by Lisa Gardner
“Umbrio, Umbrio,” Schuepp was muttering. “That’s right. The police finally arrested this hulking brute of a man, accused him of the crime. I remember now. Still, Russell refused to lower his guard. He took up karate, read obsessively on stalkers. I don’t know what it must have been like—first to lose his parents so young, then to feel that the entire tragic situation was happening again.
“I know he felt very guilty for what your mother was going through. I know the few times I saw them together at functions, your father was hyperattentive, relentlessly cheerful. If he could smile broad enough, boom loud enough, then everything would be okay.
“Your mother loved you, Annabelle,” Schuepp said quietly. “When the time came, she never hesitated.
“Russell came to my office at the end of October. Tommy was back, leaving gifts for Annabelle at your home, stalking her. It was all his fault, Russell insisted. He hadn’t been thorough enough. Bank accounts, IRS records could be traced. It had only been a matter of time.
“This time Russell had purchased new identities for his family, made arrangements to trade your old car for a new vehicle. Everything else was to be left behind. Fast and light, he told me. That was the key. He wouldn’t even tell me where you three would be going.
“When he left, I remember wondering if you would make it. Or if I’d simply catch the end of this story one night on the news. For two weeks, all seemed well. And then that young girl, your friend, disappeared. Minute I heard the street where she lived, I knew who’d done it. According to your father, Tommy had never taken disappointment well.”
“Did my father know? About Dori?” Annabelle asked urgently. “Did he talk to you?”
“He called me three days later,” Schuepp supplied. “Said he’d heard on the national news. He didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, he was sure it was Tommy. On the other hand, if he returned to talk to the police …”
“Tommy would be able to find him again,” Bobby filled in. “What about you, sir? Did you contact the police?”
“I left an anonymous tip on the hotline number. Enough for my conscience to feel like I’d done something, and yet …”
“Not nearly enough to help Dori Petracelli.” Bobby gave the man a look. “You knew a vital piece of information. If you’d come forward—”
“The police would’ve pursued Russell and Leslie,” Schuepp stated matter-of-factly. “They would have dragged them back here to Massachusetts, exposed them to Tommy. The Petracelli girl was likely dead. I focused on the life that could be saved—yours, Annabelle.”
Bobby opened his mouth. Before he could argue, however, Annabelle beat him to the punch.
“Explain that to Mr. and Mrs. Petracelli. They were parents, too. They deserved better than to have their daughter written off, just so their neighbors could get on with their lives.” She turned away bitterly.
Schuepp poured another shot of scotch, pushed it toward her.
She wouldn’t take it, though. Instead, she pulled herself together, setting her face in that resolute look Bobby knew so well.
“One last question, Mr. Schuepp: Can you tell me my real name?”
My name is Amy Marie Grayson. Amy Marie Grayson.
I sat in the passenger’s seat of Bobby’s Crown Vic, clinging to my parents’ ashes, while trying out my real name again and again, waiting to see when it would roll naturally off my tongue. We were already back on Route 2. Driving somewhere. It hardly mattered to me.
Amy. Marie. Grayson. It still felt unnatural, stilted on my lips.
All of my life, I had considered myself two people: Annabelle Granger and Current Alias—whatever name I happened to have at the time. Now, according to Mr. Schuepp, I was actually three people: Amy Grayson, Annabelle Granger, and … well, et al.
The notion confused me. I rested my head against the cool glass of my window, and for a moment I saw my father again, sitting across from me at Giacomo’s as we celebrated my twenty-first birthday, appearing content.
My father had won. I never understood, because he’d never let me be part of the war he was fighting. But that night, my birthday, must have felt like a victory to him. He had lost his mother. He had lost his wife. But his daughter … Me, at least, he had kept safe, though it had cost him so much along the way.
And I was amazed now, humbled in a way that brought tears to my eyes, that he had viewed my life as a victory. He had given up his career for me. He had given up neighbors, his home, his own sense of self. Ultimately, he had given up his wife.
