Fade to Black Page 15

  She shakes her head, trembling.

  “He ran away. And it’s all your fault.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Elizabeth says, trying desperately to keep her tone level, reasonable.

  Trying to convince herself that this isn’t her mother. It can’t be. This woman is too young, too short....

  But who is she, then?

  And what is she talking about?

  Elizabeth glances frantically around the deserted clearing.

  If only someone would come along …

  But no one is going to show up at the playground now, when it’s about to rain.

  “I said, don’t play dumb with me. I know who you are. I know what you’re up to.”

  I know who you are.

  What does she mean by that?

  Elizabeth focuses on the woman’s face, searching her ravaged features, finding blatant animosity.

  “You listen to me,” she says, tightening her hold on Elizabeth’s aching arm. There is surprising strength in her bony hand. “You stay away from my son. Do you hear me?”

  “Your … your son?”

  “He’s mine. Leave him alone. If you don’t, you’ll be sorry. I mean it, bitch. You’ll be sorry.”

  Slowly, the truth dawns on Elizabeth.

  “Are you talking about Manny?” she asks the hostile stranger, and the glint in the woman’s eye answers her question before she speaks.

  “What the hell is the matter with you? Of course I’m talking about Manny. You stay away from my kid! You can’t take him away from me, you got that?”

  She nods, and, taking a chance, jerks her shoulder in an abrupt, twisting motion. To her surprise, the woman releases her grasp on Elizabeth, who impulsively, in that instant, decides against running away.

  “I didn’t hear you say anything,” the woman says. “You understand what I’m saying?”

  “I understand,” Elizabeth says, rubbing her throbbing arm. “But I’m not trying to take him away from you. I’m just his friend. That’s all.”

  “Don’t you stand there and lie to me. You can’t fool me.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Shut up!” The bony hand reaches out again, this time cracking Elizabeth across the cheek.

  “Remember what I said. If you don’t leave him alone, you’ll be sorry, and he’ll be sorry,” the woman snarls, then turns and starts to run, disappearing into the woods at the edge of the path.

  Manny steps over a gaping hole on the front steps on his way to the door. His earlier attempt to fix them had been futile. He simply had no idea how to go about it.

  “Manny? Is that you?”

  So they’re home.

  He had been hoping they would still be at the doctor’s office so he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. He needs to be alone, to calm himself down after what happened at the playground.

  “Hi, Grammy.” He pokes his head into the kitchen.

  His grandmother is standing at the stove. She’s wearing a plaid sleeveless housedress that reveals her flabby white arms and her vein-covered legs clad in knee-highs and those shoes with the broken soles. She’s poking a spatula at something in her battered old cast-iron pan. More weeds, probably.

  “Do you want some cardoon?” she asks, confirming his suspicions.

  “No,” he says, though he’s so hungry, his stomach has been grumbling. He’s always hungry. Always.

  He had been hoping to see Elizabeth in the park, hoping she would take him out for an ice cream cone the way she often does, urging him to get the triple scoop, asking if he wants anything else afterward. Sometimes, if she presses him enough, he’ll order a strawberry-banana milk shake to go, even when he’s so full, he’s bursting.

  A milk shake, after all, can be stashed in his grandparents’ old frost-layered freezer to be finished later, or even the next day.

  Today he hadn’t had the chance to see Elizabeth.

  When he’d arrived at the playground, she had been there.

  His mother.

  Sitting in one of the swings, like she had been waiting for him to show up.

  He turned and ran when he saw her, ignoring her hollers to stop, to come back here, you little shit.

  He shudders at the memory of her shrill voice.

  He had been certain she would chase after him, but she hadn’t.

  Now he wonders why.

  She had said she was going to get him, to take him away with her.

  Well, maybe she’s changed her mind.

  Or maybe she’s not ready yet.

  Maybe she’s waiting …

  Waiting for what?

  Has she asked his grandparents for their permission to take him?

  Are they thinking it over?

  Manny glances at his grandmother, who has her back to him as she fries the greens at the stove.

  “Grammy?” he asks tentatively.

  “What?” She reaches for the plastic salt shaker she keeps on the ledge above the stove, shaking it over the pan.

  He watches as she takes a fork, spears a wilted, oil-slicked green stem, and pops it into her mouth.

  She chews, swallows, and reaches for the salt again, then turns toward him and asks impatiently, “What is it, Manny? What do you want?”

  I want to know if you care enough about me to keep me even though you and Grampa can’t afford me.

  I want to know if you’ll make sure my mother doesn’t come and take me away with her.

  I want to know if she’s asked you if she can take me, and if you told her “no way.”

  I want to know …

  Do you love me?

  “What do you want?” his grandmother repeats.

  “Nothing,” Manny says, and leaves the room.

  Chapter

  7

  “… another hot, sunny day with temperatures climbing into the mid-nineties. Yesterday’s potential for rain may have passed us by, but the long-range forecast shows that there may be a chance of thunderstorms closer to the weekend.”

  Elizabeth turns off the clock radio and sits up in bed, rubbing her eyes.

