The Cinderella Hour (23 page)

Their conversation floated in stereo in the fire-warm air. A
second radio, coming from Vivian’s hastily parked car, was broadcasting it,
too.

“I was awful to her today,” Luke said to Bea during the drive
to Grace Memorial.

“If you hadn’t been, you wouldn’t have dropped by tonight.”

“You would have gotten her out, Bea.”

“I would have tried. And, Lucas Kilcannon, she and I both
expect you to apologize for today’s awfulness in a very grand way. A
seven-course dinner at Chez Marguerite might do the trick.” Bea drew a shaky
breath. “Oh, Luke. This can’t be happening. Not to Mira.”

“She’s going to be fine.”

Bea was too smart to challenge his assertion. Both knew it
was a wish, not a certainty.

“She’s in love, Luke. Our girl is in love.” And that, Bea
thought, is what is going to save her.

Vivian was waiting for them in the
emergency room.

No one had yet handed Vivian Larken Prescott a damp towel to
wipe her sister’s blood off her lips and cheek. Maybe no one dared. Or maybe
Vivian had refused.

“Tell us, Vivian,” Luke said.

“She’s in surgery.”

“Good. What else?”

“They want us to go to a special waiting area. They showed me
where it is. They’ll give us updates there.”

“Okay. Vivian, what aren’t you saying?”

“The fire was intentionally set.”

“That’s right.”

“She was savagely beaten.”

“Yes.”

“Who would do something like that?”

“Not me, Vivian.”

“I
know
that, Luke. You
know
I know that.” When
his expression didn’t give her the reassurance, the forgiveness, she so
desperately needed from him, Vivian turned to Bea. “Who could have done this,
Bea?”

“I have no idea. Mira doesn’t have an enemy in the world.”

“The obscene phone calls she was getting were real,” Vivian
murmured. “Weren’t they?”

“Of course they were,” Bea replied. “Why in heaven’s name
would you think they weren’t?”

Vivian shook her head. “None of this makes sense. Nothing
makes sense.”

Bea put her hands on Vivian’s shoulders and met her bewildered
gaze. “I’m going to find a towel, Vivian. For your face. Then we’ll wait where
the doctors want us to wait.”

“Luke isn’t here,” Helen informed
Blaine and Snow during the final commercial of Blaine’s scheduled interview. “And
he’s not going to be.”

“Oh?” Snow’s voice was calm. Her heart was not. “He called?”

“Yes. But he only got as far as the main switchboard. They
took the message without connecting him through to the back line. Maybe that’s
all he wanted, to leave the message.”

“What was the message?”

“That he had to cancel and would call you later.”

“I’m happy to stay on.”

“That would be wonderful, Blaine. Thank you.”

There wouldn’t be any trouble filling another ninety minutes.
The topic was far from exhausted. And Snow had read only a fraction of the emails
and taken just a few of the many calls.

So far, her selections had been good. Despite Blaine’s insistence that she not devote any of the show’s on-air time to calls from
patients wanting to express their gratitude for his saving the heart and soul
of their family—their wives and their mothers—Snow decided to hear what else those
grateful callers had to say. It was an excellent decision, the kind of instinct
that made her show such a success.

Blaine
’s
patients shared more than their thanks. They detailed their personal experiences
with postpartum depression—and with the conquest of it, the
cure
of it,
once the diagnosis was made.

Snow usually made swift yes or no determinations about
listener emails. Tonight there was one she read and re-read.

Snow,

Get Blaine to tell you why he has
dedicated his career to women’s mental health.

Ellen O’Neil

Atlanta

The suggestion was good, and
logical. Prior to the broadcast, Snow herself had made a note to ask Blaine something similar—with his permission—should the interview stall.

It was the style of Ellen O’Neil’s email that caught her
attention. And the name. Snow didn’t know an Ellen O’Neil. And yet, as with the
style, it felt vaguely familiar.

The interview hadn’t stalled. But now that Blaine would be
staying on and the answer would interest her listeners whether there was a
career-inspiring event or not . . .

“There’s an email I would like to read, Blaine. But I won’t
without your permission.”

“Ten seconds,” Helen warned.

“I’ll ask you later,” Snow said.

“If you’d like to read it,” Blaine said, “go right ahead.”

“It’s a personal question about you.”

“Now I’m intrigued. Read it, Snow. On air. Permission
granted.”

“Okay.” After explaining to her listeners that her
eleven-thirty guest had cancelled and that Dr. Prescott had graciously agreed
to remain on, Snow paraphrased the email. “Ellen O’Neil from Atlanta wonders if
there’s a reason you have chosen to devote your career to mental health in
women.”

