“Well, thank you,” Sheila said, still not feeling satisfied.
“Uh-huh, bye,” Debra said quickly. Then she hung up.
Sheila clicked off and slipped the phone back in her coat pocket.
Unlike Debra, she couldn’t so easily write off the possibility that Cassandra was dead. She had no idea how airtight Brodie’s and Eden’s alibis were for the day Antonia had plunged to her death. Perhaps the police would have been tougher when questioning them had they known Eden’s other “mother” had mysteriously disappeared. The pattern couldn’t be ignored: First, the surrogate mother vanishes. Then Eden moves in with her own mother, and two months later, Antonia dies under very suspicious circumstances. And now, Eden was living with her—a new stepmother. Since Antonia’s untimely demise, Sheila had narrowly avoided death several times. She could have been on the highway when her car’s brakes gave out. She’d survived poisoning and electric shock.
Then last night, she’d come very close to drinking a nightcap full of ground glass. It probably wouldn’t have killed her, but it certainly would have put her out of commission for a while.
She remembered what the auto mechanic who repaired the Toyota’s brakes had told her: “Somebody must be out to get you . . .”
An announcement came over the terminal speaker that pre-boarding for the flight to Seattle would begin in a few minutes.
Sheila glanced down at the boxes against the wall. She thought of the mere handful of photos of Eden inside amid hundreds of shots of her mother. She wondered once again if Cassandra was in any of the photographs. Maybe she’d simply ask Eden tonight. Then she could pour two glasses of that bourbon and ask Eden to drink a toast to her three mothers.
Sheila still wasn’t certain what that girl was up to, or why.
But she planned to rip the lid off tonight and find out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Saturday—5:31 P.M.
Seattle
Walking through Roanoke Park, Steve passed the playground, empty because of the rain. He wasn’t all that eager to get home. He imagined Eden was there, and he didn’t want to see her. He knew his half sister was a liar. But now it seemed very possible that she was a murderer, too.
Steve was soaked. He’d waited for that stupid bus for twenty minutes, then finally given up and walked. A couple of blocks back, he’d stopped by a pizza place. He knew he was having pizza for dinner tonight, but he was starting to get a headache and needed something to eat. He devoured a big slice of cheese pizza and guzzled down a large Coke.
Now that he had some food in him, he was tired—and emotional. Cutting through the park, he started crying. He didn’t care about that “boys don’t cry” crap. He kept thinking of Ms. Warren. But that wasn’t all. He was thinking of his family, and how much had changed in just a week. Steve didn’t think he’d ever be able to look at his parents the way he used to.
He wiped his eyes as he approached a huge evergreen in the center of the park. There were three things he needed to do when he got back home. He wanted a hot shower. He needed to catch the local six o’clock news for an update on Ms. Warren’s murder. Finally, he wanted to sneak into Eden’s room and look for some evidence that she’d killed Ms. Warren. He didn’t think he’d find a gun. Her boyfriend probably had it. But maybe Eden had a journal. Or she might have taken some souvenir from Ms. Warren’s house after they’d shot her. Maybe she’d stolen Ms. Warren’s personal copy of The Scarlet Letter or something weird like that. Steve was trying to think like her—to get inside the head of a murderer.
As he passed the towering evergreen, the house came into view. A cop car was parked in the driveway behind his dad’s BMW.
Steve stopped in his tracks. Had the police come to arrest Eden already? Or maybe someone in the family had been hurt or killed.
Steve started to run toward the house. He told himself that if anybody had been injured, an ambulance would have been there. So many different scenarios raced through his head, all of them awful.
As Steve reached the street in front of his house, he saw two men step outside through the front door: a young, hulky uniformed cop and a tall, balding middle-aged guy in a tie and a windbreaker. They trotted toward the patrol car, obviously in a hurry to get out of the rain.
“Hey, excuse me!” Steve called, out of breath. He rushed up the driveway. “Is everything okay?”
The man in the windbreaker squinted at him. Steve figured he must be a plainclothes detective or something like that. “Who are you?” the man asked.
