No One Needs to Know (10 page)

Two weeks before Christmas, Laurie went back to working just one shift—in the kitchen. The waitress duties on top of cooking had become too exhausting. One advantage to being in the kitchen was she didn’t see Tad out in the parking lot. But he still made his presence known. One morning, when Paul was opening the place, he discovered that during the night someone had scratched the word WHORE on the front window—only the culprit had misspelled it, H-O-R-E. Laurie didn’t say anything, but she was pretty certain it was meant for her.

That afternoon, Paul had a windshield repair place buff the scratch marks from the big window.

Laurie wished she could erase her own mistake just as easily. She tried to wax optimistic. Maybe with that misspelled slur on the restaurant window, Tad had finally gotten it off his chest. Maybe he was finished with her. Though things with him had ended badly, Laurie told herself it could have been a lot worse. Although she would be all alone at Christmas—her first without her mom—Laurie decided her credo for the yuletide was “Count your blessings.”

But that Christmas week, she felt more and more tired each day. She would get nauseous at work smelling certain foods, even foods she ordinarily liked. And her breasts felt tender and swollen—the way they did before she got her period. But she hadn’t gotten her period.

Laurie realized she might not be so alone after all.

It was almost as if Tad had masterminded the whole thing with the timing of his Christmas card—a cheap variation of a Currier and Ives scene from a set of cards he’d obviously gotten in the mail for free from the Veterans’ Association. Inside was a Trojan brand lubricated condom still in its wrapper. There was also a note:

This is like all the others I used
when I was with you.
I’m still inside you & always will be.

“No,” Laurie murmured. Her hand shook as she examined the wrapper, which had been opened. “God, please, no . . .”

The card fluttered to the floor as she rushed to the kitchen sink with the condom in her hand. She put it under the faucet, and the thing started leaking through the dozen or so pinholes before she even had it halfway full.

“Goddamn him!” she screamed.

Tad was not finished with her.

And now, his sociopathic brother had teamed up with him to make her life even more miserable.

“You really know how to screw things up,” Laurie muttered to herself, lying in bed, hugging Brian’s pillow. What an idiot she’d been to let Tad into her life, and eventually her home. Hell, he’d even been in Joey’s room—back when it was just the second bedroom. She’d ignored all the signs. Yet Tad couldn’t have made it any clearer to her at the start. He’d had mental health issues, which obviously ran in the family. And commendable as it seemed that he was writing his own
Catcher in the Rye
–type of novel, that brilliant book was also a source of inspiration for some deeply disturbed individuals—including John Lennon’s killer, the creep who stalked and murdered actress Rebecca Schaeffer, and the guy who tried to assassinate Reagan.

What in God’s name had she been thinking?

Laurie threw off the bedcovers. She sat up and frowned at the nightstand clock: 3:44. She didn’t need to turn on the light. Her eyes had long ago adjusted to the darkness. She got to her feet. All she had on were a pair of panties and one of Brian’s U.S. Army T-shirts, which was huge on her. She just wanted to check on Joey. But she was still feeling a bit edgy and paranoid, so she grabbed the aluminum baseball bat.

She didn’t switch on any lights. She didn’t want to disturb him.

The door creaked as she tiptoed into his room. She gazed at Joey in his crib, lying on his side with the blanket up to his chest. He had his tiny fist tucked under his chin. His breathing sounded healthy, no signs of any lingering congestion. She touched his forehead—a tad warm, but nothing to be alarmed about. The zoo-animal mobile above him moved ever so slightly. Laurie looked over toward the window—with the broom handle fixed in place.

She heard a rustling sound outside, but figured it was just the wind. If the McBride brothers really wanted to get at her and Joey, they would have tried at midnight or one in the morning, not now. In another hour, it would be light out.

Laurie heard it again, the same rustling sound. Then there was a soft tinny clank—like a screen door closing. It seemed to come from the kitchen. “Your refrigerator is possessed,” Krista had told her recently. “It makes all sorts of weird noises.” That was probably what she heard. The squeaking and clicking sounded mechanical.

Laurie tiptoed out of the nursery and down the short hallway to the living room. She had the aluminum bat resting on her shoulder.

