hand, closing his fingers around the polished oak, his fingerprints covering her own. Then she moved his other hand up and down the shovel’s oaken handle, so his fingerprints were everywhere. Satisfied, she let his left arm drop again, then placed a scrap of material in his left hand.
Bloody material, which had been torn from Becky Adams’s blouse.
“I have to leave you now, my darling,” Cynthia whispered. “But not for long. And when I come back, we’ll never be parted again. We’ll be together. We’ll be together forever.”
* * *
JOAN HAPGOOD FELT as if she were waking up from a deep sleep, but as her mind began to clear, her confusion only deepened. What was she doing outside? And why was it dark? The last thing she remembered was —
What?
Her memory seemed to have vanished, but then it began creeping back:
She’d been in Cynthia’s room, getting rid of her things.
Not getting rid of them — destroying them. She turned toward the house, her eyes going to the window of the last room she remembered being in, the room on the second floor where her mother had insisted on putting all of Cynthia’s things. And then —
And then there was nothing! Just a terrible, blank void, as if she’d suddenly fallen into a deep sleep. Except she hadn’t been asleep. She’d been ridding herself of her sister, finally and forever. Ridding herself of Cynthia’s clothes, her pictures, everything!
Then what happened? Her glance shifted from the house to the car. What was she doing out here? And why was the car —
Out of the corner of her eye she saw something on the ground, and turned in that direction.
She saw Matt, lying motionless on the driveway. How — Why —
“Matt!” She screamed his name as she dropped down beside him. On her knees, she reached out and gathered him into her arms, rocking him as she sobbed. What had happened? How had it happened? The shovel fell from his hand, drawing her attention as it dropped to the ground. In the light of the rising full moon, she could see the bloodstains on the blade, but didn’t grasp what they were. Then, as she looked down at herself and saw the blood that stained her own clothes, a strangled scream erupted from her throat.
What had happened? What had Matt done? What had she done?
Help!
She had to get help!
Leaving Matt where he was, she raced toward the house, slamming the back door open so hard its window shattered. Ignoring the shards of glass that sprayed across the mud room floor, she stumbled into the kitchen, found the phone, and fumbled with the buttons, forcing her trembling fingers to press 911. “Help,” she begged when the emergency operator came on the line. “Oh, God, please send someone to help me. It’s my son — oh, God, I think my son is dead… ”
* * *
GERRY AND NANCY Conroe were just finishing their dinner when the police scanner on Gerry’s desk came alive. Ordinarily, neither of the Conroes would have heard it, for they usually ate in the dining room, where Nancy had banned the scanner years ago. “Dinner should be a family event,” she had decreed the one time Gerry brought it into the room. “It’s one of the few times we’re all together, and if you have that thing on, none of us will talk. We might as well stop using the dining room, and eat on TV trays in the den.” Which was exactly what Nancy and Gerry were doing that evening, unable to face the prospect of sitting at the dining room table without Kelly. The TV was on, tuned to the national news, but neither of them could have repeated a word of what the anchorman was saying, any more than they could have said what they’d been eating.
Nor were they talking. Instead, consciously or unconsciously, they were both listening to the police scanner, waiting for it to begin crackling, hoping it would bring them word that their daughter had been found. Thus, when the voice of the dispatcher suddenly erupted from the tinny speaker, both of them froze, their eyes turning toward the small plastic radio on Gerry’s desk.
They listened in silence as what seemed to Nancy to be an unintelligible stream of words spewed from the scanner. But even she understood the import of the last few words:
“Proceed to 1326 Manchester Road. Repeat, one-three-two-six Manchester Road.”
“That’s Bill and Joan’s house,” Nancy said. “What’s — ”
Gerry held up a hand to silence her as they both recognized Dan Pullman’s voice come on the speaker.
“This is Unit One,” Pullman said. “I’m on my way. Unit Two, you copy?”
“Unit Two copies.” Tony Petrocelli’s voice was barely audible, almost lost in a haze of static.
“Meet me there,” Pullman ordered. The radio abruptly fell silent.
“What’s going on?” Nancy asked. “What’s happening?”
Gerry Conroe was on his feet. “They’re sending an ambulance over there. It sounded like someone’s down in the driveway.” He headed toward the front door, and Nancy hurried after him.
“Down?” she echoed uncertainly. “What — ”
“Injured,” Gerry said, his voice grim as he pulled on a light jacket. “Or dead.”
As he pulled open the front door, they heard a siren wailing in the distance and growing steadily louder.
“I’m coming with you,” Nancy said, pulling her jacket from the coat tree next to the front door.
Gerry made no argument, and a moment later they were in his car, the wheels spitting gravel as he shot around the circle and started down their driveway toward Manchester Road. For once, Nancy didn’t tell her husband to slow down.
* * *
PHYLLIS ADAMS’S HEAD came up as she heard the sound of a siren screaming along Prospect Street, growing louder as it approached the corner of Burlington, then rapidly fading away to a lonely wail. “It’s Becky,” she said, reaching for the decanter to refill her empty glass. “I know it’s Becky.”
“You don’t know anything of the sort,” Frank growled, picking up the decanter an instant before his wife’s fingers closed on it.
“What are you doing?” Phyllis demanded.
“Do you really want to be drunk when Becky comes home?”
Phyllis eyed her husband blearily. She was almost sure Becky wasn’t coming home — half an hour ago she’d had a strong feeling that came out of nowhere, and knew that something terrible had happened to her daughter. “She’s dead,” she’d wailed, her eyes tearing. “I know my baby’s dead.” Frank had only glared at her, and she could tell that he thought she was drunk. And maybe she was, but that didn’t mean her intuition wasn’t right.
Now, as the siren faded into the darkness beyond the front window, she stood up, steadying herself against the table next to her chair. “We should go out there,” she said.
“We’re not going anywhere,” her husband retorted. “We’re going to sit here and wait. If Dan Pullman finds anything — or even hears anything — he’ll call us.” His eyed his wife balefully. “And it would help if you were sober when that happens.”
Phyllis seemed about to argue with him, but then turned and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll make some coffee,” she said, seeing no point in mentioning the bottle of cooking sherry she kept behind the coffee can on the next-to-the-top shelf of the pantry.
* * *
DAN PULLMAN PULLED through the gates of Hapgood farm right behind the ambulance. He could see Tony Petrocelli’s squad car stopped halfway to the house, its lights flashing. As he pulled his car off the drive so as not to block the ambulance when it left, he saw Tony squatting next to Matt’s body. Crouched on the other side of Matt, leaning against the Range Rover, was Joan Hapgood.
As the paramedics took over for him, Tony Petrocelli stood up and drew his boss aside. “He’s still alive,” he said. “But I sure don’t get what’s going on.”
“What did Joan tell you?”
Petrocelli shrugged. “She says she can’t remember what happened.”
Pullman’s eyes flicked toward Joan, then returned to his deputy. “Can’t remember? She was driving the car, wasn’t she?”
