ear. She could hardly think what question to ask next. “Are you
sure
you’re all right?”

“I’m okay. Just shook up.”

“What happened?”

“Four men picked the lock on the back door. They rushed in so fast, none of us could sound the alarm.”

“Did they take a lot of money?”

“Everything in the daily carts in the vault. Almost seven million.”

The vault.
Martin would have been forced to open it, and he was claustrophobic. “Did they make you go inside?”

“Yeah.”

Oh, no.
“They pulled a gun on you?”

He hesitated. “Lorraine, I’m okay.”

“
Did
they?”

“Yes, but — ”

“Martin!” Lorraine’s hand pressed against her cheek. “Could you see their faces? Can you identify them?”

“They were wearing masks. All I know is the first guy was tall and thin, and the second was real short but muscular. I don’t even remember what the other two looked like, except they all wore solid black.”

Men with masks. And guns. Rage shot through Lorraine. What those criminals had put her husband through! How would he ever feel safe at his desk again?

“Martin — ”

“Look, I can’t talk right now. The police just got here, and I have to give them my statement.”

Lorraine sank down on the bed. He was trying to keep her from worrying, but what he’d endured had to have been terrifying. “Okay. Just . . . get home as soon as you can.”

“I will.”

“Martin. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The line clicked. Lorraine lowered the phone and stared at the thin brown carpet. A gun aimed at her husband. Martin, who worked so hard trying to support his family. Who’d held her for hours when her mother died, who couldn’t wait to rock their newborn. Who’d moved “his girls” here to Atlantic City with dreams of buying a house with a fenced backyard where Tammy could play. Martin,
her
Martin could have been killed. He
could have been killed!

Lorraine started to shake.

She had dreams of her own, and Martin was in the center of all of them. Lorraine wanted a big family — something she’d never had. Now both her parents were dead, and she had no siblings. She wanted four, maybe five kids. The old Ford van she’d driven to Atlantic City full of moving boxes in the back still only had its front two seats — one for her, one for Tammy. How big and empty it seemed. When the three of them drove somewhere as a family, they used Martin’s car. Lorraine dreamed of needing a new van
full
of seats, every one taken. That nice house with the picket fence — she wanted it ringing with kids’ noise and laughter. Friends coming over to play, slumber parties, and afternoons of baking cookies. Martin was a good father. She could see him on the floor with the kids, reading them stories, wrestling with his sons . . .

Lorraine’s dreams were built on hope. And on Martin. She would be nothing without Martin.

And some greedy, scum-of-the-earth criminals had held a gun to his head.

“Mommy!” Tammy called from the living room.

Loraine closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath. “Coming, sweetie!”

Rising from the bed, she pushed down her fear and anger. As she headed up the hall she managed to paste a smile on her face. “Guess what, Tammy? Daddy will be home soon!”

Kaycee slumped on Tricia’s couch, one leg stretched out on the cushions. Her elbow dug into the back, her head resting on a fist. Exhaustion and anxiety warred in her nerves. Not to mention concern over her own sanity. She’d told Tricia everything, wanting,
needing
empathy. But the further Kaycee got into her story, the less plausible it sounded.

Still — that dead man’s face. The gore smeared in his hair, his half-open eyes.
We see you.
The picture wouldn’t go away. It floated in Kaycee’s brain like a photo on ocean waves, first bobbing on a crest, then pulled under only to resurface.

Now after midnight she and Tricia sat, each deep in thought, trying to find an explanation for the inexplicable. Tricia was in her rocker-recliner, the footrest popped up. Her ample frame, some forty pounds overweight, filled most of the chair. In jeans and a sweatshirt, no makeup, she looked tired, her plump lips drawn down, her eyes at slow blink. Tricia worked as an administrative assistant to the dean of students at Asbury College — which meant reporting to work first thing in the morning. She should have been in bed long ago.

Kaycee rubbed her forehead. “I’m losing my mind, Tricia. This is the fifth time since Mandy’s death I’ve called the police to my house. Before it was just thinking I’d seen a shadow or something. But I swear this camera was real.” Kaycee squeezed her eyes shut. “Tomorrow the chief of police will be coming around to cart me to the loony bin.”

Tricia shifted in her chair. “I have a theory. Just hear me out, okay?”

“Okay.”

Tricia looked away, as if gathering her thoughts. “We both know you’ve been really struggling since Mandy’s death. Long before she got sick you’d gotten your paranoia under control, and your ‘Who’s There?’ column was helping people with their own fears. Well, it still is. But in this past year you’ve been fighting this whole your-worst-fear-really-can-come-true thing.”

“Yeah, and tonight it has.”

“That’s just my point. At least you think it has. It’s like since Mandy died your mind has been conjuring up your
own
worst fear, culminating in actually ‘seeing’ the camera. You of all people know how fears can color our perceptions.”

“But I
saw
that dead man’s pic — !”

“Just hold on.” Tricia raised both hands, palms spread. “Three weeks ago you wrote a column about one of your readers who’s scared of having her picture taken, remember? You titled it ‘Exposure.’ The mere sight of a camera drives the woman into a frenzy. With that in the back of your mind, added to your heightened fear these days of being watched, your brain came up with tonight’s scenario. Kaycee, think about what you ‘saw.’ A picture of somebody dead — think
Mandy
— and the most frightening words of your life printed on the photo —
We see you.
”

“Then why didn’t I see Mandy in the picture?”