She saw something move in the darkened living room, and gasped. Then she realized it was her reflection in the glass door of the tacky trophy case where Brian displayed his football awards as sort of a joke. A hand over her heart, Laurie stared at the largest faux-gold cup in the case, one he had made for her—before Tad had come along. The trophy was alone on the middle shelf, and on the pedestal plaque it said:

WORLD’S GREATEST WIFE

T
O
L
AURIE
T
ROTTER

Master Chef, Curvaceous Cutie, Bedcover Hog,
And the Love of My Life

“Oh, What a Woman!”

She ached inside, and tears welled up in her eyes. Laurie felt she didn’t deserve that award at all. What she wouldn’t give to have him sleeping in their bed right now.

Wiping her eyes, Laurie took a deep breath and headed into the kitchen. At the threshold, something crunched under her bare foot. It was a stray Honey Nut Cheerio. Joey gobbled them up by the fistful as a snack—and lately he was also learning to throw things. So she had cereal in every nook and cranny in the kitchen. She wiped the cereal crumbs from the bottom of her foot onto the floor, and made a mental note to attack the place with the Dirt Devil in the morning. She flicked on the light switch on the kitchen wall.

The sudden bright overhead almost blinded her for a moment. She blinked a few times and focused on the kitchen door. The chain lock was still in place. Through the window in the door, she didn’t see anyone outside—just a dim reflection of the kitchen.

She noticed the refrigerator sounds had stopped.

Laurie figured there was still a chance to nod off if she went back to bed right now.

She took one last look at the door, and then at the window by the breakfast table. It was closed, but something wasn’t quite right. The glass was too clear. It took her a few seconds to realize that the outside screen was missing.

Laurie warily stepped closer to the window, and spotted the screen outside, leaning against a recycling bin. There should have been two recycling bins, but she only saw one. Taking another step toward the window, she spotted the second bin, turned upside down—against the side of the house. Someone had used it as a makeshift stepladder to the window. The same someone had pried off the screen.

“Oh, dear God,” she murmured. Her first thought was to call the police. She turned to reach for the phone on the wall. But she froze. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed someone on the other side of the kitchen door. She saw only his tall silhouette.

Within in a second, he was gone.

The phone rang, and she let out a startled cry.

Laurie hesitated, and then she snatched up the receiver. She listened. Someone breathed heavily on the other end.

“I have a gun!” she screamed into the phone. “Goddamn it, leave me alone!”

The person on the other end didn’t say anything.

From the nursery, she heard Joey crying. The phone ringing and her yelling must have woken him.

“Liar,” whispered the person on the other end. Laurie didn’t recognize the raspy voice. She couldn’t tell if it was male or female. “You don’t have a gun. All you have is a baseball bat.”

She heard someone chuckling—someone else. The other voice came from right outside the kitchen window.

Two of them were out there.

Laurie pushed down the receiver cradle to break the connection. With her hand trembling, she tried to call 911, but it didn’t go through. She couldn’t even get a dial tone. They still hadn’t hung up on their end.

Joey was wailing now.

Someone started pounding on the kitchen door.

Panic-stricken, Laurie turned and spotted Tad banging on the window in the door. She thought he might break the glass. He was shirtless. “Goddamn it, Laurie, let me in!” he shouted.

He didn’t even seem to care that the neighbors might hear him. A dog started yelping in one of the nearby duplexes. “C’mon, open up!” Tad demanded, pounding on the door more violently. “I’m tired of this shit! At least let me in so I can get my stuff . . .”

She didn’t know what he was talking about. Was he on drugs or something?

Past Tad’s tirade and Joey’s cries, she thought she heard a squeaking noise—a window opening in another part of the house. She immediately thought of Joey’s room. Had they somehow gotten in—past the broom handle in the window?

Laurie rushed through the living room, and then down the short hallway to the nursery. She had the aluminum bat raised for whoever was trying to get at her little boy. Charging into the darkened room, she stopped dead. It didn’t look like anyone was in there—except Joey. Sitting up in his crib, he had his blanket scrunched around his feet. He wouldn’t stop crying. The window was still closed, the broom handle still in place. Outside, she could see a neighbor’s light go on. Was it too much to hope that they might call the police? Tad was still yelling and pounding on the kitchen door.

