The Last to Know (38 page)

Then they want to know if there’s anything in his uncle’s past they should know about. Anything that could cause him to suddenly go off the deep end.

Jeremiah’s father shakes his head. “I can’t imagine that my brother would be capable of any of this, any more than I believed my son was involved.”

“What could have set him off? Does he have any psychological problems you’re aware of?”

His father hesitates before answering.

Then he says, “I can only think of one thing that might be relevant.”

And he begins to speak, telling the detectives something Jeremiah never knew. At least not the whole story.

Dad had told him that his grandfather had left his grandmother when Dad and Uncle Fletch were young.

What Aidan had never revealed until now was the reason he left.

Not for another woman, as Jeremiah had always guessed.

For another man.

“Your brother was traumatized when he discovered that your father was a homosexual?”

“Absolutely,” Aidan says, nodding. “It devastated both of us. We swore we would never tell a soul, and I never have. As far as I know, he didn’t either.”

“How did he react to what happened? At the time, I mean.”

“Fletch was always a real macho type. You know. Sports. Girls. But after finding out about Dad, he became obsessed. He was on every team. Went out with every cheerleader. That sort of thing.”

“Trying to prove his masculinity,” Detective Summers speculates.

Jeremiah’s father nods. “I guess we both were. I joined the military. My brother threw himself into athletics. Won scholarships. Dated beautiful women, and married one, too. But that didn’t stop him. He’s always had women.”

“Was Tasha Banks one of them?”

Jeremiah hears a gasp.

He turns to see that Joel Banks has turned pale. “Not Tasha,” her husband insists. “She wouldn’t cheat.”

“Ms. Wu?” the detective asks. “Do you know whether your friend was involved with Mr. Gallagher?”

Karen is hesitant, but then she shakes her head. “I don’t think so. Joel’s right Tasha wouldn’t cheat.”

“And my brother couldn’t kill anyone,” Aidan bursts out suddenly. “I don’t know why I’m going along with this.”

“Your brother was a public figure. He had an image to protect. What if somebody had stumbled across the secret about your father?”

Jeremiah’s dad shakes his head. “Fletch has his share of issues. But I know he didn’t kill those women.”

Looking doubtful, Detective Summers asks flatly, “Then who did?”

T
asha counts her steps methodically.

One . . .

Two . . .

Three . . .

Four . . .

“Okay, that’s far enough,” Paula’s voice calls behind her, above the swishing sound of the rain in the trees.

“No,” Tasha whispers. “Please, God . . .”

This can’t be happening.

“Put the gun in your mouth,” Paula instructs.

Too paralyzed with fright to move, Tasha tries desperately to think of an escape. Of any way to escape the fate Paula Bailey has planned.

“I can take my foot off the brake any time,” Paula reminds her pointedly.

Tasha raises her hand to her quavering lips. Puts the barrel between her chattering teeth.

“Good. Now pull the trigger.”

I can’t do this.

God help me.

I can’t do this.

“Do it!” Paula’s voice is shrill. Harsh.

Tasha fumbles, trying to find the trigger.

She has to do this.

She has to.

It’s the only way to save her children.

“H
ow long would it take for the police to get to your brother’s cabin from the nearest town?” Detective Summers asks.

“At least ten minutes—in good weather, if they know exactly where they’re going,” Jeremiah’s father replies reluctantly. “Longer on a night light this, especially if they don’t know the cabin’s exact location. And they probably won’t. It isn’t easy to find.”

“Ten minutes?” Joel Banks echoes. “Please call them. Get someone over there as soon as you can.”

P
aula squeezes her eyes closed, poised, waiting for the sound of the gunshot. She doesn’t want to actually see the back of Tasha’s head blown off. She can’t stomach blood and gore.

Jane’s death was easy.

Tasha’s will be violent, but at least it will be at her own hand, not Paula’s.

Melissa’s death—that was relatively easy, too. It happened so impulsively, Paula didn’t even realize what she was doing until she was holding the woman’s head in the pot of scalding water on the stove, keeping her under until she stopped struggling.

But Rachel . . .

And Sharon . . .

She planned those. Was fully aware that she would have to beat Rachel over the head with the barbell until she was certain she was dead. She couldn’t risk mere brain damage this time.

And Sharon . . .

It was brilliant, really, the way Paula lured her to the remains of the house on North Street. Risky, too. It depended on Fletch not coming home to find her there. On Sharon’s nieces staying upstairs with the stereo playing the whole time she was there.

But it worked. Luck was with her despite the unexpected ringing of her cell phone.