“My name’s Steve O’Rourke. I live here. Is everyone okay?” Still panting for air, he anxiously glanced at the house. Several lights were on, but everything looked normal.
“We just needed to talk to your father about something,” the man answered. “He can fill you in.”
Steve watched the two cops jump into the patrol car and shut their doors. The vehicle’s lights went on, but it didn’t look like the two were going to leave just yet. Steve turned and headed for the door, but he hesitated on the front stoop. He noticed how quiet it was. All this activity, yet the neighbor’s dog wasn’t barking.
Letting himself in, he immediately called out, “Dad? Dad, what’s going on?”
“Steve?”
From the front hallway, he saw his father and Eden seated at the dining room table, where his parents always had their serious talks with them. His dad stood up.
“What did the police want?” Steve asked, heading into the dining room. “Is Mom okay?”
“Mom’s fine,” his dad said.
“What about Gabe? Where’s Hannah?”
“Gabe’s fine. He’s spending the night at Danny Lassiter’s. Hannah’s staying over at a friend’s, too.” He put his hand on Steve’s wet jacket. “You really need to get out of these wet clothes—”
“I will. Just as soon as you tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s your English teacher,” his dad said soberly. He moved his hand up to Steve’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. It’s bad news, Stevie. She was killed last night.”
Steve glanced over at Eden, sitting there staring down at the tabletop. She looked very solemn. He turned to his father. “I know,” he said. “My friend Sean called and told me. What were the police doing here?”
“They got my number from Ms. Warren’s phone, along with all the other people she spoke with last night,” his dad explained. “So they wanted to talk to me. I guess they’re trying to track down everything that happened in the last hours of her life. I had that conference with her last night, remember?”
Steve glared at Eden until she finally looked up and their eyes met.
She looked away. “I guess I wasn’t very nice to her,” she murmured. She got to her feet and started to clear off the table. She withdrew into the kitchen with a Coke can and a near-empty water bottle, which his dad must have served to the cop and the detective during their visit.
Steve turned to his dad again. “Were you the last one to see her alive?”
He squeezed his shoulder. “No, I asked the police the same question. After our conference, Ms. Warren drove home and ran into a neighbor who was walking his dog. Then she made a couple of calls.”
Steve pulled away from his dad and walked toward the kitchen so he could look at Eden. She tossed the can and the water bottle into the recycling bin. He could tell she’d been listening to them.
He unzipped his jacket and then turned to his dad again. “Did the police say what time she was killed?”
“They said it was early this morning, some time before dawn. Are you okay, Stevie?”
He nodded. “So the cops wanted to talk to Eden, too?” Out of the corner of his eye, Steve noticed her in the kitchen, standing perfectly still.
“My conference with Ms. Warren concerned her, so they had a couple of questions, that’s all.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Listen, take it easy on Eden. You heard her. She knows she was kind of a brat to Ms. Warren. And she doesn’t feel very good about it.”
His dad took his jacket from him. “I’ll hang this up. You’re dripping all over the place.” He put his hand on the back of Steve’s neck. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Steve just nodded.
“Well, why don’t you go upstairs, take a hot shower, and put on some dry clothes? You’ll feel better.”
Steve nodded again and then broke away. He caught Eden giving him a wary sidelong glance from the kitchen. He could have cut through there to go up the stairs, but he took the front way.
Right now, Steve just wanted to avoid her.
*
With his head in his hands, Dylan sat at his desk in the den. He’d closed the door, which he rarely did.
It probably wasn’t necessary. Both Eden and Steve were out of earshot: Eden in her room upstairs, and Steve in the shower. His cell phone was on the desk blotter in front of him, but Dylan hadn’t yet made a call. He was just sitting there, trying to figure out what the hell to do.
