Live to Tell (8 page)

Wait—they weren’t on their way back from vacation.

They were coming from Baltimore. His father’s funeral. One of their last trips together, before he met Beth.

Would you rather die a slow death…

No. No way. Nick, who for six months had watched pancreatic cancer ravage the man he loved so dearly, was adamant that it would be better to never know what hit you.

Not Lauren. She was all for long good-byes, she said.

And that’s what happened to our marriage.

He realizes it now.

I let it die a slow death, even though it felt wrong.

Even though I knew on the night I wanted to kiss Beth in the car that I would leave her
.

He’d been so tempted to tell Lauren, early on, that it was over. Even when she insisted on trying, insisted on therapy.

He shouldn’t have gone.

But I did it for her.

I did it her way, not mine.

He should explain that to Lauren, the next chance he gets. Maybe he will.

Only he suspects she won’t choose to see the selflessness in his final act. His wife—
ex
-wife—who has always been so fair, is anything but fair to him these days.

He supposes there’s a part of him that doesn’t blame her.

But there’s a part of him that does. A part of him that wishes she could just wish him well and move on, the way he has. Not everything is meant to last forever.

Hell,
nothing
is meant to last forever, right?

As if to punctuate the point, Beth asks, “So you’re assuming that if you were going to die tonight, you’d know it?”

“I think maybe I’d sense it, on some level.”

“Really?”

He lifts the sunglasses again and looks at her. “Sure. I guess. Why?”

“I don’t know…it’s kind of morbid, don’t you think?”

“You’re the one who brought up dying. And sharks.”

“Yeah.” She’s silent for a minute. “What would you do if you
did
feel like you might die tonight? Or…soon?”

“For one thing, I wouldn’t go swimming at dusk. And for another…” He slides a hand over her bare thigh.

“Oh Lord, you want to do that
every
night.”

“True. Maybe that’s what’s going to kill me. You have to admit that there are worse ways to go than having a heart attack while you’re having sex. In fact—if I got to choose the way it had to end, that would be it.”

“Good. I really hope that works out for you. Meanwhile…this is a public beach, so…” She brushes his hand off her thigh.

“Party pooper.”

He stands up and brushes the sand off the backs of his legs, then stretches a hand out to her. “Come on. Let’s go for that swim. Next best thing to a cold shower.”

Beth shakes her head. “No, thanks.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know…maybe I’m not feeling as lucky as you are.” Her mouth grins, but Nick still can’t see her eyes—and something tells him they’re not smiling.

Down at the opposite end of the hall, Lauren can see that Sadie’s bedroom door is ajar and the bedside lamp is on. That’s how her youngest child gets herself through the long nights since Nick moved out. At least Sadie has managed to sleep in her own bed again now that Ryan and Lucy are back—when she manages to sleep at all.

Lauren passes both Lucy’s and Ryan’s rooms. All is silent behind their closed doors, but she’s sure they’re both awake—plugged into headphones, no doubt.

Back when they were an intact family, it bothered Lauren when the two older kids would retreat into their own little electronic worlds, unable to hear her and unwilling to interact.

But as she and Nick battled to the bitter end of their marriage, she found herself relieved the kids could insulate themselves from the blistering words hurtled back and forth by their parents. Behind closed doors, plugged into their iPods, Lucy and Ryan could escape.

Little Sadie, however, could not.

Poor baby.

Lauren finds her sitting up in bed, hair tousled, knees huddled against her chest, face flushed.

“What’s the matter, Sadie? Are you too hot?” Lauren is already crossing to the box fan in the window, making sure it’s on the highest setting.

“No. Not really.”

“Do you need some more water?” she asks Sadie. There’s a half-full glass on the nightstand beside Sadie’s lineup of Barbies, though, and it’s still floating with ice cubes.

“No.”

“Want me to take you to the bathroom?”

Sadie shakes her head, looking distressed.

“Did you have a nightmare?”

“No.”

“Are you still afraid of lions and tigers and bears? Because I told you—”

“No!”

“What is it, then?” Lauren asks gently, crossing the pink carpet to her daughter’s bed.

“Fred.”

“Fred?” That catches her off guard. The first few Fred-less nights were brutal, but it’s been a while since Sadie’s brought up her missing toy.

“Daddy said he’s going to look for Fred when he gets back from his vacation, and he’s coming back tomorrow.”

“That’s good, but, sweetie… Daddy might not find him.”

“He promised he’d try.”