When she got the call from Tim telling her Jane Kendall had been found and a press conference was about to start, she was in the midst of telling Sharon she was convinced her husband had killed Rachel Leiberman and Melissa Gallagher. She was about to bring her over to the North Street property on the pretext of proving to her that Fletch had done it.

Before leaving, she had hurriedly told Sharon that the evidence was in the shed, refusing to elaborate.

She could see in the woman’s eyes that it was going to work. That she wasn’t going to wait for Paula to show her.

That she was going to head over to the shed the moment Paula left.

Which was even better.

Now Paula had an alibi.

She drove into town and left the car conspicuously parked in the fire lane in front of the town hall. Everyone who saw it would assume she had been in the press conference, and Paula figured it would be so crowded that no one would realize she wasn’t there. No one would ever suspect that under cover of darkness, she had quickly walked the two and a half blocks to North Street. That she had crept up behind Sharon Gallagher and slit her throat so swiftly, so savagely that she couldn’t make a sound.

The whole thing took ten or fifteen minutes, from carving the pumpkin to lugging Sharon’s dead weight the few feet over to it and hoisting her inside, to washing surprisingly little blood from her own hands at the outside tap near the garden.

Then she hurried back downtown and joined the crowd exiting the press conference, just in time to see Brian Mulvaney—

What was that sound?

Not a gunshot

Too late, she whirls around.

Somebody’s here.

Yanking the door open.

Diving toward the floor.

Shoving the emergency brake.

“No!” she screeches, raising her foot, the one that has kept the brake depressed and the SUV balanced precariously on the edge of the cliff.

The vehicle remains perched there now as the emergency brake clicks loudly into place.

Strong arms toss Paula from the driver’s seat. She feels herself hurtling through the air. Pain shatters her body as she lands in the mud.

She looks up, shocked, sputtering, to see the face of the man she loathes staring down at her.

The face of her ex-husband.

S
tunned by the sudden outcry and commotion behind her, Tasha lowers the gun and whirls in one swift, instinctive movement.

Paula is on the ground.

A burly, dark-haired stranger stands over her.

“Bring me the gun,” he calls to Tasha. “Hurry.”

She feels herself going into motion, rushing toward him, thrusting the weapon into his large hand.

He immediately aims it at Paula, sprawled on the rain-soaked drive at his feet.

“It’s over,” he tells her bitterly. “I heard the whole thing. Every word of it.”

“But how . . . ?”

“My car is parked down there.” Tasha sees him jerk his head toward the drive. “Around the bend. I kept my lights off and stayed back after we left the main road. Then I got out and hiked up here.”

“You were hiding? Listening to me?” Paula stares up at him, hatred glittering in her eyes. “But how did you know . . . how did you get here?”

“I was in Townsend Heights looking for you. I checked everywhere, including Orchard Lane. I’ve been following the story in the news. I knew that was where two of those women lived. I figured you’d be there, sniffing for your story. And I was right. At least, I thought that was why you were there when I saw your car parked down at the end of the street. So I parked, and I waited for you.”

“You saw her carrying my kids out of my house?” Tasha asks breathlessly.

He doesn’t look at her. His eyes, like the gun, are trained on Paula.

“No,” he says. “I must have gotten there after she’d done that. But I saw the two of you come out together. When you drove away, I followed you. Figured you’d notice the headlights behind you on the highway the whole way, but somehow you didn’t.” He smirks at Paula. “I guess you didn’t think to check. Maybe you figured you were too smart for anyone to be on your trail.”

Paula only gapes at him, her body coiled in fury.

“I thought you were up to something, Paula, but I never guessed it was this—”

He breaks off, shaking his head, glancing at Tasha for the first time.

“Are you okay?” he asks her.

She nods, unable to speak.

“She said before that your kids are in the back there,” her rescuer tells her, motioning toward the back of the SUV with his head, his gaze on Paula again. “You’d better go make sure they really are okay.”

She hurriedly opens the door and climbs inside, leaning over the back seat. Her fingers grasp the edge of the quilt.

Holding her breath, her eyes closed in silent prayer, she pulls it away.

Then she opens her eyes, gazing down on her three children snuggled together.

Three
sleeping
children, their mouths open, chests plainly rising and falling in slumber.

“Thank you, God,” Tasha whispers raggedly as she swiftly climbs over the seat gathering her babies into her arms.

They wake slowly, in a stupor, looking up at her, dazed.

Victoria is the first to speak.

Just one word, uttered in confused recognition and relief.

The sweetest word in all the world.

“Mommy.”

Epilogue

“W
hat’s it like in San Diego?” Lily asks, bouncing in the back seat.

