No one was going to come for them; no one was going to save them.
Lindsay looked at Ellen, but Ellen’s eyes had gone almost as blank as Shannon's.
“Sing!” the man howled. “Louder! Louder!”
Knowing it might well be her last act, Lindsay sucked in a breath and tried to sing along.
Chapter Forty-nine
Kara tossed restlessly in the unfamiliar sheets on the unfamiliar bed and breathed deeply of the sweet, fresh, but equally unfamiliar ocean air. Utterly unable to sleep, she opened her eyes to gaze once more around the perfectly decorated guest room that looked almost magical in the moonlight pouring through huge windows that overlooked the Sound. Given the luxuriousness of the satiny sheets, and the almost cloudlike support of the bed, she should have fallen asleep the minute she first snuggled into the warm cocoon the down comforter provided. But she hadn’t; indeed, rest seemed far away — no more attainable here than it had been last night at home. But at least here she was somewhat removed from the agonizing memories of her own house, and could lie in the soft warmth of the bed and think about what she might do next.
But all she could think about were Steve and Lindsay.
Steve, who would never be back, and Lindsay, who—
She cut the thought off, but it was already too late. Slowly, over the last week, she had come to accept the reality of Steve’s death, but the thought that Lindsay, too, might already be dead was far too painful to dwell on, even for a moment.
She closed her eyes and tried to think of her family’s happiest times. All kinds of images rose out of her memory: summer days frolicking on the beach, and Christmas shopping in Manhattan, a day that always ended with dinner at the Sea Grill at Rockefeller Center, where they would all watch the skaters twirling on the ice beneath the great glittering Christmas tree.
The week five years ago when they’d gone to Orlando and seen every square inch Disney World had to offer.
And Lindsay’s birthday parties, always filled with dozens of her friends.
Even now Kara could picture those occasions as clearly as if they’d happened yesterday. She remembered Lindsay’s first birthday, when her daughter wore a little pink ruffled dress and sat in her high chair, wide-eyed, a big piece of angel cake all to herself, while the adults all sang.
The memory was so vivid she could almost hear it now, more than fifteen years later.
Suddenly, it seemed she was actually hearing their voices, and she sat bolt upright in bed, listening.
She turned to the open window.
Nothing but the sound of the surf and a few gulls crying in the night.
As a chilly breeze wafted over her, she lay back down and pulled the comforter close around her body. Of course she hadn’t heard anyone singing “Happy Birthday.” It was a trick played on her by an exhausted mind. If she could just get to sleep…
She closed her eyes and tried to calm her mind.
She breathed slowly and deeply, concentrating on the freshness of the salt air.
The lyrics rose in her mind again, faint, but not so faint that they didn’t sound real.
She got out of bed and went to the window. The wind had picked up, and she could hear the clatter of rigging from sailboats bobbing on mooring buoys just offshore blending with the sighing of the wind through the trees.
Somewhere, a cat yowled in either fear or fury.
And, all but completely masked by the other sounds, she was certain she could hear what sounded like voices singing.
Could it be? Or was she finally losing her mind?
She stood at the window, trying to sort out the possibilities. Had her mind actually gone around the bend, or was it possible that someone — a neighbor? — was truly having a birthday party in the middle of the night? Impossible.
She listened again, straining to hear, but now all she heard was the wind, and the rigging, and the birds.
But she knew all possibility of sleep was gone.
She pulled on the robe Neville Cavanaugh had left on the bed for her, slipped her feet into her shoes, opened the door and stepped out into the silent hallway.
The immense house nearly overwhelmed her with its massive, solemn presence; the only sound was the steady ticking of the grandfather clock in the great foyer below.
Standing there, her eyes were drawn to the door across from her own.
Jenna’s room.
Crossing the broad hallway, she turned the handle and slipped inside the girl’s room, then closed the door behind her.
When she turned on the light, she saw that it was a mirror image of Chrissie’s room, and not so different from Lindsay's, except for its generous proportions.
Kara moved slowly through the room, looking at all the things a teenage girl values: stuffed animals, CDs, posters of singers.
And books. Like Lindsay, Jenna was a reader.
Kara went to her bookshelf, thinking that if she could find something to read, it might help her sleep.
She scanned the titles until she came to a volume at the very end of the shelf that bore no title at all. She pulled it out and opened it.
A photo fell from the front of the book to the floor. As she bent to pick it up, she realized what the book in her hand was.
Jenna Shields’s diary.
Straightening up, she stared at the script that covered the first page. Jenna’s hand was even and nice. Kara flipped quickly through the pages. Jenna had filled her diary not only with the events of her young life, but with her dreams as well.
Had Lindsay kept a diary? If she had, she’d hidden it well enough that neither she nor the police had been able to find it.
Jenna hadn’t hidden hers at all. In fact, she’d left it right on the bookshelf where anyone could have found it.
And now Kara had.
She bent down again and picked up the photo, and her heart chilled.
She must be wrong, she thought. It had to be a trick of the light. She took the picture over to Jenna’s desk and turned on the study lamp to see the photograph more clearly.
It was of the entire Shields family: Patrick, Renee, Jenna, and Chrissie.
And Jenna Shields looked enough like her own daughter that she and Lindsay could have been twins.
Eyes blurring with tears, Kara looked away, wiped them with the sleeve of her robe, and thinking she must have been mistaken, looked once more at the photograph.
But no. It was almost as if Lindsay herself had somehow slipped into this photograph of a family that was not her own.
Instead of putting the photo back in the journal, Kara slipped it into the pocket of her robe, then replaced the book on the shelf exactly where she’d found it, turned out the lights, and stepped out the door.
Fully awake now, she didn’t want to return to her room, so she slipped as quietly as possible down the massive staircase, through the marble foyer, and into the conservatory.
Hoping the alarm system wasn’t turned on, she unlocked the French doors and went out onto the terrace overlooking the lawn and the Sound. The grounds were bathed in silvery moonlight, the air crisp and clean, and the
