If You Ever Tell (40 page)

“No, dammit.”

“And neither has Gabe?”

“I just talked to him a few minutes ago. He’s gone home to wait for a couple of hours. She might go there.”

“Good idea. She certainly won’t come here.”

Kent began speaking in a guilty, defeated tone. “I’ve known for months things weren’t right with Sharon. She thought Gabe was seeing someone and that didn’t suit her. And I’ve been gone a lot—I’ve been working twelve hours a day including Saturdays, but I’m half-convinced Sharon believes I have a mistress. Also, we’ve found out she can’t have any more children. She wanted three because she was an only child and lonely. Anyway, knowing she can’t have more has made her cling even tighter to Daniel.”

“Oh, Kent, I didn’t know you couldn’t have more children.”

“Sharon didn’t want anyone to know. I think she could have stood it if the problem was with me, but it’s with her. It doesn’t matter to me. Thousands of children in the world need a good home. But Sharon won’t even talk about adoption. She considers it an announcement to the world that she’s a failure.” The energy left Kent’s voice and Teresa could almost see him slumping behind the wheel of his big SUV. “Going to the cops won’t do any good. She’s only been gone a couple of hours. But I’m not going to stop looking for her, Teri, because I’m afraid this night could be the breaking point for my wife.”

“It won’t be,” Teresa said fervently. “Sharon is not like our mother, Kent. She’s much stronger than she seems.”

“I hope so,” Kent said doubtfully. “How’s Daniel?”

“Sleeping soundly with Sierra lying right beside him.”

“Oh great, Sharon would love that. A dog in bed with our son.”

“Sierra had a bath less than a week ago. And Daniel adores her.
And
Sharon doesn’t have to know.”

“I guess she doesn’t. Teri, I should get off the phone now. Sharon might be trying to reach me.”

“All right. Good luck and call me as soon as it’s convenient.” Teresa added somewhat self-consciously, “I love you, big brother.”

She couldn’t see him, but she heard the slight smile in his voice. “Love you, Teri. And I’m sorry I set fire to your Barbie doll when I was eleven.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve bought a new one. Now go find your wife.”

Teresa set down the phone and went into the kitchen for a glass of wine. A mixed drink or two glasses of wine a week were usually her limit, but she had to admit this had been an unusually stressful week. Alcohol didn’t solve any problems, but it did make her feel slightly more relaxed. She took a sip of the sharp, cold white wine and jumped when the police scanner crackled to life.

Teresa barely listened as the dispatcher spoke. “Any available city unit in vicinity of Mount Vernon Avenue.”

Mount Vernon, Teri thought. So near. She was listening more closely when a policeman answered. “City Three. What do you have?”

“Third-party call disturbance. Possibly a domestic at 4021 Mount Vernon. Caller heard screaming, saw what appeared to be a young woman running from front of the house. Caller also thinks they see a body lying near a car at the back of the house.”

Teri dropped her glass of wine. Four-oh-two-one Mount Vernon was the address of Jason and Celeste Warner.

Hands trembling, Teri dug through a drawer until she found a phone directory. First she looked up the address of Jason Warner and her heart sank—4021 Mount Vernon. She’d correctly remembered the Warners’ address. Next she looked at the phone number and dialed frantically. She let the phone ring ten times, her fear growing with every unanswered ring, then replaced her receiver in the handset.

There could be dozens of reasons that the Warners weren’t answering tonight, she told herself. They hadn’t gone directly home after the fireworks display. Fay had decided to make Celeste go to bed early and had turned the phones down low so no ringing would awaken the girl. The Warners just didn’t feel like answering—

And their next-door neighbor had called the police about a disturbance, people screaming, and a body lying in the backyard. Maybe Celeste. She’d told Teri in the barn that someone still wanted her dead. Perhaps she’d been right.

Except the dispatcher had said that what appeared to be a young woman had been running from the front of the house. Oh, God, please let that be Celeste, Teri prayed. Celeste, who must have been trying to call her earlier when she and Daniel had just arrived. Celeste whose last word to Teri had been “kill.”

Teresa took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. The voice on the phone had been so gravelly, maybe the word hadn’t been “kill.” And maybe the voice hadn’t even belonged to Celeste, she thought. Maybe it all had just been another prank.

