The Widower's Wife: A Thriller (32 page)

Sopko said the boy didn’t cry when informed of his parents’ deaths. He’d blinked. Nodded. Said he understood “he would be taken care of.”

The investigator had speculated that Tom was in shock. He’d also written that the volume of the game indicated that Tom had, in fact, heard his parents arguing and retreated to his room to avoid becoming involved. Tom’s maternal aunt had said that Garrick often hit both his wife and his son. Margrit had been
planning to leave and live with her sister, potentially for good. They’d been due to arrive that morning.

Sopko ended his commentary with a note of concern for Tom. When he’d been found in his room, he’d had bloody scratches on his neck and forearms. Though Tom had explained the marks as the result of wrestling with neighborhood kids, there’d been skin under his mother’s nails.

“Although the boy’s aunt is adamant that her sister was a saint,” Sopko wrote, “it seems clear that the boy suffered at his mother’s hands as well, which could complicate attachment issues with his new guardian and policy custodian.”

Why would a mother scratch her son on the neck? Attempted strangulation? Or to stop him from banging her head against a wall after she threatened to leave his father and blow up his violent but financially comfortable existence?

It was just a hunch. Ryan would never be able to prove Tom had been involved in his parents’ deaths. But the theory felt good in his gut. It sat right with the statistics that showed men who killed their wives before committing suicide often took out their kids as well. It fit with the murderer Tom had become.

Ryan thought of Eve. She was young. Jealous. And she couldn’t know whom she was dealing with.

He needed to get her to turn on Tom, before Tom turned on her.

40

August 30

S
treetlamps pierced the grime covering the bus windows as we idled in turnpike traffic. The passengers sat up and shifted in their chairs, antsy to stand now that we were in our destination state. My rowmate’s cell flashed fifteen minutes till midnight. Almost home . . . though it would never be home again.

I’d made it out of the cruise terminal without incident. A drug-sniffing dog hadn’t checked my luggage. No officer had unzipped my bags. I’d just walked straight outside and met a Lincoln Town Car driver in the promised Return Trips cap who had collected our group, inspected our bags, and then dropped us at the bus station. Before the man drove away, he’d handed us each an envelope with names of houses in Newark that rented rooms and instructions on how to report for work on Monday.

Fatigue weighed on my body. All told, I’d been on the bus for nearly twenty-three and a half hours, awake for almost all of it. Somewhere between Florida and North Carolina, I’d managed to drift off for a while, only to wake, gasping, as our hulking driver stood over me to say that I had to get off if I wanted a chance to grab anything off of McDonald’s Dollar Menu. In my half-asleep state, I’d mistaken him for Tom.

After two more hours of watching the bus roll past I-95’s repetitive greenery, we pulled up in front of a busy terminal: Newark Penn Station. Passengers, tired and creaky from the bad
night’s sleep, stood from stained fabric seats and shuffled outside. A trapped wave of BO released as I rose. The skin around my thighs burned from too many hours marinating in ocean salt and sweat. I’d never needed a shower so badly.

I held my envelope tight to my chest and then patted my breast to ensure that my money was still tucked into my bra. My fingers brushed the plastic bag’s edge. I folded in the corners of the Ziploc as I followed the crowd out into the night.

The exterior of the Newark transportation hub resembled an industrial version of Grand Central, minus the storefronts. Fortunately, like its more famous counterpart, it, too, had a line of waiting taxis. I was soon seated behind a driver who quoted me fifty dollars to travel the twenty-one miles to my home. I accepted the price. My suburb didn’t have a train station. After paying him, I would have just over a hundred left, enough for one of the rental places where Sophia and I could camp. But not enough cash for food and everything else.

My wallet was at home, tucked into my underwear drawer in my closet. I’d need to include it in the bag that I would pack. The daily limit on my debit card was five hundred dollars. With luck, I’d be able to make two withdrawals before Tom drained the account.

As the taxi traveled up I-95, I planned how to get Sophia out of the house. I was sure only Eve would be inside. Tom had scheduled our return flights for late Monday, aware that the cruise would be delayed by search-and-recovery efforts and that he would be detained to answer questions. With luck, she’d be sleeping and wouldn’t have heard about my so-called accident. I didn’t want to explain anything to her or for her to be able to tell Tom that I’d made it back.

