Fade to Black (26 page)

Sure enough, as soon as the car is silent, her daughter cranks it up again. “Hannah’s hungry, Mommy. Hannah needs something to eat. Eat
now
.”

“Hannah, when we get to Nana and Papa’s, then you can eat something.”
If they’re around
.

She had tried to reach her parents before leaving home earlier, but there had been no answer. She hopes they’re only out to lunch or shopping, that they haven’t decided to go up to their house in Maine for the weekend. Not wanting to wait until she’d spoken to them, she had left a message on the machine telling them that she and the kids were coming for the weekend, but hadn’t told them why, of course.

She isn’t about to let them know that she’s left her husband—maybe temporarily, maybe for good. That depends on his reaction to the note she’d left him on the kitchen table.

That’s it. No further information. And not
Love, Pam
the way she usually signs notes to him.

Had the note been straightforward enough?

She hadn’t mentioned how upset she’s been, or that he’s the reason she’s left. But he’ll have to know. He’ll have to come after her. After all, she’s never left town to visit her parents without first discussing it with him.

He probably found the note when he stopped home, as he often does, while out on patrol.

She used to think it sweet that he did that—that he would check up on her and the kids during the day, to say hello and make sure everything’s okay.

But now she wonders about his true motive for coming around like that.

Is he hoping for a glimpse of their beautiful neighbor?

Hoping to impress her with his patrol car, his uniform?

Is it Pamela’s imagination, or have his visits home become more frequent lately?

It’s not your imagination. You saw him sneaking back from her place the other night
, she reminds herself.

The pit of rage ignites in her stomach once again.

She stares out the windshield, realizes they’ve been at an absolute standstill for several minutes now.

In the backseat, Hannah’s whining has turned to crying, and, of course, Jason has awakened and has joined in. The din is deafening.

“Cut it out, you guys,” she yells. “Quiet down. I’m trying to drive!”

“Mommy not driving. Mommy park car,” Hannah stops crying long enough to observe.

“We are
not
parked!”

Pamela jams her hand down on the horn.

“Move, dammit!” she yells vainly at the cars clogging the road in front of her. Her voice is tight with frustration, despair. “Move!”

E
lizabeth drives slowly down Green Garden Way, wondering if she should have stopped at Manny’s grandparents’ house. She had driven by several times, looking for a sign of … Something.

A sign of Manny, a sign of a police investigation, anything that would tell her what’s going on.

But there was nothing to see.

She has to do something. There has to be some way of finding out if Manny’s okay without involving herself with the authorities.

Now, of all times.

“Manny, where are you?” she mutters aloud.

On the seat beside her is a large zippered canvas bag, a bag she brought to the bank so that she could empty out her safety deposit box.

The bag is bulging now.

She rounds the curve at the end of the street and sees her house up ahead.

This is it—the last time you’ll ever do this
.

The last time you’ll ever come home here
.

And it has been
home
, she realizes

Not the one she would have chosen for herself years ago, nothing like Gran’s big, cozy Nebraska farmhouse or as grand and comfortable as the Malibu mansion she had abandoned.

But this little Cape has sheltered her for half a decade; within its simple clapboard walls she has felt as safe as she ever could have under the circumstances.

Now she’ll be cast adrift once again, roaming in search of a new refuge.

She doesn’t
feel
like going, dammit. She doesn’t want to run again. She’s tired of running, exhausted from fear, weary of the tedium, the loneliness of her existence.

But you have no choice
.

If you don’t go, you’ll die
.

She’d been so damned wrong about Harper Smith.

How could she have imagined that he might be someone who could rescue her from the nightmare, when in reality he’s the one who has caused it?

How could she have been imagining what it would be like to kiss him while he, most likely, had been fantasizing about killing her?

She pulls into the driveway and looks at the house.

Something has captured her attention, something she glimpsed just now, out of the corner of her eye.

For a moment she can’t put her finger on what it is.

Then she sees it.

On the front step.

Some sort of package, wrapped in green tissue paper.

The kind of tissue paper florists use.

She jerks the car to a halt, staring at it, a roaring in her ears as panic rushes through her veins.

“Elizabeth?”

She gasps at the distant sound of her name, turns to see Frank Minelli poking his head out his front door.

She can’t reply, only looks at him, one hand still clenched on the steering wheel, the other on the gearshift.

He’s saying something else, but she can’t hear him through the glass. She should roll down the window, but she can’t move.

She can’t move …

You have to roll down the window
, she commands herself.
You have to pull yourself together
.

She reaches for the lever, cranks it so that it opens halfway, enough for Frank’s voice to reach her ears.

“Have you seen Pam?”

Have you seen Pam?

Have you seen Pam?

It takes an eternity for her to decipher the question, to find her voice, to conjure the correct response.

Have you seen Pam?

“Earlier,” she manages to say in a strangled tone. “With the kids. Leaving.”

“Did she say anything to you about where she was going?”

Elizabeth shakes her head, looks back at the ominous package on the front steps.