“Yes, Snow—and Ellen—there is. A very personal one.”

“Please don’t feel you have to reveal it.”

“I want to. It’s the least I can do. So many callers tonight
have been willing to share their stories in the hope of helping others. I’d like
to share mine—and my sister Julie’s—in the same hope.”

When Blaine spoke again, his voice held great fondness for
the sister he had lost. “Julie was twenty-three when she died. Only
twenty-three. And a gifted artist. Our family of four was very close. But there
was a special bond between Julie and Dad. He was a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. He would unwind from his rigorous workdays with late-night
walks near our Beacon Hill home. Sometimes Julie went with him. Or I did. Or our
mother did. Most often, however, he would go alone. It was a safe neighborhood
. . . until the night he didn’t return. He had been struck by a car and left to
die. To this day, the hit-and-run driver hasn’t been found.

“His death was devastating for all of us. But the emotional
trauma tipped Julie from what I’ve come to realize was a smoldering bipolar
illness into full-blown mania. My mother and I welcomed her newfound energy
with relief. She’d been so depressed. When she would say things that didn’t
make sense, or talk endlessly about her grandiose plans, we attributed it to
her artistic temperament and turned a blind eye to the possibility that
anything was wrong.

“We were proud of Julie and found excuses for her unusual
behavior. She was engaged to be married. Her fiancé, a rookie cop, adored her.
Her euphoria was to be expected, we decided, in a soon-to-be bride. The wedding
was scheduled for the first Saturday in June. Julie wanted to do something
special for the last Mother’s Day we would have—just the three of us—before she
got married. I was in my first year of medical school and it was nearing final exam
time. But it was important to Julie that she, our mother, and I spend that
entire day together, ending with the lavish dinner she had planned. She wanted
us to watch her prepare the culinary extravaganza, as she called it, and
reminisce with her about Dad and our life as a family.

“That’s what we did. Reminisced, with tears and laughter,
while before our eyes, Julie produced a feast. The food was delicious. At Julie’s
urging, we all ate too much. Also at her urging, I accepted the ring my parents
had given her on her sixteenth birthday. She would have a wedding ring soon,
she said. She wanted me to wear her ring on the little finger of my right hand.
I’ve done so ever since.”

Blaine
drew a breath, then exhaled the emotion that threatened to foreshorten his
story. “Later that night, after I returned to the campus dormitory where I was
living, I became violently ill. I knew it could have been from something I’d
eaten that day. But it could just as well have been from the dorm food I’d had
the night before. I didn’t want to hurt Julie’s feelings. I put off calling
home to see if she and my mother were also sick. By mid-morning, with my own
symptoms worsening, I felt I had to call. When no one answered, one of my
roommates drove me to the house. Both my mother and Julie were dead.

“The coroner’s ruling was accidental food poisoning. At the
time I thought the diagnosis was correct. In the intervening years I’ve come to
believe there wasn’t anything accidental about it. As Julie added cup after cup
of premeasured ingredients to the dishes she was making, she talked about Dad’s
impatience for us to join him in heaven. She knew, she said, that was what God
wanted, too.

“My brilliant, talented sister was psychotic. The truth was
right in front of us. But neither my mother nor I was willing to see it. We
denied it.
Avoided
it. We might have asked Julie why she was so
confident about knowing what God wanted. She would have told us the truth as, in
her delusional state, she believed it to be. God was talking to her, she would have
said. His voice had become a constant presence in her head. But we didn’t ask.
At some level, we must have feared the answer. Our reluctance to face Julie’s
mental illness cost Julie and my mother their lives. I made a pledge, in their
memory, to do what I could do to avert such tragedy for others.”

“We’ve evacuated the blood.” The
neurosurgeon addressed her initial remarks to Vivian. Of the four people in the
waiting room, Mira’s sister was the only one she had previously met. “That’s alleviated
the increased intracranial pressure.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“It’s a good beginning.”

“What’s next, doctor?” Bea asked.

“We have several more hours of definitive surgery to do. We
need to ligate—tie—the ruptured vessels and ensure that all the bone fragments
have been removed. The thoracic surgeons have begun their exploration of her
chest cavity, and the trauma team’s determining how best to manage her
punctured spleen.”

“So her low pressure was due to blood loss from her injured
spleen?” The question was Luke’s.

“Yes. The blood loss was significant, although the actual area
of damage was relatively small. That’s why they’re discussing optimal
management. If they can do a subtotal splenectomy, they will.”

