“Well, Jenna,” her sister said on the other end. “Why don’t you tell that to your son? He asked me twice today when you’re coming to see him.”
“I’ll be there next weekend, I promise,” she said. “In fact, let me tell him myself. Is he there? Can you put him on?”
She heard her sister mumbling something, and then after a minute: “Hello, Mommy?”
“Hi, Todd,” she said, tearing up a little. “How’s my guy?”
“I just killed a bug,” he said.
She smiled. “I killed one yesterday. Do you miss me?”
There was no response on the other end, and she knew he was nodding. He still did that over the phone sometimes. “When are you coming back, Mommy?” he asked, finally.
“Soon, maybe next weekend,” she said. “And we’ll definitely be together for Thanksgiving, don’t you worry. My work here is almost done. Sweetheart, can you keep a secret?”
“Yes!” he replied eagerly.
“You can’t even tell Aunt Elaine. Cross your heart. Did you cross it, honey?”
Again, silence. She knew he was nodding.
“Next time you see me, I might be bringing you a sister. She’s a little older than you, and she’s very sweet. Her daddy just died yesterday. . . .”
Jenna Corson wandered back to her worktable and the Dennehy dollhouse. She put her hand on the roof. “And her brother and stepmother will be dead soon, too. She’ll be all alone. So we’re going to be her new family. Won’t that be nice, sweetheart? Won’t that be lovely?”
She listened to the silence and knew what it meant.
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FOUR
She kept thinking if only she could crawl out of bed, do a few household chores—and concentrate on that for a while—then maybe she could get through the day. Maybe she’d start to feel normal again.
For the last two days, she’d been severely ill and bedridden. It had started on Friday night, while she and Rachel had been waiting for Jeff to return home. “I think you’re literally worrying yourself sick,” Rachel said, offering her peppermints. Rachel swore by them, but they didn’t seem to help.
They’d had a false alarm when a car had come down the cul-de-sac at 10:45. But it had been another one of Natalie’s gentlemen callers. By 11:30, Chris had become concerned about his dad, too. They called the police—and the hospitals. The three of them kept a vigil. But as the night wore on, Molly got sicker and sicker. She threw up four times.
Exhausted and depleted, she finally fell asleep under a blanket on the family room sofa at 3:45 that night. Chris had nodded off in his dad’s easy chair while tuned in to the Syfy Channel on TV. Molly couldn’t quite remember when they’d sent Rachel home.
In the morning, Molly felt so horrible she thought something might be wrong with the baby. Rachel came over and drove her to the doctor’s office. Since it was Saturday, Molly’s doctor wasn’t there, but one of his colleagues was. Molly got in to see him, and threw up twice in his office. He ordered bed rest and prescribed over-the-counter ginger capsules to combat the morning sickness. Rachel picked up the pills for her.
She was so weak and dizzy by the time they got home that Chris and Rachel had to help her upstairs to the bedroom. When she finally got to bed, Molly didn’t so much fall asleep as she passed out. She woke up to the sound of Erin screaming—the same agonizing shrieks Erin had let out when she’d learned her mother was dead.
Then Molly knew.
She was already weeping by the time Chris came to her room and told her about the call from the police. His eyes were red and his face looked blotchy from crying. When he told her they found his father dead in a hotel room at the Marriott by the airport, Molly tried to get up, but she was too frail. She reached up to Chris, and he took her hand for a few moments. She was hoping he would hug her, but he didn’t. At least he held her hand.
Over the next two days, she kept telling Rachel, “I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here.”
From her bed, Molly made the funeral arrangements—in the same kind of dazed sleepwalker’s manner that she’d set up Charlie’s service three years ago. But Rachel did most of the legwork. Rachel also looked after the kids. And Rachel backed her up when Molly tried to convince Chet Blazevich that Jeff had been murdered.
She’d phoned him on Sunday, and Chet said he’d drop by that afternoon. Rachel let him in and showed him up to the bedroom. For a moment, Molly thought about how horrible she looked and how the room must smell like vomit—and here this guy had a crush on her, or at least, he used to. But she really didn’t care.
Still. Chet looked handsome in a V-neck sweater, a tie, and corduroys. He stood a few steps inside the doorway. Rachel sat down at the end of the bed.
Jeff’s death wasn’t his case, but Chet told her how much he knew. “Your husband checked into the hotel alone,” he said somberly, looking more at the bedroom floor than at her. “But it’s very possible he called someone later to join him. Unfortunately, an ice bucket spilled on his cell phone, and shorted it out. So we’re going through his service provider to see if we can get a record of his calls that day. . . .”
