Most Likely to Die

by Lisa Jackson

  He was glad she hadn’t.

  Seeing her again, he felt almost as if there had been a real and enduring relationship between them in the past, something more than a one-night stand.

  Of course, there hadn’t been.

  Yet somehow, they had reconnected the way a former boyfriend and girlfriend might, distinctly aware of rekindled chemistry, deliberately keeping the conversation light and rooted in the present.

  As they ate—or rather, he ate, and she toyed with her toast—he told her about the various places he had lived and about his business. He deliberately downplayed the scope of his success, having realized that she didn’t know, after all. She had called him for a specific reason—that much was obvious from her preoccupied air—but as far as he could tell, his newfound wealth had nothing to do with it.

  They made their way from the bustling, pedestrian-and-traffic-clogged corner of Fifty-Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue into the comparative solitude of Central Park.

  The warm, brilliant morning sunlight gave way to cooler dappled shade, and he shoved his sunglasses high over his forehead. No real reason to wear them here.

  And no real reason to hide. Not anymore.

  Birds chirped from leafy overhead branches, bikers and joggers whizzed past, and strangers strolled in their midst…yet essentially, they found themselves alone together.

  It was time for Wyatt to find out why Lindsay had reached out to him today.

  He looked over his shoulder. There was no one remotely in earshot other than a plump woman pushing an expensive-looking baby carriage along, maybe a hundred feet behind on the path.

  She was probably a nanny, he found himself noting idly. The sleek buggy was stereotypical for an Upper East Side family, but the woman pushing it was not your average upscale Manhattan mom. She was too overweight, sloppy looking, unsophisticated.

  And you’re stalling, speculating about random strangers instead of focusing on why you’re here with Lindsay.

  Breaking the silence that had settled between them, he turned to her at last and said, “So…tell me.”

  Her head jerked toward him and he saw that she was startled—and dismayed.

  “Tell you what?” she asked slowly.

  “Why you called. You don’t want a car from me, I’m assuming…So what is it that you do want?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Their footsteps crunched on the gravel.

  Behind them, he could hear the nanny strolling along, her footsteps padding along the path, the cushy rubber tires of the baby’s buggy almost soundless.

  In the distance was the faint sound of street traffic, along with the distinct clopping of a horse’s hoofs and the rumble of the carriage it was pulling, undoubtedly occupied by romantic tourists.

  Wyatt found himself picturing himself riding in one with Lindsay snuggled beside him. In his fantasy it was night, and winter, and they were a couple.

  Then Lindsay spoke, shattering the image—a good thing, because he wasn’t back in high school, daydreaming about a girl he couldn’t have. He was a grown man, for God’s sake…

  Right. Daydreaming about a woman you can’t have.

  Or could he?

  When he heard what she was saying, hope came to life within him.

  “It’s something I should have told you years ago. I should have said it as soon as I knew, but…I couldn’t.”

  As soon as she knew? Knew what?

  Oh.

  Whoa.

  All at once, he realized what she was going to say.

  She was about to tell him that the feeling he had assumed was one-sided twenty years ago was, in fact, mutual. That she had figured out after they slept together that she was falling in love, just as he had. But she, like he, chose not to reveal her feelings.

  His pulse quickened in anticipation.

  Say it, Lindsay. Just say it.

  But she was in no hurry to play her hand.

  He did his best to coax her along. “It’s okay that you couldn’t say it back then. I mean, you can still say it now.”

  He tried to catch her eye, but she refused to look at him. She stared straight ahead, inhaled deeply, exhaled audibly, her nerves palpable.

  He waited, fighting the urge to touch her fingers, take her hand, guide her along.

  “It’s not easy.” She sounded almost…distraught.

  “I know. Would it help if I told you I felt the same way?”

  “What…?”

  “I should have told you, too. But I didn’t.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I felt the same way, Lindsay. My God, I mean…I never expected that to happen that night. And when you took off afterward, I figured you weren’t interested in someone like me. So I kept it all to myself.”

  “What?” she asked again, turning to look at him at last.

  That was when he saw the utter confusion in her eyes, and his heart sank.

  “Wyatt…I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing here.”

  “I guess we’re not.” He shook his head. Fool!

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  She knows. She knows what I was talking about, even if I have no idea what she was talking about.

  Terrific.

  He had gone and let his guard down for an instant, spilled his guts, and all for nothing.

  “For a second there,” she said slowly, “I thought you might have known all along…and that would have made this so much easier.”

  “Made what so much easier? What the hell are you talking about, Lindsay?” he demanded, his patience fraying fast.

  “That night—the night we—Wyatt, I got pregnant,” she blurted.

  Her words swept through him like a tsunami.

  Above the roar that consumed him, body and soul, he heard the rest. “I had a baby. The baby. Your baby.”

  Keeping a careful distance, she watched Wyatt Goddard abruptly stop walking and rake a hand through his hair.

  The motion knocked his sunglasses to the ground. He appeared not to notice.

  Her hands tightened on the handle of the empty baby carriage she had just stolen from its vulnerable sidewalk parking spot outside a deli on a nearby side street.