“She left a note saying she went to her mother’s in Boston, but I’ve been trying to call and I keep getting the machine. She should have been there by now.”

Elizabeth tries to focus on what he’s saying.

“Hey, are you all right?” he asks, coming closer to the car, peering at her face. “You look terrible.”

“I’m …” She can’t seem to speak coherently.

“You’re not still spooked by what I told you about Harper Smith, are you?”

She can’t reply.

“Listen, relax,” he tells her. “You’re only going to dinner with him, right? You weren’t planning to be alone with him, were you?”

Planning to be alone with him?

Wishing, yes.

Hoping, yes.

Yes, she had allowed herself to imagine that dinner at Momma Mangia’s would lead to something more …

Until Frank had told her that Harper Smith is suspected of stalking an actress in L.A., and killing two other people.

You don’t know it, Frank Minelli, but you’ve saved my life
, she thinks, looking into his warm brown eyes.

No. You’re not safe yet. You won’t be until you get out of here
.

But she still has a few hours until she’s supposed to meet him at the restaurant.

He won’t realize she’s on to him until she doesn’t show up, and by then she’ll be …

“Elizabeth?”

She shakes her head, focuses on Frank again.

“You look very upset. Do you want to come over to talk? I took the rest of the day off, and I’m waiting to hear from Pamela, so I’ll be around.”

She shakes her head, again looks at the flower arrangement on the step.

He follows her gaze.

“What is that?” he asks, looking at her.

She shrugs. “I have no idea. I guess … he sent it. Harper.”

“Aren’t you going to check?”

She shakes her head, numb.

“Do you want me to go look at it?” Frank asks kindly.

“No! No, Don’t touch it!” she calls, but he’s already striding across the lawn.

She leaps out of her car, calling, “Frank, Don’t—”

But he’s already picking up the green tissue-wrapped package …

And nothing’s happening.

No explosion.

No screams of pain.

No blood.

He walks back over to her, holding the package in one hand, and offering her a small square cardboard rectangle with the other.

“This card was attached. It’s a floral arrangement. See?”

He tilts it toward her, and she flinches.

She takes the card gingerly, turns it over, sees the printed note and signature.

Looking forward to tonight. Harper
.

“This is a woman’s handwriting,” she tells Frank, studying it in disbelief.

“He must have ordered them over the phone. Whoever took the order at the florist shop wrote the card. The delivery person must have left them there when you weren’t home.”

“Oh …”

Of course.

The person in the shop had written the note. A woman.

And there is no bomb planted among the fresh summer blooms.

Not this time.

Looking forward to tonight …

She’s filled with foreboding.

Just, she’s certain, as he had intended.

He wanted the flowers to trigger the memory of what had happened in L.A.

He had known she would be paralyzed with fear at the sight of that arrangement sitting on the steps.

You bastard
, she thinks, and thrusts the card at Frank.

“Take this,” she says, “and the flowers. Get rid of it for me, will you?”

He looks hesitant. “Elizabeth, I told you, when I said that about Harper I didn’t mean to—”

“No,” she says emphatically, “get rid of it for me. Please, Frank.”

He shrugs. “Okay, sure. No problem.”

“Thank you.”

He turns toward his house, then looks back at her. “You sure you’re going to be all right?”

She nods.

“Well, if you need anything, you holler. I’ll be around all night, so if your date tries anything funny …”

She nods again, thanks him.

She isn’t going to tell him that she’s not going on any date with Harper Smith.

That she’s leaving town as soon as possible …

Now
.

She can’t even stick around to find out what’s happened to Manny.

Her life depends on getting out of there as fast as she can, and not looking back.

M
artin de Lisser’s Napa Valley home is modest by industry standards. It’s nice, but not the spectacular digs one would expect from a director of his ranking.

This’ll be on the market soon
was Rae’s first thought upon seeing it; he would trade it for an estate on Stone Canyon Road in Bel Air, a penthouse on Central Park South in Manhattan, a mansion on Miami’s Star Island—the customary real estate for a man of his stature.

Though she’s fully aware that a year ago no one had ever heard of him, Rae had found herself disappointed—by both the setting and the director himself.

She had been expecting evidence of vast power, yet the man mirrors his unassuming home.

Martin de Lisser’s current residence, a two-story wood-frame house at the end of a meandering, oak-shaded drive, is simple and rustic, adorned with window boxes and white-railed porches. It sits on a dozen scenic acres dotted with redwood and eucalyptus groves and bordered by vineyards, with the Vaca Mountains looming in the distance.

Meanwhile, the bespectacled, somewhat paunchy de Lisser is shorter and balder than he appears in photographs she’s seen, and he has a slight, but disconcerting, speech impediment.

He speaks as though he’s slurping through a mouthful of saliva, and after their short, introductory conversation, Rae had found herself wanting to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and shout, “Swallow, why don’t you?”

Now, as she finishes her reading from the script, with de Lisser’s girlfriend, a model named Lita, woodenly playing the other role, Rae glances at the famed director to gauge his reaction.