I can picture my father remote. I can picture him relentless, hard, aggressive. But I can’t remember him ever being bitter or mean-spirited. He always had his cause, his reason, even if his paranoia drove me crazy.
And knowing the whole story now, all I wanted to do was go back in time to tell him I was sorry, to give him a grateful hug, to tell him I finally understood. Then again, niceness was never what my father had wanted for me. We fought, constantly, incessantly, partly because my father had enjoyed a good battle. He’d raised a fighter. And he liked to test my skills.
Amy Marie Grayson. Amy Marie.
And just for a moment, I could almost hear it. My mother’s voice, crooning softly, “There’s my little angel … Good morning, Amy, bobamey, mamey.”
I was crying. I didn’t want to. But the enormity of it hit me all at once. My mother’s sacrifice. My father’s loss. And I was sobbing hard and ugly, only vaguely aware of Bobby’s hand upon my shoulder. Then the car was slowing down, pulling over. My seat belt retracted. He pulled me onto his lap, an awkward motion, given the hard intrusion of the steering wheel. But I didn’t care. I buried my face against his shoulder. Clung to him like a child. And sobbed because my parents had given everything to save my life and I’d been furious at them for doing so.
“Shhhh,” he was saying over and over again.
“Dori is dead because of me.”
“Shhhhhhh.”
“And my mother and father. And five other girls. And for what? What about me is so damn special? I can’t even hold down a job and my only friend is a dog.”
On cue, Bella whined anxiously from the backseat. I had forgotten about her. Now she bounded over the top of the seat to get to the front. I could feel her pawing at my leg. Bobby didn’t push her away. He just murmured more low words of comfort. I could feel the strength of his arms around me. The hard band of his muscles.
It made me a little crazy. That he could feel so real, so strong, when I felt as if everything in my life was disintegrating, torn into shreds and drifting away like confetti. And I was grateful at that moment that we were in a car, parked along a busy freeway, because if we’d been at my apartment, I would’ve stripped him naked. I would’ve removed every piece of his clothing, bit by bit, just so I could touch his skin, run my tongue along the ridges of his stomach, taste the salt of my own tears upon his chest, because I needed so badly to outrun my own thoughts, to feel only the intensity of one frantic moment, to feel alive.
Amy Marie Grayson. Amy. Marie. Grayson.
Oh Dori, I am so sorry. Oh Dori.
Bobby kissed me. Tilted up my chin, covered my lips with his own. And it was so gentle, so giving, that it made me cry all over again, until I took his hand and pressed it against my breast, hard, because I didn’t want to feel like glass and I didn’t want him viewing me as someone who would break.
Amy Marie Grayson. Whose uncle had destroyed her entire family.
And found her again last night.
I pulled away, hitting my elbow on the steering wheel. Bella whined again. I slid from Bobby’s lap, back onto the seat, and pulled Bella close.
Bobby didn’t try to stop me. Didn’t say a word. I could hear him breathing heavily.
I scrubbed at my cheeks. Bella helped with a few enthusiastic licks.
“I should get back to work,” I said brusquely.
Bobby regarded me strangely. “Doing what?”
“I have a project due. Back Bay. My client is g
oing to wonder.”
Bobby stared at me. “Annabelle … Amy? Annabelle.”
“Annabelle. I just … I’m used … Annabelle.”
“Annabelle, you need to find a new apartment.”
“Why?”
Arched brow. “Well, for starters, a crazy man knows you live there.”
“Crazy man isn’t exactly a spring chicken. And I’m not easy pickings.”
“You’re not thinking straight—”
“You are not my father!”
“Whoa, back up. Despite my, um, obvious personal interest”—he plucked at his trousers, which had tented nicely—“I’m still a state detective. We get training in these things. For example, when an obsessed stalker homes in on a target, bad things are bound to happen. This Tommy—or whatever he goes by these days—has obviously figured out you’re alive and well in the North End. He’s spent the past twenty-four hours breaking into a police officer’s home, arranging an ambush with four attack dogs, and delivering a token of his affection to your front door. In other words, this is not someone you want to mess with. Give us a day or two. Stay in a hotel, keep your head down. There’s a difference between playing safe and running scared.”