Through the French doors in the den, he had a view of the backyard, not the house next door. For that, he was grateful. He didn’t need any reminders that Leah Engelhardt was back in his life. She’d driven off sometime between when Hannah had left with her friend and when the cop car had pulled into the driveway. The police’s unannounced arrival had given Dylan his second big fright of the afternoon. He’d initially thought Leah had called them in some sort of bizarre plot to set him up and have him arrested for attempted rape. It would have explained her weird sexual attack earlier, which had almost seemed premeditated.
But then, at the front door, the detective explained the reason for their visit. Dylan was shocked and saddened by the news about Miranda Warren. As soon as he sat down with the cops and started answering their questions, he realized he had yet a whole new set of troubles. He’d had sex with her just hours before she was killed. But of course, he couldn’t tell the police that.
Dylan told them that he and Ms. Warren had held their discussion about Eden in the classroom. Afterwards, he’d walked Ms. Warren to her car, parked several blocks away. Then she’d driven him to where he’d parked, closer to the high school. Dylan conveniently left out the extra time he had spent with Miranda Warren in the front seat of her Toyota Camry.
But how long would it be before the police figured that out? The poor woman had been murdered, so they would do an autopsy—if they hadn’t performed one already. They would determine that she’d recently had sex. Miranda had told him he didn’t need to use a condom, so his semen was still inside her when she’d been murdered. How long before the cops would be back with more questions, including a request for a blood test?
Dylan realized what he needed to do. He’d have to tell the police the truth, throw himself on their mercy, and beg them to keep his indiscretion a secret.
He picked up the phone and started to dial his lawyer.
And while he had his lawyer on the line, he’d ask him what he could do about that insane bitch next door.
*
One of Steve’s classmates, Dana Roberts-Gold, was being interviewed on TV. In many respects, she seemed like a logical choice to represent Ms. Warren’s students. She was a pretty, photogenic brunette, a cheerleader, and the vice president of their sophomore class. She always sat through English Lit looking kind of bored or texting on the sly, but still, for the TV cameras she’d worked up some tears. Steve figured they must have pulled Dana away from a football game for her brief segment, because they had her standing in front of the school, and she wore an open jacket over her cheerleading uniform.
“Ms. Warren was one of the most popular teachers at the school,” Dana said, her voice shaky. “Everybody liked her. She wasn’t just a teacher. She was like a friend to so many of us. I’m going to miss her. It’s hard to believe she’s gone. I just don’t understand how something like this can happen. It’s so senseless . . .” Dana wiped away a tear.
On TV, they cut back to a silver-haired reporter, standing in front of Ms. Warren’s ranch house. He wore a blue rain slicker and held a mic in his hand. Some rather subdued police activity was going on behind him—like the cops had been there a while and things were winding down. “As police continue their investigation into the brutal murder, there’s no doubt that neighbors in this secluded area of Shoreline will be locking their doors and windows tonight.”
Steve sat on the sectional sofa in the basement, staring at the TV. He’d showered, dried off, and was now dressed in jeans and a gray sweatshirt. He had his phone in his hand. He’d been searching online for more updates, but he hadn’t really learned anything new there or from the local TV news report. Still, he couldn’t help but think that if Eden really cared at all, she’d be down here, watching this with him.
He still wasn’t sure whether Eden and her boyfriend had anything to do with Ms. Warren’s murder. But they’d been acting awfully suspicious at Volunteer Park this afternoon.
He sat up when he heard someone hurrying down the stairs.
“Hey, Stevie.” His father came into the family room with his jacket on. “I need to drive to the police station to answer some follow-up questions about Ms. Warren. I’m not really sure how long I’m going to be.”
Steve’s mouth dropped open. Had the cops figured out that Eden had killed Ms. Warren? Or maybe his dad was a suspect now. “What do you mean?” he asked, not hiding his concern. “What kind of questions?”
“Relax, it’s no big deal. I’m guessing it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours, at the very most.” His dad took out his wallet and gave Steve his American Express card. “I want you to order the pizzas, whatever you want, and gluten-free or vegan or whatever Eden wants, and a medium chicken and basil for Mom and me—and a salad. Mom will probably be home before me.”