“To preserve her immune system,” Bea said.

“This is a medically savvy group.” The neurosurgeon didn’t
smile. She knew the key question was imminent.

It came from the fourth person in the room, the Quail Ridge
officer who was already investigating the case as an attempted murder.

“Prognosis?” Detective Lansky asked.

“The prognosis,” the doctor replied, “is grave.”

“I’m afraid I’ve just received some upsetting news.” Helen’s
announcement was made to Blaine and Snow during the midnight newsbreak. “It
comes from a listener who lives in the Pinewood neighborhood in Quail Ridge.
She didn’t want to go on air, just wanted the two of you to get the message.
She tuned in to the show at ten, about the same time she heard sirens nearby.
She didn’t pay much attention, but her husband did. He followed the emergency
vehicles and returned from the scene about thirty minutes ago. It’s taken her
that long to get through.”

“What scene, Helen?”

“There’s been a fire on Meadow View Drive. At the address
where Luke Kilcannon used to live.”

“And where my sister-in-law lives now,” Blaine murmured. “Thank
God Mira wasn’t home.”

“I’m afraid she was home, Blaine.”

“No. Mira and Vivian were listening to the show at our home
in the Hilltop area.”

“The caller said it was Mira. That’s what her husband said.”

“He’s wrong.”

“I hope so. Whoever she is, the woman was badly injured and
was rushed to Grace Memorial. Blaine? I’m sorry, but I think it
was
Mira. That would explain why Vivian rode with her in the ambulance.”

“
Vivian
was there?”

“Yes. So was Luke. At least, that’s what the woman said. She
didn’t sound flaky, but—”

“I have to go,” Blaine interjected. “I need to find out
what’s happened.
Now
.”

It took Blaine five minutes to get
from his office to the neurosurgical waiting room. It would have been twice
that if he had waited for elevators and walked instead of run.

“Vivian?”

“Blaine!”

“I just heard. A listener from Pinewood called the radio
station. Why didn’t you call me? Or come and get me? I’ve been upstairs in my
office all this time.”

“I . . .”
Didn’t need you. Didn’t think about you. Luke
was here.
“Everything’s been so confused. I thought you’d be on your way
home. I was going to leave a message there.”

“There was a fire at Mira’s house?”

“It was arson,” Luke said. He extended his hand to Blaine. “I’m Luke Kilcannon. We haven’t met.”

“Luke.” Blaine shook his hand, and then Detective Lansky’s. “Arson?”

The detective replied. “Luke thinks Mira returned home just
as the arsonist was about to set the fire.”

“He
attacked
her, Blaine.” Vivian’s voice held
disbelief. “Viciously.”

“How is she?”

“Fighting,” Bea said.

“What I don’t understand, Vivian, is why you and Mira weren’t
at our place, listening to the interview.”

“Why would we have been?”

“Because that’s what we agreed.”

“What we agreed?”

“You, me, Mira. Don’t you remember?”

“No, Blaine, I—”

“Didn’t Mira come to the house at ten?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t home. I didn’t realize—”

“Where were you?”

“Driving around. Thinking.” Vivian cast a furtive glance at
Luke. “I had a lot of things on my mind.”

“You must have been near Pinewood when the fire started,”
Detective Lansky said. “You arrived in time to ride with Mira in the paramedic
van.”

“I was driving to Mira’s when the fire trucks passed me.”

“Driving to Mira’s, Vivian?” Blaine asked. “Why?”

“To talk to her, Blaine. To talk to my sister.”

“Does that strike you as unusual, Dr. Prescott?” Rob Lansky
wanted to know. “You look a little surprised. Like Mrs. Prescott isn’t in the
habit of dropping by her sister’s for a late-night chat.”

“It’s not unusual at all, Detective.” Blaine curved a
protective arm around his wife. “Vivian and Mira are very close.”

“You can’t think I had anything to do with this!” Vivian exclaimed
to the detective as the implication of his line of questioning finally hit. “I
would
never
harm Mira.” She made the mistake of looking for support, and
endorsement of her fine character, to the man least likely to offer it. “You cannot
believe I’m capable of this . . .
Luke
?”

“The surgeons expect to be operating for several more hours.”
Luke reached for his coat. “Now that you’re here, Blaine, I’m going to leave
for a while.”

“I’d like to come with you, Luke. I assume you’re heading for
the Wind Chimes Towers?”

“I am, Bea. But why do you want to go there?”

“Because that’s where Thomas Vail lives.”

“What does Thomas have to do with Mira?”

