The Last to Know (3 page)

They never have.

At first, she thought it was just because she wasn’t Jewish. That, she could handle. In fact, that, she had pretty much expected.

But the knowledge that they don’t like her because . . . well, because they just don’t like her, that’s hard to take, especially for someone who was once voted Miss Congeniality in a high school beauty pageant in Centerbrook.

“Okay, what makes you think they don’t like you?” Joel asked her long ago, when he used to actually participate in the conversations she initiated about his parents.

“Your sister told me they don’t.”

He dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “Don’t listen to Debbie. She likes to make trouble. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Of course she knows what she’s talking about. She’s their daughter. She lives with them. She says it’s not because I’m not Jewish, either. She says your girlfriend in college, Heather Malloy, wasn’t Jewish either, and your parents loved her.”

“Heather Malloy?” Faint (or was it fond?) smile. “They didn’t love her.”

“Debbie says they did. It’s me they don’t love, Joel.”

“That’s your imagination.”

She’s long since given up on conversations like that. It’s no use. Joel is either too blind to see the truth about his parents’ feelings toward her, or he just can’t deal with the situation and chooses to take the wimpy way out and ignore it.

At the bottom of the stairs, Tasha unlocks the safety gate, relocks it, and then pauses in the hall, glancing out the narrow window beside the front door. There’s this morning’s edition of the
Journal News
, still in its yellow plastic bag at the foot of the driveway. Does she dare risk leaving the kids for another few seconds and running out to get it now so she can read about Jane Kendall’s disappearance? Or should she wait until she leaves to take Hunter to school in ten minutes?

She’d better wait, she decides reluctantly, heading toward the family room. She shouldn’t have left Victoria and Max alone together for this long, even.

Guiltily she pokes her head into the big, carpeted room at the back of the house, prepared for the worst.

But there’s still-bald Max in his Exersaucer in front of the brick fireplace, happily drooling as he chews on a yellow rubber Winnie the Pooh block. There’s Victoria, her dark curls bent over the table in the opposite corner of the room, busily coloring. And there’s Hunter, with his straight brown hair and huge, perpetually solemn brown eyes—eyes that are now transfixed on the television screen, where the “Pocket Dragons” credits are rolling.

“Hi, guys,” Tasha says, about to go over and scoop up the baby, who is bouncing wildly with joy at the sight of her. She thinks better of it and heads toward Victoria first instead, bending to peek over her daughter’s shoulder. “How beautiful, sweetheart. Did you color that whole picture all by yourself?”

“Uh-huh,” Victoria says proudly, holding it up. “Even Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper. See what color I made them?”

“Blue.”

“That’s because blue’s my favorite color. What’s your favorite color, Mommy?”

“Green,” Tasha tells her absently, patting her dark head and thinking about Jane Kendall.

“
Green?
” Victoria is clearly aghast. “But Mommy, you said it was red when I asked you yesterday!”

“Oh, you’re right. It is red. I guess I just forgot,” Tasha replies.

“You’re silly, Mommy.”

“I know, sweetie. Let’s put the crayons away now. Hunter, it’s time to get ready for school.”

“No!” Victoria shouts.

Tasha sighs.

Hunter obediently turns off the television.

“Victoria, put the crayons away. Now. And Hunter, you go find your shoes.”

“Can’t I color for a few more minutes?”

“One more minute,” Tasha relents, because it’s easier, and because there’s time.

Victoria happily picks up her blue crayon again.

Am I spoiling her to make up for the fact that she’s the middle child now?
Tasha wonders.

Those parenting manuals her friend Karen’s always reading say that you should never change a no to a yes when you’re dealing with toddlers. They’re supposed to be learning that
no
means
no
.

But
no
is so hard, sometimes. When sticking firmly to a
no
means facing a just-turned-three-year-old’s tantrum, and you’re exhausted and a long day looms ahead, and a woman you know has inexplicably vanished . . .

Well, this is one of those times when
no
just isn’t worth it.

Tasha goes over and picks up Max, trying to cuddle him against her. But he bounces excitedly in her arms, glad to see her. He always is. His little face lights up whenever she glances in his direction.

Babies need their mommies so much,
Tasha thinks as she plants a kiss on his downy infant hair that is barely visible.

