The Last to Know Page 8

  “We saw each other every couple of weeks or so.” She shifts her weight in the chair and it creaks beneath her.

  It’s old—a Chippendale.

  She remembers when Jane bought it—bought all the furniture for this room, in fact, on an antiquing trip to Vermont with Owen. She was so excited to show Margaret everything they purchased, spilling over with details about their trip. She went on and on about the shops, the inn where they stayed, and the restaurants where they ate. Then she confided that while they were away, they decided it was time to try and conceive a baby. “Maybe I’m pregnant now and don’t even know it!” Jane exclaimed.

  Even now, two years later, Margaret still can’t shake the vivid images those words brought to her mind. Jane and Owen, snuggled in a four-poster bed in some quaint New England Inn, making love. . . .

  “Ms. Armstrong?”

  “Yes?” She drags her attention back to the present.

  “Do you feel all right? You look pale. Upset.”

  “I’m fine.” She sips from the glass of water the detective insisted be placed on the table near her before they started talking. As though he expected her to have a difficult time with the interview.

  Determined to prove him wrong, she sets the glass back on the table and lifts her chin. “You can go on, Detective.”

  And he does. Asking question after question about Jane.

  Then, unexpectedly, when she decides he must be finished, he says, “How would you describe your sister’s relationship with her husband?”

  Startled, Margaret is silent for a moment. Then, searching for the right words, she tells the detective, “Their marriage was successful.”

  “Happy?”

  “Yes.” Yes, damn it. Yes, Owen was happy with Jane. He was in love with Jane.

  And Jane . . .

  You never gave yourself completely to him, did you? Margaret silently asks her sister, bitterness seeping in. You never loved him completely, the way he deserved to be loved. You always held some part of yourself back from him. I could see it. He had to see it, too.

  What had Jane done to deserve Owen? What had she done to deserve any of the blessings fate—and their parents—had bestowed upon her?

  As for Margaret . . .

  Where are her blessings?

  When will her turn come?

  Maybe sooner than she thinks.

  And maybe never.

  “Is there anything else you want to add, Ms. Armstrong?” the detective asks, zapping her back to the present again.

  “Just that this is very difficult for our family. I hope you’ll do all you can to find my sister,” Margaret says stiffly before fleeing from the room.

  Approaching the red-brick mansion for the second time that day, Paula sees that the crowd has swelled. There are news vans from all the networks, curious locals, police officers. It’s a circus, and she’s lost her prime spot at the fence, thanks to the infuriating Miss Bright and a quick detour to the local diner to gobble a bagel and see if the lunch crowd might yield anything or anyone interesting. Nothing but a bunch of regulars, mostly retirees and construction worker types speculating on what could have possibly happened to Jane Kendall.

  Paula pushes past a reporter doing a live update on camera and a group of teenagers who have been confronted for truancy by a police officer. She peers around several heads and sees that there’s no sign of life in the house beyond the iron fence.

  “Has the family made any kind of statement yet?” she asks a nearby reporter who’s scribbling furiously in a notebook.

  The woman shakes her head, not lifting her eyes from the page of notes. “There are rumors about a police press conference tonight. Not confirmed, though.”

  Tonight. According to Miss Bright, Mitchell will be bringing home another fractions worksheet to be done with Paula’s help. Tonight.

  Well, if there’s a press conference, she’ll have to drop him off at Blake’s house again. Blake’s mother can help him with the fractions.

  That isn’t exactly what Miss Bright had in mind.

  But what can I do? This is my job, she tells herself, staring at the opulent home across the sweeping expanse of pure green lawn. When she called the managing editor at the office earlier to check in, he offered to send another reporter to take over if she couldn’t handle it.

  “Why wouldn’t I be able to handle it?” she asked him shrilly.