Tricia shook her head. “You couldn’t have handled that. So your mind came up with . . . someone else.”

Tricia’s words drifted through Kaycee slowly, pebbles through thick oil. They made some sense, but . . . “Tricia, if I didn’t see that camera, if I didn’t hold it in my hand and see a picture of myself
and
that dead man, then I really am going crazy. Even my mother never did anything like this.”

Tricia let out a long sigh. “Kaycee.” Her voice was gentle. “You were already upset over your visit with Hannah. Like you’ve told me, you hate what’s happening to her, but you know you can’t interfere. She
has
to make her new family work, because that’s her reality. So it doesn’t make you crazy that in the midst of all you were dealing with tonight, you thought you saw that camera.” Tricia fell silent for a moment. “I mean, consider the alternative. Do you
want
to believe someone got into your house without breaking a window, set up some high-tech camera, waited until you ran out of the house, took away the camera and disappeared — all without leaving a trace? Do you
really
want to believe that?”

No.

Kaycee’s throat tightened. She swiveled to press both feet against the floor and thrust her head in her hands. Tricia was right. Her mind had just crumbled for a moment. Kaycee imagined herself walking into her kitchen that evening. The flash that lit the room — could that have been car headlights through the dining room windows? She wasn’t used to a sight like that; usually her curtains were closed after dark.

Tricia’s phone rang. Kaycee barely registered the sound.

“Who in the world could that be at this hour?” Tricia’s chair creaked as she leaned over to pick up the receiver on a nearby table. “Hello?”

Kaycee stared at the carpet between her feet. The camera
was
all in her mind. It had to be. If it was real, how could she ever feel safe in her beloved home again? How could she ever fight her way back to the strength she’d had before Mandy’s death?

“You’ve got the wrong number,” Tricia said into the phone. “There’s no Belinda here.” She dropped the receiver back into its cradle with an irritated
tsk
. “Some people.”

Silence.

“Kaycee, you okay?”

Kaycee raised her head. She felt sick. “I think I better go back into therapy.”

“Maybe you should. And how about praying?”

Back to one of Tricia’s favorite topics. “You know I’ve already done that. It didn’t keep Mandy alive. And it hasn’t helped me in the last year — not at all.”

Kaycee had started going to church when she moved to Wilmore five years ago, shortly after her mother died. But Mandy’s illness and her own downward spiral had soured her on God. He could have saved Mandy’s life if he wanted to. And he could whisk away Kaycee’s fears. But he hadn’t done either of those things.

Empathy creased Tricia’s forehead. “Kaycee, I can’t tell you why God chose to let Mandy die. But I do know he’ll help you fight your fear. You have to
keep
praying. Ten, twenty, thirty times a day if you need to.”

Kaycee shrugged. She didn’t want to fight it thirty times a day. She just wanted it gone.

“You know he helps me fight my own,” Tricia said quietly.

But your fear can’t begin to compare to mine.

Kaycee winced. She knew better. One thing she’d learned from writing her column — everyone seemed to think his or her own fear was the worst. People understood those with the same fear, but thought others who struggled with different ones rather silly — “Why can’t they just get over it?” As for Tricia, she was thirty-seven, a born mother with no solid prospects for a husband in sight and her biological clock ticking away. That, Kaycee knew, was a real fear many women faced.

Tricia shoved down the footrest of her chair and leaned forward. “Kaycee.
Do
you think you could have imagined the camera?”

Kaycee’s finger traced a circle on her jeans. “I don’t know. Yes.” There. She’d said it. “Because . . . it’s like you said — the alternative’s a whole lot worse. Tomorrow I need to go home and finish my column for this week. I have to work in my office, live in my house. This town’s my life, and I’m
not
moving!” Her jaw flexed at the bitter memory of her mother forcing her to move constantly as a child. No more of that, ever again. Kaycee had first heard of Wilmore, Kentucky and its friendly, quiet atmosphere soon after her mother’s death. Its very name stirred something within her. Kaycee wanted to choose her own place to live — and settle for good. She visited Wilmore to check it out, and the town had felt so right. So comforting. Like coming home.

Tricia rose and padded over to the couch to sit beside Kaycee. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”

Kaycee’s fingers curled into the couch. She leaned against Tricia, eyes burning and tiredness seeping through her bones.

Only then did it register — the name Tricia had spoken into the phone some minutes ago.

Belinda.

It hit Kaycee like a punch in the gut.

Martin drove home from the police station, his limbs in knots. The questions the two detectives asked! And while a tape recorder was running. Was it just his guilty conscience, or did they suspect him already? He’d been nervous, shaken. But what victim wouldn’t be after staring down the barrel of a gun? He’d told the detectives of his claustrophobia, how he’d had to force himself to remain calm in the vault. The memory of those moments still hung over Martin like a suffocating cloud.

“I hear you.” Detective Forturo tapped his pen against the table. “I got a brother who’s claustrophobic. He would’ve gone nuts.” Forturo was huge and bald, a wattle of ruddy skin at his neck. And so thorough. He must have been on the force for decades. Every time their gazes met Martin had to will himself not to look away.

“You’ll do this right, won’t you?”
Nico’s dirty brown eyes had bored into Martin at their last meeting. The man was so cold. Martin had seen enough of the Mafia as a kid in New York City to know its members lived by their own code of honor. But Nico’s honor went no further than the Lucchese family.
“Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, with your sick little girl and all.”