Laurie patted Joey on the back. But her hand still shook, and he must have sensed her anxiety, because he screamed even louder. She longed to pick him up, but then she couldn’t have swung the bat—at least, not so it would do any good. A part of her just wanted to stand here in the nursery guarding her baby until the police came—if a neighbor had indeed called them.

There was a loud clatter in her bedroom next door. It sounded like someone had tipped over a piece of furniture.

At the same time, Tad’s banging on the door and his shouting abruptly ceased.

Had he given up? She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that someone else was inside the house now—in her bedroom.

Hovering near Joey’s crib, Laurie clutched the bat even tighter.

A shadow swept across the nursery’s wall. Laurie spun around in time to see a figure darting past Joey’s window.

She wondered how many people were out there—and how many were inside the house. “Leave us alone!” she screamed, her voice cracking.

Past Joey’s cries, she heard the chain rattling on the front door.

Laurie moved toward the small hallway. She peeked around the corner in time to glimpse someone running out of the house. The intruder wore dark clothes and a ski mask. From the slight build, it could have been a woman. Whoever was working with Tad, they left the front door ajar. Laurie didn’t see anyone outside.

Baffled, she glanced back into her bedroom. The window was open, and the curtains billowed slightly. A lamp on a dresser near the window had been knocked over. It lay on the floor, unbroken, the shade askew. Beside the fallen lamp was a trail of clothes on the floor—a man’s sneakers, trousers, a shirt and underpants.

“I came for my son.”

Laurie swiveled around to see Tad standing in the front doorway. He was completely naked. His body looked ravaged, sickly thin, with a row of scars on one arm that looked like the result of self-mutilation. His feet were filthy from walking outside in the mud. He had his hands out in front of him—as if prepared to fend off an attack.

“Good God, what are you . . .” She trailed off. The bat poised, Laurie just stood there, paralyzed. She couldn’t understand what was happening. Was Tad’s partner still around?

He took a step toward her. “You can’t just invite me into your bed, and throw me out. At least let me get dressed first . . .”

Laurie shook her head at him. She realized why the other intruder had left a trail of clothes in her bedroom. In some weird, screwed-up way, it was a clever ruse. If the police came, he had a story for why he was there—and why he’d created a disturbance. And Tad would certainly tell the cops that he’d slept with her before tonight. Was she going to deny it?

“Now, no one’s getting hurt,” he said. “You can see I don’t have anything on me. So, how about putting down the baseball bat, okay?”

Laurie kept the bat raised. She didn’t budge.

All the while, Joey kept screaming.

Tad cracked a tiny smile. “Quite a set of lungs on my boy,” he said, moving toward her.

“Don’t,” she said, brandishing the bat. “I mean it. You turn around and get out of here—now! I’ll throw your clothes out the door after you go.” She kept thinking the other one was still lurking around the house, just waiting to get at Joey.

“I’m going to see my kid, goddamn it,” he growled, coming toward her. He made a strange gesture, reaching back like he was going to scratch his tailbone.

“How many times do I have to tell you? He isn’t yours, Tad. Don’t you get it?” Laurie stepped back and bumped into the wall.

He kept getting closer and closer.

“I’m not letting you near him . . .”

“Get out of my way, you unfeeling bitch.”

Laurie thought he was going to grab her. She slammed the aluminum bat down on his arm. She heard a crack. Something shiny flew out of his grasp. A jagged-edged knife landed on the carpeted floor.

Tad howled with pain, and he recoiled. Cursing at her under his breath, he rubbed his arm. It looked like he was backing away. But then he suddenly lunged at her again.

Laurie swung the bat once more, connecting with the side of his head—just below the ear. He let out a groan and fell against the trophy case, shattering the glass. The tall case tipped over and crashed to the floor. Tad staggered back, almost tripping over the trophy case. Laurie glanced down at all the glass on the floor—around Tad’s bare feet. Then she saw the blood running down his right leg and onto the carpet.