  She slowed her footsteps, not wanting to overtake them.

  A breeze rustled the branches overhead, so that it was impossible for her to hear.

  Lindsay faltered, touched Wyatt’s shoulder, then leapt back as if she had been burned when he appeared to brush her off with a brusque comment.

  Lindsay seemed to be pulling herself together for a moment, then she said something else to him.

  The breeze stopped and a snatch of conversation reached her ears.

  She stopped pushing the buggy altogether and bent over it as if adjusting the nonexistent baby’s blanket.

  “…so sorry, I just didn’t know what to…”

  That came from Lindsay.

  So, louder and more clearly, did, “Please, Wyatt, don’t—”

  The wind gusted again, dammit.

  Wyatt was talking, she saw, sneaking a glance in her direction as she fussed over the imaginary occupant of the buggy.

  Then a couple of phrases reached her ears even though the leaves overhead were still stirring. They were separated by unintelligible comments, or protests, from Lindsay.

  “How could you?”

  “Dammit, Lindsay, I had a right to know.”

  And finally, “So he’s in Queens?”

  I was right, she thought triumphantly.

  Wyatt Goddard had fathered Lindsay Farrell’s baby.

  She only wished Jake Marcott were alive to know about his girlfriend’s shocking betrayal.

  Ex-girlfriend, she amended.

  Still, even when it was over between Jake and Lindsay that December of their senior year, people assumed it wasn’t over. You didn’t forget a longtime relationship just like that. Unfinished business still seemed to linger between them. Jake still loved Lindsay; Lindsay still loved Jake. Ev
eryone figured that was the case, including Kristen Daniels, who dated Jake next—and last.

  The rumor was that Jake dumped Lindsay because she wouldn’t sleep with him.

  She had heard it many times during the two years they were dating.

  When she realized Lindsay was pregnant, she assumed the rumor was obviously false.

  Now, all at once, it was viable again.

  Lindsay might not have been sleeping with Jake, but she was sleeping with Wyatt Goddard behind his back. How scandalous of her. How daring. And how cunning.

  In fact…

  It almost makes me admire Lindsay, she realized with an ironic smile, watching her watch Wyatt Goddard striding away.

  But that doesn’t change what I have to do to her.

  If anything, it would make it even sweeter, knowing that perhaps Lindsay Farrell’s true love hadn’t been buried after all in the Marcott family plot on that bitter February day.

  No, it appeared that her true love was alive and well.

  Look at Lindsay, bereft, standing there alone on the path as Wyatt disappears. Potent yearning practically radiated off of her.

  Despite the obvious turmoil between them, she was probably still hoping they had a second chance.

  Maybe she was thinking that together, they could meet the son they’d given up. That the three of them could walk off into the sunset and live happily ever after, a family at last.

  Sorry, but that’s not going to happen, Lindsay.

  You’re not going to live happily ever after.

  You’re not going to live at all.

  Oblivious to her chilling fate and the figure watching her from a distance, Lindsay gazed at Wyatt walking away.

  Storming away, really, and she watched him go until he disappeared around a bend in the path.

  Then the ache took hold, a longing so fierce that she actually doubled over, just briefly, hugging herself. When she straightened and looked around, she saw a heavyset woman with a baby buggy, poised behind her in the path.

  She was looking up, at Lindsay, but she quickly looked down again, at the baby in the carriage.

  Typical New Yorker. She probably thought Lindsay was in some kind of physical trouble, and didn’t want to get involved.

  Whatever.

  Lindsay didn’t need help. She was fine.

  Just fine.

  She took a deep, trembling breath, steeled her nerves, and walked on in the direction Wyatt had taken.

  She wasn’t going after him, though; she knew better than that.

  He needed time to absorb what she had told him. Time to cool off.

  Maybe he never would.

  But at least she had done the right thing at last.

  That was what mattered here. All that mattered.

  Lindsay had no business longing for something more with Wyatt.

  Maybe not, but you are.

  All right.

  So she wanted more. She couldn’t help it. She wanted to see him again, she wanted him in her life.

  Absorbed in wistful, futile fantasies, she never looked back.

  She never saw the plump blond nanny abandon the baby buggy in the path.

  She never saw her reach over to pick up the sunglasses Wyatt had dropped, tucking them into her pocket with a thoughtful smile.

  Chapter 19

  Leo Cellamino’s cell phone rang just as he was walking past a group of old men playing checkers in the Thursday evening twilight outside a prewar apartment building off Queens Boulevard.

  His first thought was that the caller would have to leave a message; he was carrying a large, flat white box that was already fifteen minutes late. How well he knew, after three years delivering pizzas for his Uncle Joe’s pizzeria, that hungry customers had low blood sugar; low blood sugar made a person irritable and impatient; and irritable, impatient people didn’t tip well, if at all.

  Anyway, it was probably Sarah Rose. She had called his home number looking for him, and his mother said she’d given her his cell number, too.

  Then Leo remembered that he had given Lindsay Farrell his cell phone number, too, the other morning when they spoke.