“A hotel won’t let me have Bella,” I said stubbornly, and tightened my arms around my dog.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake … There are dog-friendly establishments. Let me make some calls.”
“I gotta work, you know. I can’t pay my bills on charm alone.”
“Then take your sewing machine.”
“I’ll also need fabric, my computer, trim pieces, designs—”
“I’ll help you load up.”
I scowled at him for no good reason, then pressed my head against Bella’s fur. “I want it over,” I confessed.
His look finally softened. “I know.”
“I don’t want to be Amy,” I murmured. “Being Annabelle is hard enough.”
Bobby drove me to my apartment. I got out of the car, just in time to hear a honk. I turned, Bella barked furiously.
Up the street lumbered a giant UPS truck, Ben, my aging knight, aboard his faithful brown steed. He slowed, eyeing me and Bella anxiously. I gave him the thumbs-up, and with a solemn nod he continued on.
“See,” I told Bobby. “I could, too, stay in my apartment. With an overnight delivery service on my side, who needs the state police?”
Bobby didn’t seem amused.
He walked Bella and me upstairs. Someone, the techs, a detective, I don’t know, had made some kind of attempt to restore things to their proper place. My apartment had a rumpled look but was otherwise okay.
“Give me an hour,” Bobby said. “Two at the most. I need to follow up on a few inquiries, get a couple of things in order—”
“You need to find Tommy,” I said. “And tell D.D. to stop suspecting my poor dead father.”
Bobby narrowed his eyes at me but didn’t push. “I’ll give you a buzz when I’m on my way.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
“Pack for a week, just to be safe. I can always pick up something if you forget.”
“Really? Like my favorite lacy black bra? A highly necessary hot pink thong?”
His eyes heated dangerously. “Sweetheart, I’d be happy to rifle your underwear drawer. But bear in mind, it might be a uniformed officer who ends up taking the call.”
“Oh.” I shrugged. “Guess I can pack my own panties, then.”
“Take what you need, Annabelle. We can fill the whole car if you’d like.”
“Won’t be necessary. I happen to be an expert on traveling light.”
My attempt at bravado didn’t fool him for a moment. He crossed over, grabbed me before I could protest, kissed me hard.
“Two hours,” he repeated. “Tops.”
Then he was gone.
Bella cried like a baby at the door. I simply wondered how a grown woman could feel so vulnerable inside her own home.
Bobby started working his cell phone the minute he hit his car. He had names, now he wanted information. He started with D.D. but got her voice mail. Ditto with Sinkus.
After a brief internal war, Bobby made his decision. Boston PD was maxed out and he needed information fast. Well, hell, he worked for the state, didn’t he? He called in a favor with one of his old buddies and got the ball rolling.
He needed to know everything there was to know about A, Tommy Grayson; B, Roger Grayson; C, Lucille Grayson; and D, E, and F, almost as afterthoughts, Gregory Badington, Paul Schuepp, and Walter Petracelli. That’d keep the wheels churning for a bit.
If Schuepp’s story was correct, the person stalking Annabelle was most likely her uncle, Tommy Grayson. And it made the most sense that the person who was stalking Annabelle was the same person who had murdered Dori Petracelli and buried her remains in Mattapan.
Which meant that Tommy Grayson had made it from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts.
Then what?
Tommy knew Annabelle’s family had fled. If he’d followed them from Philly to Arlington, it made sense that he’d follow them again. Unlike Christopher Eola, Tommy wasn’t independently wealthy. Which meant if he’d continued stalking Annabelle’s family, then he’d faced basic logistical concerns. How to earn money for rent and transportation. How to find a new job in a new city every few years. Probably meant he’d done some form of menial employment. Schuepp had mentioned Tommy working as a bouncer in Philly. That was the type of work easy to pick up on the fly. They needed to distribute Tommy’s picture to the law enforcement agencies in each city, with recommendations to distribute it to local bars. Perhaps they could pinpoint Tommy’s movements, establish a time line for his travels.