Poor little Schuyler Kendall. Where’s her mommy? And is she ever coming back?

J
eremiah Gallagher slips his denim jacket over a hook in his locker and pauses to admire it for a moment. Uncle Fletch bought it for him yesterday.

“I thought you could use a new jean jacket, Jer’,” he announced, whacking Jeremiah on the shoulders in that old-buddy-old-pal way of his.

“But I already have a jean jacket,” Jeremiah said—not a protest exactly, because he likes the new jacket. He wants it.

It’s faded and worn and expensive-looking, unlike the one he already has, which is all wrong. Too stiff, too dark, too cheap.

His stepmother bought that jacket for him just before she died. Ironically, the jacket he so disliked was one of his few belongings that survived the fire that killed Melissa; Jeremiah was wearing it that night because she insisted.

Too bad it didn’t get burned up along with her, he thought later, a thought that was followed by instant familiar guilt.

But he couldn’t help the way he felt. He didn’t like the jacket, and he didn’t like Melissa.

Well, Melissa is gone.

Now, so is the stupid jacket. Thanks to Uncle Fletch, who has a way of noticing things like that, Jeremiah has a jacket that makes him look like all the other kids at Townsend Heights High.

Well, not really.

But Uncle Fletch is working on that, too. He’s promised Jeremiah a trip to the eye doctor to see about getting fitted for contact lenses instead of glasses, which he has worn since he was three. And Uncle Fletch said Jeremiah can use his home gym equipment whenever he wants, probably hoping his nephew will build up some muscles and look more like him.

As if.

Jeremiah has never quite been able to believe that he and Fletch Gallagher are blood relatives. His father insists that Fletch is his brother and that Jeremiah wasn’t adopted. But how is it that a hundred-pound, bespectacled, acne-scarred weakling like Jeremiah comes from the same gene pool as
the
Fletch Gallagher?

The handsome, muscular athlete, formerly a star pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, is now practically a celebrity, working during baseball season as a sportscaster for the New York Mets.

Jeremiah’s father, Aidan, might not have Fletch’s great looks or stud status, but he, too, has an aura of power and masculinity about him. Especially when he’s dressed in his officer’s uniform. Not that Jeremiah sees him in it often—or sees him much at all. He’s been stationed in the Middle East since the last flare-up with Iraq, which happened right after Melissa was killed.

Before that, Dad was home more. Which was one of the few good things that had happened since he married Melissa. She didn’t want to follow him around the way Mom had.

When his mother was alive, Jeremiah lived on army bases all over the world. She made every move seem like an adventure, transforming countless ugly, square military-base houses into homes for Jeremiah and his father.

Not Melissa.

She insisted on staying put right here on North Street in Townsend Heights while Dad was stationed overseas. She said she had no intention of dragging her daughters, Lily and Daisy, all over creation; they had already been through enough—a reference to the twins’ father, who abandoned his family for another woman.

The better he got to know Melissa, who could be a real pain, the more Jeremiah didn’t blame her ex-husband. She was spoiled, having grown up an only child in Connecticut. From what Jeremiah could tell, her parents—who both died around the same time her marriage ended—hadn’t been rich, but clearly, her every wish had been their command. Which was exactly how his dad treated her. Why, Jeremiah couldn’t figure out. Unless it was simply because Melissa was a beautiful blonde—so different from his mom—and Dad was psyched to have landed someone like her.

If you ask Jeremiah, Melissa was the lucky one. She’d been dumped, with two little girls to raise and no parents to help her. And his dad was a great catch.

After his father married Melissa, she, Jeremiah, and his twin stepsisters lived here, and Aidan came home a lot, sometimes for long periods of time. Jeremiah figured he could put up with Melissa most of the time if it meant seeing more of his father.

Then Melissa died, and the thing with Iraq happened, and Dad had to leave again. Which means Jeremiah, Lily, and Daisy have to stay with Uncle Fletch and Aunt Sharon for a while. But Dad’s promised that pretty soon, he’ll be home again—maybe even for good. Then maybe things will get back to normal.

Whatever normal is.

Jeremiah reaches up to the top shelf of his locker and looks for his chemistry notebook amid the clutter.

The locker door next to him bangs open and he glances up to see Lacey Birnbach taking off her leather jacket and chatting with a couple of her friends.