  It’s seven-thirty on the nose.

  She had set the alarm in the middle of the night, after tossing and turning for hours. She figured that if she did manage to drift off to sleep, she might not wake up in time to catch Manny on his way to day camp.

  She really needs to talk to the child.

  She gets out of bed and goes into the bathroom, stretching before reaching for her toothbrush.

  She sees in the mirror that her eyes, not surprisingly, are underscored by dark trenches.

  Well, at least she slept a few hours.

  And she must have been so exhausted that she didn’t even dream, for a change. No nightmares about being back in L.A., no sinister letters or threatening phone calls, no bullets flying or flower arrangements exploding.

  Yesterday’s confrontation with Manny’s mother had left her feeling unsettled....

  Yet, on some level, almost …

  Relieved?

  The woman has obviously been watching her; most likely, she was the one who broke into Elizabeth’s house.

  It could mean that she’s safe, after all …

  Safe, that is, from the stalker who had terrorized her in Los Angeles.

  Safe.

  And still anonymous.

  Manny’s mother doesn’t seem to know that the object of her jealousy is the supposedly dead Mallory Eden.

  Nor, Elizabeth suspects, would that knowledge make a difference.

  The woman is apparently furious with her because she thinks Elizabeth is trying to “steal” her son.

  Elizabeth squeezes a glob of toothpaste onto her brush.

  This isn’t something that she intends to take lightly.

  Yet she can’t help feeling as though a good portion of her recent troubles have been alleviated.

  Manny’s mother, she can deal with.

  She has no idea how, but she’s certain the situation is manage
able.

  It certainly isn’t life-threatening, even if the woman is a crack addict.

  Regardless of her threats, Elizabeth knows she isn’t in the kind of danger she would be in if the shadowy stranger who had driven her into hiding had suddenly resurfaced here in New England, aware of her true identity and intending to make her life miserable once again—before ending it.

  So the stalker is no longer an issue.

  Although …

  There is the card.

  The card she received in her post office box last week, the one with the Windmere Cove postmark.

  The one that reads, “I know who you are.”

  Could Manny’s mother have sent it?

  Why?

  It doesn’t make sense for her to have done it....

  Although, the woman is a drug addict, and drug addicts can be delusional. Drug addicts do a lot of things that don’t seem to make sense, don’t they?

  But why, assuming that she doesn’t know who Elizabeth really is, would she have sent that particular card? What significance would that message have for someone who isn’t trying to escape her past?

  It could simply be a threat, meaning that she knows that Elizabeth has been spending time with her son.

  It could simply mean that she’s been watching her, following her—which, apparently, she has.

  So Manny’s mother could have sent the card, and the message could have nothing to do with Elizabeth’s past as Mallory Eden.

  But what if Manny’s mother isn’t responsible?

  What if her menacing involvement in Elizabeth’s life is simply a coincidence?

  What if someone else really did send it?

  Who?

  Elizabeth had lain awake for hours the previous night, trying to come up with a likely scenario, one that would make the message—I know who you are—seem innocuous rather than ominous.

  She had done her best to convince herself that the card was some sort of marketing gimmick, just junk mail.

  That the same unsigned card was sent out to hundreds of thousands of people in the area.

  But …

  What does it mean?

  There was no enclosure advertising a product, no return address, no follow-up.

  Unless …

  She never had checked her post office box yesterday.

  Maybe her post office box holds the key to the mystery. Maybe the card was some sort of teaser, like a newspaper ad that reads Watch this space.

  Maybe whoever had sent it—a local printing company, perhaps, since it was a greeting card?—had mailed her another card since, containing information that would explain the product they were selling.

  Maybe—if the card was a fluke and Manny’s mother is behind the break-in and the stalker hasn’t found her after all—then, maybe Elizabeth will be able to have some semblance of a normal life.

  Until now, she had assumed her existence in hiding would mean spending every day alone, barricaded inside her house, or looking over her shoulder every time she’s forced to leave.

  That’s how it’s been for five years.

  No friends, no fun, no career, no …

  Romance.

  But now there’s Harper Smith.

  And for the first time, Elizabeth dares to allow herself to hope … No, hope is too strong.

  To fantasize …

  About …

  Companionship.

  About someone to talk to, someone to care about, someone to touch, to kiss, to love …

  But you know that can’t happen.

  Don’t get your hopes up.

  Nothing has changed since last week, before you got the card. The reality is, You’re still in hiding. You always will be. You have to be careful, and being careful means keeping a low profile. It means trusting no one.

  Or does it?

  Maybe she had been wrong when she decided how she would have to live her life as Elizabeth Baxter.

  There had been no question but that she would have to erase her past as Cindy O’Neal, and Mallory Eden....

  And the past of the real Elizabeth Baxter.

  But maybe enough time has gone by.

  Maybe, if she dares to venture slowly out of her sheltered, lonely world, she’ll be okay.

  Some things won’t change.

  She’ll never get her career back.

  She’ll never, God help her, realize her fondest childhood dream and become a perfect mommy.