“Everything, Blaine. Mira’s in love with Thomas. And,” Bea
added decisively, “Thomas is in love with her.”

“Vivian and Mira are not close.”
Bea stated the obvious once she and Luke were alone.

“No. They’re not.”

“But you’re not really considering the possibility that
Vivian did this. Are you?” Without waiting for his reply, Bea offered one of
her own. “The fire, maybe.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because there’s something about Vivian and that place,
something more than the fire you know so well. She
never
dropped by,
Luke. As far as I know, and I believe I do know, until tonight she hasn’t set
foot on the property since Mira moved in. Mira has wanted her to see the
clinic, but Vivian’s always had an excuse not to. And even when she didn’t have
an excuse, like this past Saturday, she waited in the car while Blaine came to the door. I can’t figure out why Vivian would feel so negative. Feel
negative
at all
. Hilltop residents definitely joined the throng that
came to gawk the night Jared tried to kill you. But it was the parents, not the
children. I would have remembered if Vivian was there. And the families who’ve lived
there since would have been families Vivian didn’t even know. It’s a mystery to
me why she would feel the way she does. But I honestly believe she hates the
place enough to want it destroyed.”

Until today, any emotion Vivian had about Luke’s boyhood
home—like any emotion she had about Luke himself—would have been a mystery to
Luke as well. But during her confession at the fire station, Vivian had identified
the address on Meadow View Drive as the place where she had driven Snow to tell
her lies.

The rambler that would one day belong to Mira was the
backdrop for the conversation that ensued, and it was what Vivian would have seen
in her rearview mirror as she left a pregnant Snow standing in the cold . . . a
pregnant Snow who would later lose the baby Vivian wanted her to lose.

I didn’t want her to miscarry, Vivian had said. You have to
believe me!

Had he believed her? Luke hadn’t given the question a moment’s
thought.

But what if he had told her he did believe her? And had forgiven
her as she pleaded with him to? Would that have prevented tonight’s fire? Because
the building that was the symbol of her cruelty to Snow no longer needed to be
destroyed?

Mira hadn’t been the intended victim of the blaze. Her home
had been.

But Mira
had not
been accidentally trapped inside.

She had been attacked . . . and left to die.

“What do you think, Luke?” Bea asked.

No part of Lucas Kilcannon liked Vivian Larken. Not the
tiniest cell.
But
. “The truth? Vivian said it herself. She would never
harm Mira.”

“But if she hired someone to set the fire and Mira caught him
in the act—you’re shaking your head.”

“Don’t ask me why I’m so sure of this, Bea. I don’t have an
answer. If Vivian wanted to burn down that house, she would have done it
herself. And, because she’s Vivian, she would have succeeded—after making
certain Mira was miles away.” And, he thought, after Mira’s patients, if there
had been any such innocent overnight guests, had been carried to safety. “Vivian’s
not responsible. But whoever is knows Mira. And hates her.”

When Blaine Prescott concluded his
on-air story of the death of his sister and mother with his own pledge to
dedicate himself to averting such tragedies in the lives of others, Snow
offered a reply on behalf of herself and her listeners.

“You have, Dr. Prescott. You
are.
”

In her bedroom in Atlanta, Ellen O’Neil had a different
response to what Blaine had said.

“Liar,” she whispered. “
Liar
.”

The memory was whole. The story complete. Hearing his lies,
in his voice, had lured it out of hiding.

She spent the next forty-five minutes creating a Word Perfect
document of what Blaine had told her on that long-ago night. The recovered
memory wasn’t going anywhere. Once remembered, it would never be forgotten.

The computer file wasn’t necessary—as long as she was alive.

She saved it, copied it, and printed it.

Then she dialed the number provided by Directory Assistance
for the Beacon Hill police station in Boston.

“I’d like to report a double homicide,” she informed the man
who answered.

“One moment, ma’am. I’ll put you through to
9
-
1
-
1
.”

“No. Wait. It happened thirty-two years ago.”

“Thirty-two years?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll find an officer to take your report. Will you stay on
the line?”

“Yes. I will.”

Ellen expected to tell the officer everything. But after
providing him with the date of the murders, the names of the victims, and the
identity of the killer, she was put on hold again.

“You need to talk to Lieutenant Cole,” the officer said when
he returned. “He’ll want to talk to you. He has a special interest in the case.”

“Fine. Put him on.”

“He’s not here. I’ll have to find him. Is there a number
where you can be reached?”

Ellen provided her number and a little advice. “If Lieutenant
Cole wants to talk to me, it had better be in the next two hours. I have an
early flight I don’t intend to miss.”