Except that Caller ID showed the earlier calls had come from the Warner house. Except that police had been summoned to the house because a “third party” had heard screaming.
Screaming!
“Sure, there’s nothing to worry about,” Teri muttered sarcastically to herself. “Those are all simply a bunch of coincidences. The Warner family is just fine.”

Teresa tried the Warner phone number again, and again no one answered. She put down the receiver, feeling nervous perspiration popping out on her forehead. She could only remember one night of her life that had been worse than this one, and she certainly didn’t want to think about what had happened
that
night.

Hardly thinking about what she was doing, Teri stooped and began picking up pieces of the wineglass she’d dropped on the floor. She didn’t realize one had punctured two fingers until she saw a drop of blood hit the vinyl. She glanced at her finger, removed a splinter of glass, then mentally cursed as more blood dripped from a second minuscule hole. God, she’d been careless, she thought. She’d been careless
and
numb. She still felt no stinging pain—she just couldn’t stand the sight of blood. Not tonight.

A roll of paper towels stood conveniently nearby and Teri tore off one, wrapping it tightly around the index and middle fingers of her right hand. She applied pressure for about a minute, then removed the towel, too impatient to coddle herself any more. She reached for the phone and dialed the Warner home again. No answer. She sighed in frustration. When she replaced the receiver, she saw her blood on the numbers. Blood on the floor, blood on the phone. Blood in the Warner house. She was certain of it.

Teri felt a sudden need to make sure her nephew, at least, was safe. She grabbed another paper towel in case her fingers were still bleeding, then nearly ran through the house and up the stairs to her bedroom. Teri opened the door and tiptoed inside the room. Sierra raised her head, but Teri held two fingers up to her lips and the dog seemed to understand the message. Someone once made that gesture to me in a dark hall, Teresa thought with a shiver, and I, too, went completely silent.

Daniel lay on his left side, his right hand touching Sierra’s shoulder. The dog always slept at the foot of the bed when Teri was in residence, but tonight Sierra had obviously been trying to comfort the frightened child. Dogs could sense so many things for which humans often didn’t give them credit. Sierra had known Daniel was scared and troubled. But now his face looked smooth and peaceful in sleep, his mouth open slightly, his strawberry blond hair skimmed back from his forehead and slightly damp although the room was comfortably cool.

As Teri stood watching him for a moment, he mumbled, “Mommy,” then, “it’s not a real dog,” before kicking spasmodically and rolling onto his side. Even in his sleep, he was still worried about what
Mommy
would say, Teresa thought sympathetically. Well, maybe Kent had been so overwhelmed with managing a company thrust on him when he was young and inexperienced, he’d comforted himself with the idea that Sharon’s problems would “just work out by themselves.” After tonight, though, he couldn’t abrogate his responsibility to his child any longer. Kent would know that in her current state of mind, Sharon was a damaging influence on the boy and do something about the problem—something sensible yet
kind.
Sharon would not be treated as Marielle had been because Kent, thank goodness, was no Hugh Farr.

Teri bent down and kissed Daniel lightly on the forehead, an informality Daniel granted no one except his daddy, mommy, and grandfather when he was awake. “Gotcha!” Teresa whispered, smiling. She then blew a kiss at Sierra, whose amber gaze ricocheted between Daniel and Teri, her two charges. Teri walked quietly out of the room, leaving the door open a couple of inches.

Descending the stairway, she still heard the pops and booms of fireworks in the distance. Normally she took her binoculars to the front porch and tried to spot the fireworks of those few lonely stragglers still trying to put on a show. But tonight she wanted only to huddle in a chair and lose herself in a book. She went in the kitchen, glanced at the mess she and Daniel had made, finished cleaning up the broken glass, even running a miniature sweeper over the spot so Daniel wouldn’t cut his foot if he came downstairs barefoot, and finally she turned off the police scanner. She’d heard just about all the bad news she could tolerate for one night.

Teri went back to the living room, feeling as if she should call and check on Carmen’s state of mind, but she didn’t need a phone call to let her know Carmen’s emotions had gone through the wringer tonight. Also, she might have taken a pill and Teri would awaken her from the merciful oblivion of sleep.