“Hot,” Jeremiah answers, watching his father disappear inside the real estate office on Townsend Avenue. He has to drop off some papers now that the North Street property sale is final.

Seated in the passenger’s seat, Jeremiah turns so that he can see his sisters in the back. Lily’s hair has grown past her shoulders. Daisy cut hers to the same length the other day. They look alike again.

But that’s the only thing that’s the same as it used to be.

“All the time?” Daisy wants to know.

“Pretty much,” Jeremiah says. Like he knows. He’s never been there. But he’s read a lot about it After all, he wants to know everything he can about his new home.

His therapist, Dr. Stein, has told him that’s a good sign—the fact that he’s looking forward to the future. And why wouldn’t he be? Dad is back to stay. He promised he’ll never leave Jeremiah and his sisters again. They’re going to live in California, and they’re going to have a fresh start someplace where nobody will stare at Jeremiah as he walks down the halls.

Dr. Stein has even referred him to a therapist in San Diego. One who specializes in fetishes, as Dr. Stein does. Jeremiah is glad he’ll have somebody to talk to out there. It’ll help. But he has a feeling things will be much better anyway, just as soon as Townsend Heights—and everything that happened here—is behind him.

“Are there palm trees?” Lily asks.

“Yup. And lots of swimming pools. And beaches,” Jeremiah tells her and Daisy.

“We can go to the beach any time, right?”

“Any time.”

“It’ll be good to see the sun again,” Lily says after a long pause.

Jeremiah follows her gaze, looking out the window.

A light snow is falling on Townsend Avenue.

It looks pretty, with the old-fashioned lampposts wrapped in green garlands, and the businesses along the street decked out in wreaths and bows. The trees are draped in twinkling white lights, and there’s a fake Santa ringing a bell beneath a decorated Christmas tree in front of the Metro North station at the far end.

“Yeah,” Jeremiah says, staring out the window. “It’ll be good to see the sun again.”

“C
an I please have the tape?” Mitch asks.

“Sure.” Shawna passes him the roll, smiling at him. She looks ridiculous, Mitch thinks, with her blond hair sticking out from beneath that red-and-white Santa hat. But she doesn’t seem to care.

She hums a Christmas carol as she reaches for another roll of wrapping paper.

“Deck the halls with boughs of holly . . .”

Mitch lays the sheet of candy-cane-printed paper face down on his half of the table and centers the tissue-wrapped rectangle on it. Inside the protective layers is a framed pastel landscape he drew himself, in art class. His new art teacher here on Long Island loves him. Things are different here. Maybe it’s because he’s got the good pair of sneakers at last—the kind all the other kids wear. Three pairs, actually. Shawna says he should have extras.

So. No more cheap sneakers.

No more Miss Bright.

No more Robbie Sussman.

Mitch toys with the package, making sure it’s centered.

He has carefully removed the glass from the frame before inserting the drawing.

It’s for Mom.

She’s not allowed to have any kind of glass in prison.

“Need the scissors?” Shawna asks.

“Nope.” He quickly folds the paper around it, fastening it with tape.

“I was thinking that we could make some Christmas cookies later,” Shawna suggests after a few minutes.

Mitch shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Shawna just sings softly, “Fa la la la la la la la la,” busily wrapping a gift of her own. She buys a lot of presents for different people, Mitch has noticed. She has tons of friends. Everyone likes her.

Even Mitch.

Now.

But that doesn’t mean everything is okay.

It doesn’t mean he isn’t still thinking about his mother.

Dad said she’s sick. That she always has been. When they were married, he knew that she had problems. He made her go see a psychiatrist a few times. That was how he found out what was wrong with her.

Something called narcissistic personality disorder.

Mitch doesn’t know what that means. Dad says it’s why she did all those bad things. He said if she had let the psychiatrist help her back when they were married, she might have gotten well. But she stopped going to see him. And she kicked Dad out when he tried to make her.

Dad said he never even knew Mitch existed until she came asking for money for Mitch last spring. Mom never told him she was pregnant when she threw him out. “If I had known, Mitch, I never would have left her without looking back.”

Mitch believes him.

Mom always said Dad was the one who left. That he didn’t care about her or Mitch and he just walked out. But Mitch knows now that she was lying.

It took him a long time to believe that and the other horrible things Mom has done. He still doesn’t want any of it to be true. But he figures it probably is. That’s why she’s in jail. That’s why she’s never coming out.

Dad says he didn’t think she was healthy enough to take care of Mitch. He and Shawna wanted Mitch to live with him from the minute they found out about him. So Dad started digging around, trying to find information that would help them to win custody.