I needed to slip my daughter out of the house and get someplace safe. Someplace where Tom couldn’t find me. Once I had my child and some rest, I could think about what to tell police and how to get the coyotes off my back. But not until then. Too much had happened. I hadn’t been able to sufficiently process my husband’s attempt on my life and the smugglers’ threats. I was
running on adrenaline, reacting more than anticipating. Tom was a planner.

I asked the driver to drop me off at the corner so that his cab’s lights wouldn’t pass in front of the house. I knew that the precaution might prove pointless. The house was designed to wake occupants when someone entered. Before I stepped foot in the mudroom, I had to open the garage door, a noisy affair that rattled the floorboards in my room. I also needed to open the interior door to the garage, which would, at best, send a small alert to the alarm system that it was ajar and, at worst, start the ringing countdown to calling the cops.

I hurried to the house and keyed in the garage door code, ducking beneath the door before it retracted more than a few feet. I sent it back down as soon as I stepped inside. I found myself praying as my hand hit the mudroom door. We always left it unlocked, since the garage door was never left open, but Eve might be extra cautious in an unfamiliar house. The knob turned. A bell dinged once as I stepped inside. Eve hadn’t armed the system. Maybe she’d worried that she would forget the code and end up having to explain her presence to the police.

I shut the door and crept up the back stairs. My room was dark, but the door was open. I slipped inside, half expecting to see Eve and Sophia asleep in my bed. My daughter would go to my room if she’d had trouble sleeping, and it was all too easy to pass out when lying beside a kid in the dark for twenty minutes.

The bed was made, just as I’d left it. I slipped into my closet and grabbed a large bag from overhead. I shoved in underwear, leggings, T-shirts, socks—whatever I could grab quickly. A pair of bulky, bleach-stained maternity sweatpants that I still wore to scrub the house went inside too. Cleaning would be my job soon. Most importantly, I grabbed my wallet and cell phone. Both went into the bag’s front pocket.

I cradled the tote as I walked swiftly past Eve’s guest room to Sophia. Stars greeted me as I entered my daughter’s room. Sophia’s sky nightlight projected thousands of pinpoints onto the ceiling. She hadn’t used it in a while. Her form huddled beneath the
covers, despite the heat in the house. For the first time, she wasn’t sprawled on her back.

Longing consumed me. I wanted to gather my child into my arms and rock her back and forth as though she were a newborn. I wanted to hold her to my chest and run. But she would need clothes. Once she woke, I’d have a difficult time keeping her quiet and going through her closet.

I grabbed several dresses and stuffed them in the bag along with underwear and socks from her drawers. All packed, I approached my sleeping child. I pulled the covers to her waist and whispered in her ear. “Soph, it’s Mommy. I need you to wake up.”

She murmured, still in a deep sleep. I lifted her head and shoulders into my arm, prepared to carry her out if she didn’t stir. “Baby, it’s Mommy. I’m going to take you to the car now, okay?”

Sophia brought her hands to her eyes and rubbed. “Mommy?”

The sound of her voice threatened to shatter the adrenaline wall that had kept me alive for the past forty-eight hours. “Yes, baby. It’s me.” I kept my voice low. “We have to go the car, okay? And we have to be quiet so we don’t wake Auntie Eve.”

She wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her head in my bosom. I breathed in her scent. A sob escaped me. I couldn’t cry here. We had to get out.

I swung the bag to my back and scooped her into my arms. All the weight made my footsteps thud as I navigated down the main staircase. I carried Sophia across the foyer, through the dining room and butler’s pantry.

“Okay, Sophia,” I whispered, setting her down on the mudroom’s tile floor. “Get your shoes.”

She hunted for her sneakers while I grabbed the car keys from a tin atop a built-in bench. I reached my hand out to her. “All right, let’s go.”

“I can’t find them.”

I scanned for her shoes, any shoes. Nothing lay on the floor. Maybe in the closet?

Footsteps ran down the back stair. I reached for Sophia’s hand, trying to pull my daughter toward me. I grasped air.

“Hey,” a voice yelled. “Who’s there?”

Eve stood on the bottom step, looking half frightened, half ready to fight. She wore a pajama shirt topped by a large cardigan, weighed down by bulky pockets. Her blond hair frizzed on top. Her eyelids were puffy beneath her highly arched brows.

“Hey, Eve. It’s Ana. Sorry for waking you.”