Teresa paced around her living room, amused by how perfect it looked. She liked a neat house, but she certainly never kept every ashtray in place, every tabletop looking as if it dared a dust mote to land on its surface. She’d been expecting guests tonight. If things had gone well, china plates and champagne flutes would be sitting around the room and Teri would be dreading the cleanup job she’d have tomorrow morning. Now she felt as if cleaning would have been a joy if only Carmen and Gabe’s announcement hadn’t caused the storm of the century.

Teri passed over
The Grapes of Wrath
in favor of
People
magazine and leaned back in the big recliner that always felt soft and welcoming, as if caressing her tenderly. Except for tonight. The chair back felt too stiff and she thought she felt a lump in the seat cushion. She stood up to investigate, then heard a knock at the door.

She could have cried in pure relief. Mac, at last. Well, she’d just give him a piece of her mind! She’d ask why he hadn’t called her. She’d ask why he hadn’t answered his cell phone. She’d ask where the hell he’d been!

Angry and tired as she was, Teri nevertheless pulled a wide-toothed comb from the small drawer of the table near the entrance and ran it through her hair, then tossed it back in the drawer. She didn’t want him to catch her primping. He deserved to see her at her worst. He should
never
have just left her hanging for so long. But he was here now, she thought with a lightning change of mood. Daniel had Sierra for protection and Teri had Mac. Dear, handsome, funny, loving, sometimes absent-minded Mac.

But when she swung open the front door, she found Carmen standing on her porch. She wore old, ragged jeans, a gray T-shirt that looked wrinkled and sweaty, as if she’d worn it while doing heavy labor, and a loose navy blue windbreaker. Her brown hair hung tangled around a face white as parchment except for messy smears of black where tears had dragged mascara and eyeliner down to her high cheekbones.

Madeleine, Teri thought briefly. Carmen looks as otherworldly as Madeline in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

“Carmen?” she asked faintly. “What happened? Have they found Sharon?”

Carmen shook her head no.

“Where’s Gabe?”

Carmen began to tremble, then flung herself into Teresa’s arms. “Gabe has left me,” she grated out. “Marriage to him was the last, best dream of my life, and he simply smashed it with one brief, devastating phone call.”

Jason Warner slowly opened his eyes. For ten seconds he stared at the dark sky in complete confusion until pain like a red-hot poker stabbed somewhere in the region of his stomach. He put his hand to the pain, pressed—the act making him cry out in agony—and jerked away his hand, raising it to eye level. Even in the darkness, he could see the dark liquid floating down to his wrist, working its way between his fingers. Blood. Lots and lots of blood.

He tried to sit up, to see the extent of the damage to his body, but the slightest movement made him feel as if huge, hideous hands were digging out his insides. The image brought on the urge to throw up, but he used every ounce of his waning strength to control the urge. Instinctively, he felt the urge could kill him. It was possible to die of pain. He knew that wasn’t just an expression.

Jason turned his head slightly to the right and saw the tire of his car—the car that would have offered protection and escape if they’d just gotten inside and away from this place five minutes sooner. He knew a suitcase, a tote bag, a duffel lay scattered around him, flung by his own startled hands when something, some
one
, wearing a long dark coat and a hood had flown at him, knife raised, long silver blade caught in the glow of the porch light, flashing wickedly before it plunged into him, driven by a strong hand and guided by someone emitting a low, animal-like cry of triumph as the knife pushed through skin and muscle, and sent blood gushing across his shirt.

The knife had twisted and Jason had uttered a stunned sound of shock and pain, before dropping to the ground. His attacker had turned him over, withdrawn the knife, causing Jason another nearly unbearable wave of agony, then dashed for the house and the open kitchen door.

Jason looked straight ahead again, took as deep a breath as possible, and lifted his chin, craning back his head. The kitchen door still stood open, bright light spilling from the small room his mother kept immaculate. Except she would keep it immaculate no longer. Jason moaned when he saw Fay, sprawled close to the door, her hand clutched to her neck, the left side of her face and her left hand, arm, and side bathed in a garish wash of fresh crimson blood. He could even see her blue eyes, open, staring at nothing.