Molly shook her head. “They’ll find some number that’s no longer in service or it’s one of those phones you can throw away.” She struggled to sit up in bed. “This woman who’s doing all this, she’s very careful and clever. Every time she’s called me, the number’s been blocked. I’m sure she was with him yesterday. It’s probably the same woman he was seeing that time in Vancouver. I—I know about Vancouver. I know he wasn’t in Washington, D.C., when Angela was killed. This woman was with him then. I can tell from the prices of the meals he paid for in Vancouver. Those are meals for two people. She was with Jeff then, and she was with him yesterday. She’s the one who murdered him.”
Chet nervously cleared his throat. “We talked to several employees at the Marriott, and nobody saw him with anyone else. It appears your husband died from ingesting a lethal combination of ecstasy-laced alcohol, cocaine, and heroin. They didn’t see anything to indicate force was used in any way—though the ecstasy in the alcohol raised a few eyebrows. Not many people would take ecstasy that way, but it’s not totally unheard of. And the hotel records show your husband logged in four hours on the pay-TV’s adult channel.”
“He was set up,” Molly argued, tears in her eyes. “She thought it all out ahead of time. I know that sounds crazy and paranoid. But I also know Jeff. He didn’t take drugs. This woman—she’s the same one who’s been causing all these accidents to people on this block—she killed Jeff. And she killed Angela, along with Larry and Taylor. I think she may have killed Kay, too.”
“Mrs. Dennehy,” he said. “How could she have killed those three people on Alder Court at the same time you say she was with your husband in Vancouver?”
“She—she—must have an accomplice, or someone working for her,” Molly said, feeling nauseous. “She planned this all very carefully. . . .”
“You have to admit, Detective,” Rachel chimed in. “In just two weeks there have been an unusual amount of accidents and deaths associated with this block. I mean, really, what are the odds? Two deaths, and a near-fatal car wreck, an arrest, and a lot of little things, too—my toolshed was set on fire last week, and three children on this block were badly cut playing in a vacant lot that just happened to be sprinkled with broken glass. I think Molly has every reason to question the notion that Jeff’s death was an accidental overdose.”
“Jeff didn’t even smoke pot,” Molly said, rubbing her forehead with a shaky hand. “So I don’t think he’d be taking ecstasy and cocaine and heroin. . . .”
“Mrs. Dennehy . . . Molly,” Chet said. “Please forgive me, but you say you know your husband didn’t take drugs. Two weeks ago, did you know your husband was seeing other women? I mean, how well did you really know him?”
Molly began to cry. Jeff wasn’t much better than Jeremy Hahn. They were both discovered in a hotel room after some illicit sexual assignation, surrounded by drugs and porn. At least Jeremy was still alive.
Couldn’t the police see what was happening? How could they tally everything up and still call it a coincidence or just bad luck?
The TV news coverage of Jeff’s death made him look like a sleazy character. How couldn’t it? In the same broadcast, it was reported that police believed the murders of Jeff’s ex-wife, her partner, and his daughter might not have been the work of the cul-de-sac killer, but rather a copycat. Hearing that, people certainly had to figure Jeff was somehow involved in the slayings.
His only alibi was that he was screwing some woman in Vancouver at the time.
Molly was sick in front of Chet Blazevich. Fortunately, Rachel got the wastebasket to her in time. While Rachel cleaned out the wastebasket, Molly drank a little water, but she still didn’t feel any better. “I’m sorry,” she muttered feebly to Chet. “It’s been—it’s been like an
Exorcist
marathon here lately.”
“Have you seen a doctor?” he asked gently. “You look like you belong in the E.R.”
“I’m pregnant,” she admitted quietly. “I saw a doctor yesterday morning. I’m not sure how much of this is morning sickness, and how much of it is stress. Anyway, the kids don’t know yet about the baby. Jeff didn’t know, either. I never got a chance to tell him. . . .” She started to cry again. She couldn’t help it. All her defenses were down, and she felt so horrible.
Before leaving, Chet reminded her that Jeff’s death was still under investigation. But Molly knew he’d probably chalked up everything she’d said as the paranoid ramblings of a sickly, hormonal, pregnant woman—just made a widow.
She felt so frustrated and useless. Poor Chris had to drive by himself to the coroner’s office and identify his father’s remains. And Erin couldn’t take much comfort in a stepmother who was bedridden, groggy, and throwing up every few hours. For both of them, more than anything, she wanted to climb out of bed and be strong again. Rachel and Trish were there on and off, but Molly couldn’t help feeling she’d let down Chris and Erin just when they’d needed her the most.