  She’ll never forget the horrors she has experienced, or what happened to Gent, and to Gretchen, and she’ll never see her old friends again.

  But maybe the stalker has forgotten all about Mallory Eden, and maybe no one in town will recognize her if she dares to remove her sunglasses and stop scurrying around with her head down, and maybe …

  You should have checked the post office box yesterday, Elizabeth scolds herself again, spitting toothpaste into the sink and rinsing her brush. If you had, you might already know what that card was all about. That it wasn’t meant as a threat. And that no one knows your true identity, or that Mallory Eden is still alive....

  After the run-in with Manny’s mother in the park, she had come straight home, so jittery about what had happened that she had almost considered going to the police.

  Or maybe just to Frank Minelli.

  Considering her state of mind yesterday, if he had been outside working in his yard the way he sometimes is, she might actually have gone over to talk to him.

  She might have explained that she had been threatened by the mother of a local child she had befriended, and she might have asked if Frank could look into it for her.

  Just to make sure that the woman wasn’t going to harm Manny …

  Or Elizabeth.

  But Frank hadn’t been outside, and by the time she saw him pull into his driveway a few hours later, she had decided against talking to him, or reporting the incident to the police.

  The only person she will tell, just as soon as she can find him, is Manny.

  She reaches over, turns on the water in the tub, and slips off her nightgown.

  Pamela stands with her hands on her hips, staring at the stack of magazines she just discovered, tucked way at the back of a shelf in the basement.

  Upstairs, Hannah is chattering and banging her spoon in her high chair, and Jason, perched in his bouncy seat on the kitchen table, occasionally adds a high-pitched, happy gurgle.

  Pamela knows she should get back up there; she can’t leave them alone longer than a minute or two.

  But she can’t seem to make herself do anything but stare at her husband’s cache of reading material.

  It’s not as though she had been snooping, looking for incriminating evidence against Frank.

  She had gone down there looking for Hannah’s old bottles, which she had packed away about a year ago.

  Last night she made the decision that it’s time to wean Jason so that she can stop breastfeeding and start seriously concentrating on getting back into shape.

  She discovered that the bottles weren’t where she’d thought she’d put them, on the shelves inside a cupboard at the foot of the stairs.

  What is there is this stack of magazines …

  Pornographic magazines.

  Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, and several others with raunchy titles she has never heard of.

  According to the dates on the spines, they’re all fairly current. The issues on top of the pile are for next month, September. He must have just bought them.

  Up in the kitchen, Jason is starting to fuss.

  Hannah yells, “Mommy? Mommy, where are you?”

  Pamela calls, “I’ll be right up.”

  She narrows her eyes at the thought of Frank spending what little extra money they have on this filth. Money they could be using to put into the bank for the kids’ educations.

  Isn’t he the one who’s always harping on her to watch the budget? Not to spend so much on groceries, on the kids’ clothes, on things for the house …

  Whe
n was the last time she ever bought anything for herself? Anything—makeup, an outfit, a new summer purse to replace the one with the broken strap, the one Frank stapled together and pronounced “good as new, you can get a few more years out of it, easy.”

  Damn you, Frank.

  I’ve been putting in all these hours, even though I’m already exhausted on clipping grocery coupons from the Sunday paper and sewing curtains for the nursery because it’s cheaper than buying them.

  Meanwhile you’ve been throwing away hundreds of dollars on these disgusting magazines.

  She picks up the one at the top of the pile. It promptly falls open to a dog-eared page featuring a spread-eagle, naked blonde with the most enormous breasts Pamela has ever seen.

  “Damn you, Frank,” she mutters aloud, flipping through it and noticing that the corners of certain pages are folded down, and that those pages invariably picture beautiful blondes in impossibly provocative positions.

  Up in the kitchen, she can hear Jason starting to wail, and Hannah is banging on her high chair tray, angrily shouting, “Mommy! Mommy!”

  Pamela flings the magazine back into the cupboard, closes the door, and starts stomping up the stairs.

  By the time she reaches the top, she knows she can’t do what she wants to do.

  That is, she can’t storm into the living room, wake her husband—who spent the night on the couch, as usual—and demand to know what’s going on.

  Whether he’s having an affair.

  A stack of porn magazines in the basement doesn’t mean anything, she reminds herself.

  He always liked that sort of thing, she remembers. A few times, when they had stayed in hotels, he had insisted on renting X-rated movies from Spectravision. Though she had feebly protested, she had found them titillating herself. The sex she and Frank shared during and after those movies was incredibly hot.

  What she wouldn’t give to have him make love to her that passionately again …

  Even though back then, in those hotel rooms, she had often wondered—as her husband panted above her, pounding into her, his eyes screwed tightly closed in concentration—whether he was imagining that she was someone else, one of those buxom porn actresses.

  Now she wouldn’t care what he was imagining, just as long as he still wanted to make love to her.

  Which he doesn’t.

  But the stack of dirty magazines in the basement aren’t evidence that he’s cheating on her.