Steve stood up. He shoved the credit card into the pocket of his jeans. “You mean you’re leaving me here alone with Eden?”
“Yeah, you two keep the home fires burning.”
“Can I go to the police station with you?” he asked.
“No, you’ll be more comfortable here. Besides, I want you to keep Eden company. I think she’s kind of shaken up about Ms. Warren.”
His father turned and started back up the stairs. Steve anxiously followed him. He wanted to tell his dad that he wouldn’t be comfortable at all—and he was pretty shaken up about Ms. Warren, too. Helplessly, he watched his father head for the front door.
“I’ve told Eden I’m heading out,” his dad said, stopping by the front closet. He took out a small, collapsible umbrella and opened the front door. “Do me a favor and check in on her in a little while. I texted Mom, so she knows where I’ll be. Make sure to lock up after me, and don’t answer the door for anyone except the pizza delivery person.” He stepped outside, then turned back. He pointed to the Curtis house. “Don’t answer if that woman next door comes by. I was over there today, and she’s crazy. I’ll explain later. I doubt she will, but if she does come over, call me.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Like I said, I’ll explain later.” His dad gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Love you.”
His father ran to the car with the umbrella tucked under his arm. Steve waited by the front door, watching his dad back out of the driveway and drive off. He wondered what had happened with the lady next door. Maybe she and his dad had gotten into an argument about her dog barking all the time.
Steve closed the door, double-locked it, and fixed the chain in place.
But that wouldn’t keep Eden’s boyfriend out if he was on his way over. Eden would simply let him in.
Steve had an awful feeling in his gut. He thought about inviting over his friend, Sean, so he wouldn’t have to be alone with Eden. But why put his friend at risk, too? As soon as Eden figured out that he was on to her, she’d kill him and anyone else in the house.
He wanted to run away, just grab his coat and get out of there. But then Eden would be alone with his mom. And Eden seemed to resent her as much as she had Ms. Warren.
Steve glanced up the stairs toward the second floor. He didn’t hear her up there.
He headed down to the basement, figuring he’d feel safer two floors away. The TV was still on, and he sat down on the sofa again.
But then an unsettling image came to his mind. It wasn’t of Ms. Warren, shot in the throat in her bedroom. The image was from one of the many true murder stories he’d read. It was a fuzzy, black-and-white photo of Kenyon Clutter, murdered along with his sister and parents in Kansas in 1959. Dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, the boy was hog-tied to the arm of a sofa in the basement of his house. He’d been shot in the head. He was the same age as Steve.
Steve didn’t want to be found down here in the basement, just like the Clutter boy.
Grabbing the remote, he turned off the TV, jumped off the sofa, and headed upstairs. At the top of the steps, he switched off the basement lights.
He took a butcher knife from the knife block on the kitchen counter. Sitting down in the dinette booth, he switched on the kitchen TV. He set the knife on the cushion beside him.
Then he prayed his mom or dad would be home soon.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Saturday—6:42 P.M.
Sea-Tac Airport
The flight had boasted free Wi-Fi, but it was worthless. Sheila had to wait until they touched down at Sea-Tac to access her texts or voicemail. When the plane finally landed, there was a long voicemail from Dylan at 6:15.
“Hey, hon,” he said. “I might not be home when you get back. So just a reminder, Gabe’s spending the night at Danny Lassiter’s. Hannah wanted to stay over at Gwen’s house, and I said it was okay. Steve is home with Eden. Now, here’s the thing. Don’t panic. But I’m headed to the police station. I have some disturbing news. Eden and Steve’s teacher, Ms. Warren, the one I met with last night . . . she was killed early this morning in her house, sometime before dawn. Anyway, I’m going to talk to the police. I think, because I walked her to her car after our conference, they figure I might have seen something. I don’t know. Anyway, I hope to be home by eight or nine at the latest. If I’m stuck there any later, I’ll call or text. Okay? Sorry to drop this bombshell on you in a voicemail, but you’re not picking up. Anyway, love you.”
The Betrayed Wife Page 31