She wanted so much to call her mother. She missed her. And it would have helped to know if this severe morning sickness was something hereditary. Rachel was just about as far along in her pregnancy, and she admitted to feeling nauseous a lot of the time. But it didn’t seem to slow her down.
That Monday morning, the day before Jeff’s funeral, Molly told herself she had to get up no matter how awful she felt. The ginger capsules didn’t seem to do any good—in fact, they only made her sicker and groggier. So Molly decided not to take any. At 6:45, before anyone else woke up, she crawled out of bed, opened the window, and took several, deep fortifying breaths of the cold November air. Leaning on the banister, she managed to get downstairs to the kitchen, where she found a Sprite in the refrigerator and some deli ham. She made herself a cold ham and Swiss sandwich and gobbled it up at the breakfast table.
Outside, it was still dark. Inside, the house was quiet. For a few minutes, she managed to convince herself it was one of those mornings when Jeff was on a business trip, and the kids weren’t awake yet—and she had a few quiet moments before the morning rush to school.
To her amazement, she kept the food down. She was still a bit frail and once again relied on the banister for her slow ascent back up the stairs. She had every intention of making her bed, but she crawled under the covers again for a moment—and fell asleep.
The next thing she knew, her nightstand digital clock read 11:23 A.M ., and she could hear the TV on in the family room. Molly forced herself to get up. A shower was too much of a commitment—even with her hair limp and greasy. She washed her face, put on a sweater and jeans, and then made her bed.
Down the hall, she checked Erin’s room to see if the bed was made. It wasn’t, and clothes were strewn on the floor. She’d do a load of wash. It wasn’t much, but she was taking baby steps. She gathered up Erin’s clothes, then paused and sat down in Angela’s rocker with Erin’s dirty clothes in her lap. Molly noticed yellow paint on the long sleeve of Erin’s pink pullover. There was a yellow smudge on her jeans, too.
Molly could see the shade of yellow wasn’t from Erin’s limited watercolor collection. It was artists’ oil paint, probably Naples Light Yellow. A six-ounce tube cost eighty-two dollars, plus tax.
She could see a few yellow stains on Erin’s door, too. Molly shook her head. “Damn it,” she murmured. Erin knew she wasn’t allowed up in the studio by herself, and using Molly’s paints was strictly verboten.
Molly got to her feet, and Erin’s dirty clothes fell from her lap to the floor. She stepped over them on her way to the hall. She noticed a pale yellow paint smudge by the knob of the attic door. Molly opened the door and told herself she couldn’t be mad at Erin, not now. For all she knew, maybe Erin had painted her a Get Well picture. She’d done that for her before, when she’d had the flu last January. But Erin had used her own paints then.
Molly climbed the stairs to her art studio and felt a bit dizzy by the time she reached the top. Catching her breath, she glanced around. Just past the easel and the back of her latest project—the cola ad—she spotted the tube of Naples Light Yellow. It was on the stool that usually held her water glass, soda, or coffee while she worked. The cap was off, and some of the paint had oozed out of the tube. She saw a thin paintbrush on the floor.
“Oh, Erin, for God’s sake,” she said under her breath. She moved toward the easel to clean up after her. That was when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Molly swiveled around and stared at her painting of the twenty partygoers through the ages drinking cola—and the yellow X slashed across it.
“Oh, no!” she cried, a hand over her mouth. She automatically turned away—toward the bookcase. Then she realized her painting wasn’t the only thing that had been destroyed up here. On one shelf, blotches of yellow paint haphazardly ran across several of the elephant figurines. A few of the glass and china ones had been smashed with a putty knife that lay on the floor among the broken shards.
“No, no, no,” Molly sobbed. “God, how could she?” Some of those elephants had belonged to Charlie.
She staggered down the two flights of stairs to the family room, where Erin was in her pajamas, sprawled on the sofa, snacking on a Fruit Roll-Up and watching a cartoon on TV. “My God, Erin, why?” she asked, out of breath and half crying. “Why in the world would you do that?”
“Do what?” Erin sat up. “I didn’t do anything!”
“You ruined my painting!” Molly cried. “You know how hard I’ve worked on that. I’ve spent hours and hours on it—”
“I did not!” Erin screamed. “I didn’t do anything to your dumb old painting!”
“And you destroyed a whole shelf full of my elephants! Are you going to deny that, too? Why would you do something so hurtful? Are you mad at me? Is that it? You know you’re not allowed up in my studio, and yet you went up there and—”