Except how did Tommy find Annabelle’s family each time? According to Schuepp, Annabelle’s father was smart: He’d learned quickly from his mistakes. Yet, as a general rule, the family moved every eighteen months to two years.
Proactive measures on the part of Annabelle’s father? Minute word of a missing kid hit the news, he got spooked and packed up his whole family. Or was Tommy that brilliant?
Bobby wanted to know more about Tommy. And Annabelle’s father.
Naturally, the good parking spaces at Boston PD were taken. Bobby looped around four times, finally got lucky as someone pulled out. He tucked in, still deeply lost in his own thoughts as he locked up the Crown Vic and headed inside the building.
First thing he noticed when he made it through the glass doors into Homicide was the silence. The receptionist, Gretchen, was staring blankly at her computer screen. A couple of other guys sat at their desks, moving around paperwork, looking subdued.
He tapped the counter in front of Gretchen. She finally looked up.
“What?” he asked softly.
“Tony Rock’s mom,” the receptionist whispered back.
“Ah jeez.”
“He called in about thirty minutes ago. He didn’t sound good at all. Sergeant Warren’s been trying to reach him since, but he’s not answering his phone.”
“Ah no.”
“Probably just needs some time.”
“Sure. That stinks. When you find out about the memorial service …”
“I’ll let everyone know,” Gretchen promised.
Bobby nodded his thanks and headed straight for D.D.’s office. She was on the phone but held up one finger when she saw him. He leaned against the doorjamb, listening to one side of a conversation that mostly consisted of “Yes, mmmhmmm, that’s right.” Must be talking to the brass.
Bobby rested his shoulder against the wooden frame. All of sudden, he felt exhausted. The stakeout in the woods. D.D. pinned to the ground, being mauled by a giant Rottweiler. Realizing she was okay, calling Annabelle, only to hear her frightened voice over the phone. Another mad dash across town, wondering what he would find, worrying he would be too late.
Was this how Annabelle’s father had felt, once upon a time? As if life was spinning out of his control? As if he could see the train coming but couldn’t ge
t off the tracks?
Christ, he needed a good night’s sleep.
D.D. finally hung up the phone. “Sorry about that,” she said curtly. “Rock’s—”
“Already heard.”
“Naturally, he’ll be out for a few days.”
“ ’Course.”
“Meaning …”
“Hey, hard work is good for us. Builds character.”
“So,” she said.
“So Russell Granger’s real name is Roger Grayson. He, his wife—Lucille Grayson—and their newborn daughter, Amy Grayson, were stalked by Roger’s deranged brother, Tommy Grayson, while living in Philadelphia. Roger believed Tommy went so far as to murder Lucy’s parents one afternoon when they took Amy to the park. Shortly thereafter, Roger made arrangements to move his entire family to Arlington and live under the assumed name Granger. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how to get fake ID, so all financial records remained under their original identities. According to Paul Schuepp, former head of mathematics at MIT, Roger became convinced in ’82 that Tommy had found them. That’s when he arranged for the family to run a second time, this time doing the job right.”
“Holy crap,” D.D. said.
“Got a friend running down Roger’s name, Lucille’s name, Tommy’s name, and a few others. Tommy has a criminal history, so it should be in the system. Million-dollar question is, once Tommy realized Annabelle’s family had slipped away from him, did he hang in Massachusetts or hit the road? Oh, and where is he now?”
D.D. rubbed her temples. “Our prime suspect is Tommy Grayson?”
“Yeah. Sorry to disappoint you, but I think Annabelle’s father is dead.”
“But the whole posing as an FBI agent—”
“Russell made the same connection we did—that Catherine looked remarkably like Annabelle. He worried the attack on Catherine was Tommy’s work. Given his desire to remain under the radar, he couldn’t go to the police, so he handled the matter himself.”
“But Tommy wasn’t Catherine’s attacker.”
“No, Catherine’s resemblance to Annabelle is pure coincidence. Umbrio’s methodology, however, probably inspired Tommy’s use of an underground chamber two years later. So the cases have a relationship, but a distant one.”