  “I know you have your son to worry about, Paula, and your other stories. This is huge, and time-consuming, and—”

  “It’s mine, Tim,” she said firmly. “I was the first one to scoop it.” Just as she was the first to scoop the Gallagher fire last summer on North Street. Her article landed on the front page with a byline, at last giving her a taste of something beyond the social and civic beat they’d had her covering for far too long.

  “I’ve busted my butt here all day,” she told Tim. “Don’t worry. I’ll make my other deadlines. But I’m not giving up on this. You’re right. This is huge. And I’m on top of it.”

  He agreed, but she could hear the reluctance in his voice.

  Covering this disappearance might be the most important thing I will ever do in my life, she thinks, clenching her hands into fists at the memory of that conversation. It’s my chance to make a name for myself, maybe break out of this small-time reporting and get the recognition I deserve, maybe make enough money to hire a lawyer who can get Frank the hell off my back. . . .

  She stares at the house, again thinking of the woman she glimpsed getting out of a cab earlier this afternoon. Where has she seen her before? The answer flutters at the edge of her consciousness, just out of reach.

  “Paula!”

  She turns to see an elderly man in a cream-colored windbreaker, a matching fishing hat planted squarely on his gray head. It takes her a moment to recognize him as one of her father’s former local cronies, from the days when he was still going for coffee every morning down at the diner.

  “Hello, Mr. Mieske.” It’s all she can do to sound friendly. The old man is a busybody.

  “How’s your dad?”

  She studies his expression. His faded blue eyes are concerned—does that mean he knows? Or is he just wondering why Dad hasn’t been coming around these past few years?

  “He has his good days and his bad days,” she answers. If Mr. Mieske doesn’t know, she’s not in the mood to tell him.

  “Don’t we all.” He nods and gestures at the big house beyond the fence. “That’s really something, isn’t it?”

  “Jane Kendall’s disappearance?”

  He waves his hand at her. “She’s dead. No question about it. The only question is, did she kill herself, or did somebody kill her?”

  “What’s your guess?” She watches the old man’s face.

  “My guess is that somebody killed her. A woman like that, she has everything to live for. Why would she do herself in?”

  Paula nods slowly.

  Jane Kendall certainly had everything to live for.

  And what about you, Paula? she asks herself thoughtfully, forgetting all about Mr. Mieske. What do you have?

  She glances at her father’s old friend. He’s turned his attention toward a nearby network news reporter who’s interviewing a police officer.

  Your time is coming, Paula. You’ve always known that, haven’t you? You’ve always believed in yourself. You’ve been patient. You’ve paid your dues.

  Just wait. Just hang on, Paula. You’ll see. Someday everything will be going your way.

  “Hi, Stacey. Is Joel around?”

  “Oh, hi, Tasha.” There’s a pause.

  Tasha clutches the telephone receiver against her ear, picturing her husband’s secretary on the other end of the line.

  Stacey McCall is a pretty twenty-two-year-old brunette he hired right out of college last sprin
g. Tasha has met her only once, when she stopped by Joel’s office with the kids one afternoon in June on the way down to the Central Park Zoo. Stacey fell all over Joel’s “little angels,” as she kept calling them, and was polite enough to Tasha.

  Unwilling to allow herself to be one of those wives who feels threatened by her husband’s young, attractive secretary, Tasha did her best not to notice Stacey’s sun-kissed, unblemished skin, her thick, dark hair that was cut in a flattering layered look, or her willowy figure clad in a pale yellow Talbots summer suit without a blouse underneath, the jacket lapels cut so as not to reveal more than a hint of cleavage.

  Tasha, feeling considerably older than her thirty-five years, her shoulders perpetually wet from the baby’s drool, and everything in her wardrobe a throwback to seasons long past, told herself that even if Joel were ripe for an affair and did find Stacey attractive—okay, who wouldn’t?—Stacey would have nothing to gain by getting involved with her middle-aged, married boss.