To his credit, Nick didn’t promise that he
would
.

Still—he’d damned well better get himself over to the Grand Central lost and found again on Monday.

Meanwhile…

“You know, that guy looks pretty lonely over there,” Lauren comments, pointing at Sadie’s dresser across the room.

On top sits the wrong stuffed animal—the pink dog Nick claimed from the lost and found. Lauren had carried it up to Sadie’s room the morning after she tossed it across the kitchen, hoping it might grow on her in Fred’s probably permanent absence. Here it’s sat, apparently untouched and unnoticed.

“I don’t like him.”

“Maybe you would,” Lauren suggests, starting toward the dresser, “if you got to know him.”

“No.” Sadie shakes her head vehemently. “I don’t want him! I want Daddy!”

Lauren stops in her tracks.

“I mean, Fred,” Sadie hastily amends. “I want Fred.”

“I know what you mean, baby.”

Swept by a familiar, heart-sinking sensation, Lauren returns to the bed. She moves Sadie’s oversize Dora the Explorer pillow out of the way and sits down, and begins stroking her daughter’s hair. “It’s not easy to lose someone you love, is it?”

“Daddy says he’ll find Fred.”

“Daddy will try. But he might not be able to.”

“He said he would.”

Lauren nods. “I know. He’ll try.”

I hope
.

After all, Nick doesn’t have that great a track record when it comes to keeping promises.

Vows.

Lauren probably shouldn’t expect so little of him as a father. He does love the kids—of that, she’s certain.

Still…

He loved her, too, and look what he did to their storybook marriage.

Nothing Nick could possibly do would surprise me anymore.

Stepping out of the pub, Byron is caught off guard as much by the darkness as by the moist wave of heat that greets him. He’d completely lost touch with the world outside while he was in there nursing beer after beer and waiting for some loser who didn’t even bother to show up.

It’s getting late—and he has a feeling this is going to be one of those nights. Relentlessly hot and steamy all the way through.

He thinks longingly of his air-conditioned apartment across the river in Jersey. But a good night’s sleep isn’t worth the risk. He doesn’t dare go back there now. The place has to be under surveillance.

He’ll return to the Lower East Side dive his friend Mina rents. No AC, to be sure, but there’s a creaky old window fan.

Mina gave him the key once, a long time ago, so that he could water her pot plants while she was away for a week.

“You have potted plants?” he’d asked her, thinking it odd that a woman like Mina had a green thumb.

She shook her head slyly. “
Pot
plants.”

Right.

Mina’s not away now, but—to put it delicately—she works nights. She’ll have no idea he’s crashed at her place in her absence, and if she does happen to come home before dawn, well…he’ll just have to tell her what’s going on.

Not in detail, of course. He’ll just say he needs a place to crash for a night or two, until…

Until who knows when?

Byron hesitates on the street, trying to decide whether to head over to Times Square to take the A or E train downtown, or to Grand Central to take the Lexington Avenue line.

Grand Central.

Maybe he’ll run into JT and shake him up a little. He’d been so sure the kid was going to come through for him. The least he could have done was put in an appearance to collect his kill fee and tell Byron he couldn’t get what he needed.

That’s hard to believe.

Freakin’ kid has keys to the whole damned station, the way he described it.

Rounding the corner onto Madison, Byron sees that the next cross street is blocked off. Cops on walkietalkies, and big blue police barricades.

A movie shoot?

Nope. Glancing down the block, over by the plywood construction tunnel, he sees an ambulance, yellow crime scene tape, and a crowd of onlookers.

Early in his career, Byron was a beat reporter. He recognizes the signs.

Somebody’s dead.

There was a mugging, or a cab jumped the curb and hit a pedestrian, or maybe a crane dropped from the construction site overhead.

All in a day’s work for the press, and the cops, and the jaded New Yorkers who stand by, watching.

No skin off Byron’s nose, either. He can just as easily access Grand Central from the next block.

Again, his thoughts turn to JT and the failed attempt to get his hands on the name of whoever has that stupid toy in his possession.

Now what?

Now…who knows?

Maybe he had one too many beers to care right now.

I’ll just get a good night’s sleep and worry about it tomorrow.

Byron Gregson walks on toward Grand Central, never thinking to look over his shoulder.

Not here.

Not on the subway.

And not on the deserted block of Ludlow Street where his luck runs out at last.

Left alone again in her room, Sadie listens to her mother’s footsteps retreating down the hall and tries hard to keep the hot tears in her eyes from spilling over.