Dad went to Haven Meadows just the other day to talk to Grandpa about her. That’s how the nursing home had known to call Dad’s house when Grandpa died—they got his phone number from the sign-in sheet.

Dad won’t tell Mitch what he talked about with Grandpa—or if Grandpa talked back. He only said he wanted to ask Grandpa about something that had happened a long, long time ago. When Mom was a little girl.

Mitch hears a car door slam outside.

He looks up and finds Shawna smiling at him.

“There’s your dad, home from work,” she says.

He smiles back. He can’t help it. She looks so goofy in that hat.

And Dad is home.

Moments later, his father comes into the kitchen, stamping the snow from his boots. He hugs Shawna and kisses her on the cheek.

Then he turns toward Mitch, opening his arms wide and grinning.

As Mitch settles into his father’s warm, familiar embrace, he changes his mind.

Maybe everything is going to be all right after all.

“D
o you have the tickets?” Tasha asks Joel as he slides into the front seat of the Expedition.

“Right here.” He pats his jacket pocket.

She smiles at him and settles back in the passenger seat as he turns on the wipers. The blades move in a steady rhythm, sweeping away the fat wet snowflakes as they land.

If Tasha lets it the sound will carry her back . . .

Back to a rainy night when she sat in this very seat with Paula driving. . . .

No.

She won’t let it.

She won’t go back.

“Ready?” Joel asks, glancing at her.

She grins. “Ready.”

“We’re ready too, Daddy,” Victoria pipes up from the back, strapped into her car seat between her brothers.

Joel pulls out of the driveway.

Past the Leibermans’ old house, where the new owners’ minivan sits in the driveway. Tasha hasn’t met them yet, but she watched the moving van being unloaded last weekend. A crib. A high chair. A toddler bed.

“Maybe they have kids who can be our friends, Mommy,” Hunter said, beside her.

“Maybe they do,” she told him, fighting back tears. For Rachel. For Ben and Mara and Noah, left behind.

She saw Ben last week when she brought Max in for his checkup. He said they were muddling along, but that Hanukkah was hard. He and the kids are still trying to settle into their new town house in Bedford, not far from his sister’s place.

The wipers make a swishing noise as Joel steers up Orchard Lane.

Past Karen and Tom’s, with the big wreath on the door and the tree sparkling in the picture window.

Past the Gallaghers’, with its newly installed wheelchair ramp. Tasha heard the other day that Fletch Gallagher is home from the rehab hospital now. Karen said she went over with a home-cooked meal for him one night. She said the doctors still aren’t sure whether he’ll be able to walk eventually, and that Fletch was subdued. He didn’t want to talk about what happened.

Nobody does.

Joel turns the corner and follows the network of tree-lined streets through town. House after house is decorated for the holidays; most in elegant white lights, with menorahs or Christmas trees—or both—in the windows.

Joel is whistling, she realizes. She smiles when she recognizes the tune.

It’s “Home for the Holidays.”

“Are you trying to tell me something, Joel?”

The new, relaxed Joel grins, looking at her. “Nope. That song just happened to pop into my head. You know I want to go to Centerbook. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Are you sure Santa will be able to find us there?” Victoria asks worriedly from the back seat.

“He will. I wrote him a letter, remember?” Hunter says. “I told him we’ll be at Grandma’s.”

Tasha smiles. She helped him mail the letter at the post office the day after Thanksgiving.

The following Monday, Joel started the new job—the one he had been interviewing for in October. A plum senior position at a smaller agency. It will mean more pay. A smaller workload. Shorter hours. All the things he thought would be impossible to find.

All the things that would make a tremendous difference in their world. In their marriage.

Joel told Tasha about it later—much later, long after they had fallen into each other’s arms at the Townsend Heights police station as dawn broke that stormy Monday morning. He said there was no way he would get the job now. He assumed he had blown his chances when he left Chicago that night without waiting for his Monday-morning interview with the agency’s important Midwestern client.

In light of what had happened, the agency persuaded the CEO to reschedule the interview.

And he landed the job.

Even after he told them he would need a week off for Christmas to be with his family.

“Oh, look!” Hunter exclaims as they round the corner.

“It’s so pretty!” Victoria says in a hushed voice.

Townsend Avenue is lovely at dusk in the gently falling snow, with red-velvet bows and garlands of greens draped everywhere, and white Christmas lights twinkling.

Tasha will miss it while they’re in Ohio for the next two weeks.

After all, this is home.

No, she thinks, glancing at Joel, and then back at the children.

Home is wherever they are. . . .

And that’s where I always want to be.