  Joel has told Tasha that Stacey comes from a wealthy, Waspy Connecticut family; that she has moved into her parents’ Sutton Place pied-à-terre and has a wallet full of their credit cards; that her entry-level salary is essentially spending money. Although she assured him during the interview that her goal is to work her way up the totem pole and become an account executive with the agency, it has since become obvious that she’s merely killing time until her boyfriend gets his MBA from Harvard Business School and they get engaged.

  And yet Joel found it necessary to point out to Tasha that Stacey certainly isn’t stupid. In fact, he claims, she has a photographic memory. She knows his schedule, day in and day out, without having to glance at his calendar more than once.

  “Actually, Tasha,” Stacey says, after clearing her throat, “he’s in a meeting with a client and he asked not to be disturbed.”

  Tasha feels a surge of anger—perhaps irrational anger, aimed not just at Joel but at this perfect young woman planted squarely in the path of access to her husband.

  “When do you expect him out of the meeting?” Tasha asks, trying not to allow a chill to creep into her voice.

  Max whimpers suddenly in his Exersaucer nearby. Tasha glances sharply at Victoria, who is clutching a wooden block and looking guilty.

  “It’s hard to tell when the meeting will be over with. Can I have him call you back? I wrote down your other messages for him, and I know he picked them up when he broke for lunch a while ago.”

  Tasha’s grip tightens on the receiver. She forgets to wonder whether Victoria has clocked Max with a block. “My other messages?”

  “The ones you left on his voice mail,” Stacey explains. “He has me check it for him lately, because he’s been so busy. That way I can let him know if anyone important has called.”

  Apparently, his wife doesn’t qualify as anybody important, Tasha thinks, knowing that if she allows herself to voice that realization to Stacey, she won’t stop there. She’s not exactly thrilled to learn that her husband allows his secretary to screen his voice mail. Her messages aren’t intended for anybody’s ears but Joel’s. But she has no intention of embarrassing herself—or Joel—by launching into a tirade.

  She glances at the clock on the microwave, then at Victoria, who is now moodily stacking blocks within reach of Max’s flailing arms.

  “Tell my husband when he gets out of his meeting to please call home,” Tasha says succinctly.

  “Is it an emergency, Tasha? Because I can—”

  “Just have him call. I have to go pick up my son from school now, but I’ll be right home afterward.”

  She hangs up, grabs the kids’ jackets from the hooks by the back door, and walks toward them just in time to see Max’s chubby fist topple Victoria’s block tower.

  “Look what you did!” Victoria shrieks, and turns on him swiftly. She slams a wooden block into his forehead.

  Max erupts into a wail.

  “Victoria!” Tasha yells, and, before she knows it, her hand has lashed out at her daughter, smacking her in the arm.

  Now Victoria is crying as loudly as Max is.

  Tasha pulls the baby from his Exersaucer and cradles him in her arms, kissing the splotch on his forehead that is already bright red.

  “You hit me!” Victoria screams, her accusing blue eyes filled with tears. “You hit me!”

  “I’m sorry, Victoria,” Tasha says, her head throbbing. She rubs her temples with one hand, patting Max’s back with the other. “I didn’t mean to hit you. But I was angry—”

  “You hit me!”

  “You hit your brother!” Tasha shoots back, her patience completely dissolving. “He’s just a baby. You hurt him!”

  “You hurt me!”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Tasha says again.

  And she didn’t mean to. She and Joel had agreed, when Hunter was born, that they would never hit their children in anger, though both of them had been spanked by their own parents. But that generation simply hadn’t known any better. They hadn’t read countless reports about children and violence and abuse. . . .

  Never, until now, has Tasha ever come close to hitting one of her children.

  Now her little girl is gazing at her with an expression of stark betrayal, and all she can think is that she needs to get away. She needs help; she needs a break; she needs to get out of this house and away from these children before she snaps.

  But there is no escape.

  This is her responsibility, her life.

  There is nobody she can ask for help.

  She certainly can’t turn to Joel’s parents. Her own widowed mother is five hundred miles away and working full time as a nurse. Her friends are busy with families of their own; she’s long been out of touch with her former colleagues.