Big girls don’t cry.

That’s what Lucy told her today at the playground, when she fell. Lucy had been pushing her on the swing, but then she started talking to some boy, and she stopped pushing, and Sadie tried to make the swing go again by pumping her dangling legs, and she slipped off and fell into the wood chips.

“You’ll be okay,” Lucy told her, and she hugged her.

Lately, people are always telling Sadie that she’ll be okay. Her sister, her brother, her parents…

But she doesn’t believe any of them.

Why should she? They all leave her. Everyone but Mommy.

Mommy promised her all summer that Lucy and Ryan would come home soon, and they finally did.

But she didn’t say that about Daddy. Sadie knows that he’s never coming home again. Not to this house. Not to her.

And Fred—Fred is gone, too.

Sadie’s gaze falls on the stupid pink dog on the dresser across the room, sitting there between her My Little Pony lamp and her Tinker Bell music box. His black eyes are looking right back at her, like he’s trying to tell her something.

Something like,
See? I belong here
.

“I don’t want you,” she reminds him, and turns away, wiping her eyes on the sheet.

Lucy was wrong.

Big girls do cry.

CHAPTER SIX

S
tanding on the wooden deck off the master bedroom, Nick stares at the eastern horizon, where the first streaks of light are beginning to appear.

He hasn’t slept at all, and he isn’t sure why.

Exhausted by his evening ocean swim and a rigorous bout of lovemaking, he had expected to drift right off to sleep. Beth had, snuggled against him, their limbs entangled in each other and the sheet. A warm sea breeze from the open window stirred strands of her hair to tickle his bare chest, but he didn’t want to move and disturb her.

No, he wanted to stay just like that, arms wrapped around Beth, her head against his heart, forever.

But eventually she rolled away. Nick was left restlessly listening to the distant waves, wishing they could soothe him to sleep as they had every other night of this vacation.

It didn’t happen, and now it’s much too late. The alarm clock will go off any time now, and it will be time for him and Beth to go back to the real world.

His kids are the only thing Nick misses about that—but not as much, he guiltily admits to himself, as he’d expected to. They no longer need him the way they used to. Lucy and Ryan because they’re older and more self-sufficient, and Sadie because…

Well, he’s not sure why, exactly. All he knows is that he can’t quite connect with his youngest child. It’s always been that way.

Maybe he didn’t take enough time to bond with her as a newborn, too caught up in his career.

Maybe, unlike his own father, he’s just not the paternal type. Maybe he’s more like his mother.

All he knows for sure is that he couldn’t help but favor the older kids—albeit unfairly—because their lives were more interesting. Faced with the choice of spending his precious weekend afternoons changing diapers or on the soccer field sidelines, he’d chosen the latter.

Of course Lauren, who was home with the baby 24–7, tended to complain about that.

“You’re the one who used to pray for rainouts,” he reminded her. “Now you want to go to the games?”

“Lucy and Ryan want me there.”

“They want me there, too.”

“But I have to get out of the house,” she said. “You’re out all the time.”

“Working,” he pointed out, and off they went on one of those maddening, can’t-win arguments.

Now Sadie, who hasn’t even been to kindergarten yet, is seeing a shrink. He could tell by the way Lauren discussed the situation that she probably blames that on him, too. Maybe it is his fault. But not entirely.

He supposes, looking back, that they could have just brought Sadie along to the autumn soccer and lacrosse matches, to the basketball court in winter, to Little League and girls’ softball games in spring.

But Sadie caught enough colds as it was, and the weather was often raw, and Lauren was overprotective, in Nick’s opinion.

Plus, it was such a hassle to lug the necessary gear—diaper bag, stroller, port-a-playpen—across the fields…

Excuses, excuses.

The truth is, Sadie arrived just when Nick was hitting his stride—as a corporate executive, as a husband, as a father, as a homeowner. Having a baby in the house again cramped his style and threw off the family rhythm. Not long after they found themselves with another mouth to feed, the economy began to tank. It was all Nick could do to hang on to his job as the axe fell all around him. Then his father got sick, was declared terminal, died.

How, he wondered back in those grim days, had his life become such a shambles?

“It was like falling off the carousel horse just as the brass ring was within my grasp,” is how he described it to Beth, not long after they met.

“Maybe not.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe I’m the brass ring,” she said with a sly grin.

She was. Having Beth in his world revitalized him in ways he’d never dreamed possible. But even she can’t erase the baggage, the endless distractions, the responsibilities that will follow him for years to come.