“Ana?” Her eyes were bloodshot. “You’re here?” She walked into the mudroom and stood, her body between us and the exit. “Oh my God.” She shook her head, horrified. “There have been stories on the news saying you fell overboard. I thought the worst. I tried calling Tom, but he doesn’t get service, and the cruise line wouldn’t say anything.”

“Yeah. It’s a misunderstanding.” I faked a large yawn as I stepped toward my daughter and gripped her hand. “Feel free to go back to bed or to take off. You must want to get back to Queens.”

“Wait, where are you going?”

I had no idea. I kept my voice light, as though I planned on coming right back. “Just out to the car.”

She kneeled down to Sophia’s level. “Oh. Okay, then. Well, I guess I’ll pack up. I’ll miss you.” She adopted the high-pitched, syrupy tone of teenage babysitters. She opened her arms wide. “Can I get a hug?”

The good-bye was so normal that Sophia opened her arms. Eve enveloped her little body and ripped her from my grasp before I could react. With one hand, she reached into her pocket. Something long and black emerged. It pressed against the back of Sophia’s head.

“I just can’t let you go, Soph,” Eve said.

I froze, afraid that any movement on my part could startle her into pulling the trigger. My mind raced, struggling to understand why my daughter’s babysitter was holding a gun to her head. Where would she have gotten a gun? Why would Tom’s cousin care if I took my daughter? She didn’t know Tom had tried to kill—

Of course she did! Tom had never introduced me to his cousin before because he had never had one. He’d had a girlfriend—one he’d planned to murder me for.

Eve pressed Sophia against her chest and picked her up. She still held the gun at my daughter’s head. Sophia tried to wrest free.

“Mommy?”

“Sophia, it’s okay. Just stay still for a minute.” I tried to rid the desperation from my voice. “Mommy’s right here.”

My girl continued to struggle. Eve pushed the back of her head with the gun barrel. “Listen to your mother.”

“Sophia, don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. Just stay still.” I pleaded with Eve. “You don’t want my daughter. Just let us leave.”

“I don’t want her?” Eve scoffed. “She’s a multimillion-dollar baby. Without Sophia, there’s no money.” She placed a big smacking kiss on the side of Sophia’s head. “This little gold mine is the center of our new happy family.”

“Listen to me, Eve. You don’t need Sophia. If you let me take her, I’ll just disappear and the policy will pay.”

“Wow.” She laughed again. A harsh, false giggle. “You really are as stupid as Tom says. You think the insurance company won’t check to make sure he has custody of the beneficiary? Or is it that you think I don’t know that your first move will be to take her to Brazil so your parents can get the money?”

She continued talking. I didn’t hear the words. I only saw her footsteps, backtracking toward the stairs with my daughter trapped against her chest and the steel pressed against my baby’s temple. Every muscle in my body ached to leap on top of Eve and rip her hands from my child. But she had the power. One shot and my little girl was gone. I needed to get the gun off Sophia and onto me.

“There won’t be any money if you don’t give her to me. I’ll reveal my existence to police. And if you fire that—” My voice broke. I couldn’t name the weapon. My daughter was sleepy. She’d never seen a gun. There was still a chance she didn’t know
what was pointed at her head. “If you do it, you’ll alert the whole neighborhood. Cops will be here in minutes. You’ll end up in jail. But if you let me take her—”

“You’re not taking her!” Eve screamed. “God, you’re like a roach. Why couldn’t you just drown?”

“Why don’t you shoot me, then?” I said, keeping my tone level so as to not startle her. One shot might kill me, but the police would come. They’d take Sophia away. The police would have to figure out that Tom had plotted with his girlfriend to kill me. They’d take my daughter to my parents. “Come on, take a shot at me.”

“Shut up. Shut up.” The gun trembled in Eve’s hand, but it didn’t waver from Sophia’s temple. She sat on the stair, pulling my daughter down with her. Sophia whimpered and again tried to turn around. Eve turned her to face me and then pulled Sophia back to her chest, blocking my daughter from running with the weight of her arm and the metal at her temple.

I forced a smile. “Everything is going to be okay, baby. Okay? It will be fine.”

“That’s right,” Eve said, her voice assuming that cloying, condescending tone that she reserved for talking to my daughter. “Auntie Eve is just telling Mommy how things are going to go. Mommy is going to leave, and in return, I promise to keep you safe. And Mommy believes me because she knows you have a lot of money coming to you and we need you here to collect it. Okay?” Eve jostled the gun against my daughter’s head. “Okay?”