  He immediately looked around for somewhere to set the pizza box.

  Spotting no convenient resting places, he set it carefully on the ground at his feet and pulled his ringing cell phone from the pocket of his shirt.

  The Caller ID window showed an unfamiliar Manhattan number.

  “Hello?” he said eagerly, ignoring the disapproving stares from the old men.

  “Leo, this is Lindsay Farrell.”

  His mother.

  “Hi.” His voice came out sounding strangled.

  “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you. There were just a few things I needed to do.”

  Right. Like inform my father that I exist.

  Truth be told, he hadn’t expected her to get back in touch this soon, if at all.

  “That’s okay,” he told her, and took a step away from the glaring old men.

  His foot nearly landed square in the middle of the pizza box on the ground; it was all he could do to keep it airborne and maintain his balance.

  Good save. At least I didn’t squash the merchandise, he told himself, turning his back to the old guys and carefully straddling the box on the ground.

  “Leo, I was wondering if you were going to be around this weekend at all. We’d…like to meet you. If that’s what you want.”

  “We? You mean…?”

  She cleared her throat. “Your, ah, father. And me.”

  “Are you kidding? I would love that.”

  He heard her exhale as if she’d been holding her breath.

  It was only then that he realized, for the first time, that he wasn’t the only one who had a lot at stake.

  Lindsay Farrell did as well.

  And so did his father…whoever he was.

  Heck, it didn’t even matter who he was.

  What mattered was that he knew about Leo now…and he wanted to meet him.

  “Wyatt, it’s Lindsay. I, um, got your message and I went ahead and set something up for this weekend in Connecticut, like you said. Saturday afternoon at your place, right? I hope that still works for you. I told him you were sending a car to pick him up…but really, you don’t have to send one for me. I’ll get myself up there, so don’t worry about—”

  A second beep cut off her final word.

  …me.

  Oh, well. She doubted he was worried about her.

  It wasn’t as if he had touched base with her these past few days, after she’d made her big revelation that morning in the park.

  His reaction was pretty much what she expected.

  He was shocked, angry, upset.

  He’d made it obvious that he wasn’t interested in excuses, so she didn’t offer any. She offered nothing other than a heartfelt apology, several of them, all of which he brushed off.

  Can you really blame him?

  They had gone their separate ways, and she had at first thought she might never hear from him.

  She supposed she probably deserved that, in the grand scheme of things…and she could accept it. She really could.

  But where would that leave Leo?

  Perhaps no better off, or worse off, than he’d been before.

  After all, you can’t miss something you never had.

  That’s bullshit, and you know it better than anyone, she told herself, hanging up the phone and heading into the bathroom.

  There, she splashed some water on her face and looked at herself in the mirror.

  She hadn’t realize how much she had missed Wyatt until she saw him again.

  Until he left her there, in the park.

  Somehow, Lindsay pulled herself together and went to her office. Somehow, she made it through that workday, and then another, and another.

  She even made it through the long nights, untainted by further prank phone calls.

  With the news of Haylie’s murder almost a week old by
then, and the memory of the prank caller’s eerie voice fading as well, she was no longer as fearful about her own safety, or Leo’s.

  In fact, she’d almost convinced herself when she woke up this morning that she should just let go of everything connected to the past: the reunion, Haylie, Jake, Leo…and yes, Wyatt, too. Especially Wyatt.

  Then, tonight, she came home from work and found her message light blinking.

  “Lindsay, it’s Wyatt…”

  His voice—even a recorded version—stole her breath away.

  “Listen, I’ve thought about it and I think we should meet him, if that’s what he wants. I’m assuming it is. I mean, that’s why people track down their birth parents, right?”

  He made a sound, a bitter laugh, it sounded like.

  He went on to instruct her to set up a meeting for Saturday at his house. It had to be Saturday, he said, because he was flying out first thing Sunday on business and wouldn’t be back for a week. He’d send separate town cars for her and for Leo at two o’clock, to transport them up to Connecticut, and he’d arrange for the cars to take them back later.

  His instructions were businesslike, his tone void of emotion.

  She recognized the air of detached efficiency; she herself adopted it whenever she was working, making arrangements for upcoming events.

  But this wasn’t just an event, she told herself as she rummaged in a drawer for a tube of lipstick.

  Saturday’s meeting loomed as a life-altering milestone.

  You’d think he’d have exhibited a little more awareness of that.

  Leo certainly had, when she’d called him minutes ago to spring it on him.

  His voice had radiated enthusiasm, especially when she told him that his father was sending a car for him.

  “Is he rich, then?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she lied.

  She had discerned from Wyatt’s appearance, from what he told her about his business, and from what she knew about where he lived, that he was rich.

  There—she plucked a soft pink lipstick from the drawer, bypassing the red one Isaac had once complimented her on when she wore it.

  She was meeting him for a drink tonight, but she wasn’t trying to impress him. Not these days.

  Wyatt was a different story, though. She’d taken great care with her appearance the morning they met. She wondered if he had done the same or if he always dressed so elegantly.