There’s only one way to escape.

Well, two, if you count death.

The alternative, while infinitely more appealing, is hardly a viable choice.

Is it?

No
, he tells himself firmly.
You can’t run off with your mistress. You’re going back to the real world, and that’s that.

Nick takes one last, wistful look at the seascape before heading inside.

“Morning, Daddy.”

Startled by his daughter’s voice, Garvey looks up to see Caroline standing in the doorway of his den—not just awake at this early hour, but fully dressed in khaki shorts and a pale green polo.

He aims the TiVo remote at the television and presses the pause button, freezing the preternaturally cheerful morning news anchor in a gums-baring smile.

“Good morning, sunshine. Is the building on fire?”

Most teenagers, Garvey knows, would respond with a clueless “huh?” or just a blank stare.

Not Caroline Quinn.

“Pardon me?”

“I just can’t imagine that you’d be out of bed before seven on a Saturday morning for anything less than a full-scale emergency evacuation.”

His beautiful daughter rewards him with a chuckle and tosses her long black hair. “Actually, we’re evacuating to the Hamptons—did you forget?”

He frowns. “Where’s your mother?”

“Right here.” Marin appears behind Caroline, wearing a crisp white linen dress and a straw hat. Snow White and Rose Red, Garvey finds himself thinking, as he often does when his wife and daughter stand together. Marin a fair, blue-eyed blonde looking ten years younger than she is, and Caroline a striking brunette who appears—well, if not a full decade older than her years, then at least twenty-one.

Caroline’s rapid maturation scares him.

A lot of things about Caroline scare him.

Back in July when he fired Sharon, the summer nanny, he had fully intended to replace her. Caroline had convinced him that she and Annie would be fine for the remainder of the summer.

“I’m sixteen, Daddy,” Caroline had said. “I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself and Annie for a few weeks. Right, Annie?”

“She’s more capable than the Bubblehead,” was Annie’s assessment.

True.

But Garvey worries. If anything were to happen…

And now his wife is taking the girls out to the beach?

Much too dangerous.

Rip currents, sharks, Caroline in a skimpy bikini…

And I can’t be there to keep an eye on her.

“What’s this about the Hamptons?” he asks Marin.

“I told you yesterday—Heather Cottington invited us out for the weekend, and the girls and I are going.”

“I wasn’t even here yesterday.”

“What else is new?”

“Why are you going to the beach? The weather is lousy.”

“It’s supposed to clear up by this afternoon.”

“Here in the city. You’ll be way out east. The rain is moving that way.”

“Then we’ll be at the beach in the rain,” she replies impatiently. “What do you want from me?”

He looks at Caroline.

“Daddy, please? I’ve been looking forward to this.”

“Don’t worry, Car, we’re going,” Marin assures her. “Please go tell Annie that the car will be here in five minutes and make sure she’s ready. Her asthma has been bothering her this morning, so make sure she did the nebulizer like I told her.”

Their daughter sighs heavily, but doesn’t protest. Ordinarily, she might, but Garvey can tell by her expression that she’s not thrilled to witness the tension between him and Marin.

Caroline plants a kiss on his cheek. “See you, Daddy. Have a good weekend.”

“You too, angel. And be careful.” He waits until his daughter has left the room, then turns to Marin. “Since when do you and the girls take off without at least telling me?”

“I told you about it on the phone when I called to ask you what you wanted me to do about that charity auction.”

Oh. Maybe she did.

He remembers that call. It came in on the heels of the one about Byron Gregson sniffing around the Grand Central Terminal lost and found. Needless to say, Garvey had been a little preoccupied when he was talking to his wife.

“When will you be back?” he asks Marin.

“Monday afternoon. Why?”

“
Why?
” he echoes incredulously.

“Why does it matter? You won’t even be here.”

“Yes, I will. I’m scheduled to be in the city all weekend.”

“But not
here
. And none of your appearances in the next few days involve us—not that I’m complaining,” she adds, seeing him open his mouth to remind her that it was her choice to take a break from the campaign whirlwind.

“I’m free tomorrow until mid-afternoon.”

“Then come out and meet us.”

He shakes his head. She just doesn’t get it.

“Why the beach?”

For that matter, why Heather Cottington? Marin’s long-time friend—a vocal Manhattan Democrat—is hardly one of his favorite people.

“Summer is almost over, and the girls want to enjoy what’s left of it, and so do I.”