  As for her husband, well, she might as well be a single mother for all the emotional support he provides these days.

  Tasha takes a deep breath, counts to ten, and makes room in her arms for Victoria.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” she says as she strokes her daughter’s hair. “Mommy will never hit you again. I don’t know what got into me.”

  Chapter 4

  Mitch’s sneakered feet plod along the walk as he leaves the red brick school and heads toward the row of yellow buses parked at the curb.

  His hands are jammed into the pockets of his worn jeans and his eyes are fastened on a worn spot in the toe of one of his sneakers. It figures these crummy shoes would wear out so fast. He’s tried explaining to his mother that he needs good ones, like the kind with the soles you inflate with a built-in pump, but she says they’re way too expensive.

  She also said, “Don’t you dare ask your father to buy you sneakers.” Which was strange, because Mitch knew his father would be happy to buy them for him. Plus, he thought, back when Mom first told him he was going to meet his dad, that she wanted his dad to help them buy stuff they couldn’t afford. But then that changed last spring for some reason, and lately his mother has been asking him not to go telling his dad that there’s specific stuff he needs or wants that she can’t afford—like the pump sneakers.

  Instead she bought him these generic white shoes with some stupid bright blue stitching that he hates. All the other kids make fun of these shoes—especially Robbie Sussman. Which is why one of Mitch’s cheap, ugly shoes found its way in front of one of Robbie’s top-of-the-line Nikes as he was running the relay in gym class this morning.

  Seeing the look of shock on Robbie’s big, dumb oval face as he went flying forward was almost worth having to stay after class.

  Almost.

  Mitch’s gut is killing him now from doing two hundred sit-ups for Mr. Atkins, the gym teacher.

  “Why’d you trip Sussman, Bailey?” Mr. Atkins asked.

  Then, when Mitch fumbled for answers, Mr. Atkins said the ones he gave—“I don’t know,” and “ ’cause I felt like
it”—weren’t good enough. He wanted a real reason before he would let Mitch go.

  Finally, Mitch told Mr. Atkins the truth—well, part of it.

  “I did it because he deserves it.”

  “Why does he deserve it?”

  Because he has everything. Everything. And I have nothing. And he doesn’t let me forget it. That’s why.

  But Mitch didn’t say that. He would never say anything like that to a teacher—not that most teachers seem to give a you-know-what about anything Mitch has to say.

  Mr. Atkins is okay, but Mrs. Chandler, who teaches art and music, hates him. So do the lunchroom monitors, but then, they’re these grouchy old ladies who pretty much seem to hate everybody.

  Then there’s Miss Bright. Half the time she acts like she’s mad at him, the other half like she feels sorry for him. Mitch doesn’t know which is worse.

  In his bookbag are a note she wrote to his mother—it’s in a sealed envelope—and a fractions worksheet. He tucked that into the front zippered pocket beside the duplicate worksheet he brought home a few nights ago—the worksheet he was supposed to work on with Mom.

  But as usual she didn’t get home till after he fell asleep on the couch watching a World Wrestling Federation match, and when she woke him up and sent him to bed, he went. No way was he going to tell her about some dumb worksheet then.

  Miss Bright gave him an F because it wasn’t done.

  Big deal. Big deal if he fails some stuff. Big deal if he flunks out of school. Then he can just stay home and play Super Nintendo instead.

  Hey, maybe if he’s not stuck going to Townsend Heights Elementary every day, his mother will let him spend more time out at his father’s place.

  Yeah, right.

  And maybe Mom will be waiting for me at home today with fresh-baked cookies.

  His mother hates his father more than . . .

  Well, he can’t even think of anything to compare it to. He just knows that anytime his father shows up to get Mitch—or even if Mitch just mentions his father’s name—she gets this awful look on her face. Her mouth looks all sucked in and her eyes turn into little slits, and she either says something nasty about Dad or she changes the subject.