“Hi,” Jeremiah says awkwardly. It comes out nearly silent. He clears his throat and tries again, managing to produce a faintly audible sound.

Lacey’s really into whatever she’s telling her friends, though, and doesn’t bother to acknowledge Jeremiah. Not that he expects her to. She’s one of those girls who doesn’t seem to know he’s alive—which pretty much sums up the entire female population of Townsend Heights High, he thinks wryly, returning to the hunt for his notebook.

“So is Peter, like, famous now?” one of Lacey’s friends asks.

“Definitely. He told me he’s going to be on the six o’clock news tonight. I’m going to call home and tell my mom to tape it because we have a late cheering practice today.”

“I want a copy of the tape,” another girl says. “He’s so cute. Maybe he’ll be discovered on TV and become a big star.”

“Like, he’s just being interviewed about finding that lady’s screaming baby on the jogging path, Alyssa,” says Lacey, tossing her shiny dark hair. “He’s not going on some
Star Search
show. And he’s not the actor type, you know? He’s not into stuff like that.”

“Yeah, but he’s so cute. I love the way he looks in those tight gray sweats he wears for football practice. You can see the outline of his—”

Alyssa has bent her head close to the other girls and Jeremiah can’t hear anything until a burst of giggles erupts.

He shifts his weight uncomfortably and keeps looking for his notebook.

They’re talking about Peter Frost. They must be. He’s on the Townsend Heights High football team, and Jeremiah has seen him in those tight gray sweats they’re talking about. If
he
ever wore something like that, he’d look ridiculous. But Peter Frost is a younger version of Uncle Fletch. He’s muscular, handsome, charming, and the girls go crazy for him.

There’s one major difference between Peter Frost and Uncle Fletch, though. Peter Frost would never try to help Jeremiah. In fact, he gets a kick out of doing exactly the opposite, tormenting Jeremiah every chance he gets, particularly in gym class, where he’s always making snide comments under his breath.

His jaw clenched at the mere thought of his nemesis, Jeremiah finds his notebook, slams his locker door hard, and realizes that the abrupt sound has apparently startled Lacey and her friends.

“Oh, hi,” Lacey says off-handedly, since she’s looking right at him. “Geez, that was loud.”

“S-s-sorry.” Jeremiah feels his cheeks grow hot.

His stutter. It’s back. Damn it, it always comes back when he’s nervous. After all the money Dad spent on therapy years ago so that he could get over it, the stutter shadows him still, always lurking, always waiting to pounce.

“Hey . . .” Lacey pauses slightly in a way that indicates she can’t remember his name, then goes on as if it doesn’t matter, “did you hear about that woman who disappeared last night from the park?”

“Yeah, it w-was on the n-news this morning,” Jeremiah mumbles, struggling to stay calm and will the stutter away, unable to fathom that Lacey Birnbach is actually talking to
him
, even if she has no idea what his name is.

“Well, guess who found her abandoned baby there?”

Jeremiah shrugs, not about to let on that he’s already overheard the answer.

“Peter Frost. Can you believe it? He was, like, jogging and he came across the screaming little baby in her jogging stroller. Now he’s this major hero.”

“Wow.” Apparently, Jeremiah’s attempt to muster suitable awe is unsuccessful.

Lacey turns her attention back to her friends. Clearly he’s been dismissed.

Jeremiah turns and drifts into the throng of students in the corridor, thinking it’s too bad that it wasn’t Peter Frost who vanished from High Ridge Park last night.

“F
ancy meeting you here.”

Paula Bailey turns to see a familiar face grinning at her from beneath the brim of a Yankees cap.

“Oh, hi, George.” Her gaze flits back to the three-story red-brick Victorian mansion beyond the iron gate.

“Covering the crime beat these days?”

“What’d you think, that I’m just doing golden anniversary write-ups and reporting Brownie troop news?” Paula fights to keep her tone light.

It isn’t easy. Not for someone like her. Not with someone like him.

Lord, I need a cigarette.

She’s known George DeFand since they were both freshmen in community college, where she took every communications course the meager department offered, and so did he. Of course, after two years, he went on to Columbia while she dropped out of the academic scene for good, knocked up by her boyfriend.