“We have our own beach house. You can—”

“It’s not exactly our own.”

True. It belongs to the family—
his
family. On any given weekend, Garvey’s New England–based siblings, nieces, and nephews can be found at the sprawling island residence.

Marin shakes her head. She’s never been very fond of his sisters, but she tolerates them—and vice versa, Garvey suspects.

“Anyway,” she continues, “Nantucket is too out of the way.”

“You can fly there in less time than you can drive to Long Island at this time of year, with traffic.”

“There’s no traffic at this hour.”

He raises a dubious brow. They both know the Long Island Expressway is impossible on summer weekends.

“Even if there is traffic, none of the girls’ friends go to Nantucket,” she reminds him. “They go to the Hamptons. And so do our friends. Mine, anyway.”

Ah, yes. Separate friends.

Increasingly separate lives.

This isn’t how it was supposed to be. Not for him and Marin. They were going to break the pattern established by his parents, his grandparents, and perhaps every Quinn ancestor dating back to the
Mayflower
.

When they met, Garvey desperately wanted to avoid the brand of brittle relationship he’d seen among couples in his own family. Head over heels in love with Marin, governed by his passion and naïve young heart, he truly believed their marriage would be—
could
be—different.

He’d been wrong.

It wouldn’t be.

Couldn’t
be.

Not after what happened to them.

Somehow, the traumas that had seemed to irrevocably bind them early in their relationship resulted in the very obsession that ultimately drove him away—emotionally, in any case. Physically, too, as often as he could manage to flee the domestic scene while maintaining his political Family Man persona.

His campaign now is based on that wholesome, old-fashioned image: loving father, loyal husband.

His marriage was supposed to be based on trust.

But you don’t dare burden the woman you love with secrets as dark as his. A mistress is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Garvey has kept the truth from Marin for her own sake as well as for his.

He’ll tell her only if, by some horrible twist of fate, the truth does manage to come out somehow—despite his desperate maneuvering to keep it hidden. But it won’t matter what he says to Marin then, because she’ll leave him anyway.

She might be willing to follow him to the governor’s mansion, but he’s pretty damned sure she won’t be willing to visit him in prison after what he did. And that’s where he’ll be—for the rest of his life, most likely—if he doesn’t get his hands on that file.

“Mrs. Quinn? The car is here,” the maid announces from the doorway.

“Thank you.” Marin looks at Garvey. “We have to go.”

He shrugs.

She turns away.

Then, for some reason—nostalgia? guilt?—he hears himself say, “I’ll miss you.”

Slowly, she turns back.

“I know I’m busy, but…it’s not like I don’t need you and the girls, Marin. You know that, right? You know that I’m doing this for all of us. For our future.”

Are you?
her blue eyes ask.

He nods, as if that can possibly reassure her.

If only there was something he could do or say to convince her that he only wants what’s best for her—for their daughters—for all of them. That’s all he’s ever wanted. If he didn’t care so much—if he wasn’t so fiercely devoted to his family—he wouldn’t have done what he did years ago.

Love.

I did it for love.

But who could possibly ever understand that?

Marin?

No.

“I wish you weren’t going away now that I’m finally home again.”

“I wish you were coming with us.”

Touché.

Wishes are useless, anyway.

“Maybe…” Marin is still looking at him, her expression softening. “If you can slip away from the fund-raiser tonight, you can always meet us out east for a late dinner.”

“I’m the guest of honor. How can I slip away?”

In the pause that follows, the connection evaporates. Just like that.

“It was just a thought. See you, Garvey.”

She leaves without kissing him good-bye.

He settles back in his leather wingback chair again and aims the remote at the television. Fast-forwarding through the local news, he can easily tell at a glance which segments he missed. There’s one about juror selection in a celebrated trial, which doesn’t concern him, and one about yet another MTA fare hike, which does—though not at this particular moment.

Ah…that might be it. Seeing a familiar dead-body-outline graphic in the panel behind the anchor, Garvey stops fast-forwarding, backs up a few frames, and presses play.

“Police this morning are investigating a murder on the Lower East Side,” the anchorwoman announces.

The news desk gives way to a handsome, square-jawed reporter standing beneath an umbrella. Behind him is a graffiti-covered brick building. “The body of a man was discovered on the sidewalk here shortly after nine last night. He had been shot once in the back of the head. Robbery is not a suspected motive as the victim was carrying cash. He did not, however, have a wallet or any identification.”