As she pulled into the driveway, she saw the shield painted on the door of the parked car.
Not Steve, and not someone from the vigil.
The police.
With barely enough patience to put the car in park and turn off the lights and ignition, Kara opened the door and met the policeman on the walk. “What is it?” she demanded. “Have you found her?” By now Patrick was at her side, taking her elbow as the policeman walked them up to the door.
“Let’s go inside,” the officer said in a tone that instantly told Kara that whatever he had to say, it wasn’t going to be what she wanted to hear.
“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me what’s happened.”
Once inside, the policeman nodded them to the sofa, then pulled over a dining room chair and sat facing them. “This isn’t about your daughter, Mrs. Marshall,” he said. “This is about your husband.”
Kara’s heart skipped a beat. “Steve? What about him?” She felt Patrick’s hand on her forearm, and unconsciously covered it with her own. “What’s going on?”
“There was an accident,” the policeman said. “On the Sunken Meadow Parkway.” Kara felt a terrible chill fall over her as she realized what the officer was going to say next, and when he spoke the words, it sounded like an echo of her own thought. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Marshall. A one-car accident. Your husband was killed instantly. He didn’t suffer.”
She sat numbly for a minute — or ten? — or an hour, or only an instant? — then turned to Patrick. “I can actually feel the blood draining from my face,” she said, her voice sounding as surreal to her as the words themselves. “Did that happen to you, too?” But before Patrick could reply — even before the terrible reality of what had happened could close completely in on her — Kara sank into the blessed oblivion of unconsciousness.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Kara rose slowly through the levels of consciousness, feeling first dizzy, then nauseated, then reluctant. When she finally let herself wake up, she knew she had some terrible, unfinished business — something too terrible even to remember yet — that she would have to take care of.
But something was holding her back, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
Then she knew.
The scent of Sleepytime tea.
Her favorite.
Slowly, awareness came to her.
She was on the sofa, covered with the quilt her mother had made. Had she and Steve fallen asleep watching television?
No.
Then it all began coming back.
Lindsay — the vigil — Patrick Shields — and Steve…
Steve, and the policeman.
Steve.
An ache came alive in her belly, an ache that threatened to devour her.
Steve.
Steve and Lindsay both.
Kara took a long, deep, slow breath and tried to clear away the emotions that felt as if they were on the verge of destroying her mind entirely.
And then she heard it.
Lindsay’s voice, as clear as if her daughter was in the same room.
Kara’s eyes jerked open. She expected to see Lindsay standing in front of her, but there were just the remains of the reception.
Lamps were still on in the dawning light and Patrick Shields was kneeling in front of her, a steaming cup of tea in his hand.
“She’s alive, Patrick,” Kara whispered. He held the cup to her lips, steadying it as she managed a sip. She set the cup on the coffee table. “Lindsay’s alive.” “I’m sure she is,” Patrick said softly, reaching out to gently brush a stray wisp of hair from her brow. “I’m sure she is, and I’m sure we’ll find her.” In the silence that followed, both of them were acutely aware of what neither of them had said since Kara had awakened. Still, despite their silence, Steve’s death hung over both of them like a shroud.
Chapter Thirty-eight
I'm very good at what I do. Better, probably, than anyone else. But then again, no one else knows what I do, and thus it shall remain, precisely because I’m so good at it.
The open house went well, even though it was a Saturday. I was perfectly prepared, and slipped into the house with the same silence and invisibility as the air of poverty that permeates the neighborhood. The difference, of course, is that while I could sense the air of poverty, I’m quite sure no one sensed me at all.
At least, not the danger inherent in my presence.
The interior of the house was much as I imagined — a sweet little cottage that had once known love but had grown shabby and taken on the look that houses do when no one cares about them anymore. Someone had given up on the little house — I could feel it immediately.
Perhaps someone had given up on love, something I know something of.
After all, I have much love to give.
Her bedroom was that of a sweet woman, exactly the sort I always dreamed of. A wonderfully feminine paper covered the walls, and the ceiling was painted a soft peach.
A shade of peach I remember well.
I could sense her — feel her — know her — despite the fact that most of her life was already packed away in the stacks of boxes that were piled against the walls.
The kitchen cabinets were almost bare, and what little they held was the sort of boxed food that people who live in that kind of neighborhood invariably eat. A shame, really: nutrition is so important to healthy brain activity, and perhaps if they ate better, they would find themselves able to live better.
Regardless.
The poverty of the household did nothing to dampen my spirits; indeed, it confirmed for me that this woman will provide the perfect completion of my little tableau. Knowing that the days until I could make her mine would be incomplete without something to remember her by, I slipped a family photograph from the dresser into my pocket.
And I began to make my plan.
There is a fine line between adventure and recklessness. Parking in front of this house last week was pure recklessness, but after I examined the house more carefully today in the company of a dozen or so other people (each of the agents more ineffectual and each of their clients less observant than the ones who went before) I
