Don't Scream

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “Where are you going?”

  “To take a shower.”

  “I thought we were going out for Italian.”

  “We are. I want to get cleaned up first.”

  “Good, then I can catch the beginning of the Red Sox game.”

  His secret admirer suspicions apparently forgotten, Alec heads for her living room and the portable TV that is perched almost as an afterthought on an end table.

  Before Alec came along, it was barely used. When she wasn’t working around the clock on her medical residency in pediatrics, Cassie was content to spend her meager free time riding her beloved horse, Marshmallow, boarded at a nearby barn.

  Or, of course, catching up on much-needed sleep.

  Alec, who will be bringing his 42-inch plasma screen television when he moves into her condo after their November wedding, is a televised-sports fanatic. Most of the time, that’s fine with Cassie. He’s a successful podiatrist who has a lot more time on his hands than she does. Television keeps him busy while she’s finishing her last year of residency at the hospital in Danbury.

  Almost one more year to go on that…and less than three months now until they walk down the aisle. If Cassie had her way, the nuptials would wait until next fall. But Alec is anxious to wed—an unusual quality in most men she’s encountered.

  He sounds too good to be true—for God’s sake, don’t let him get away, Tildy advised last spring after he proposed, when Cassie confessed her ambiguity about getting married so soon.

  Tildy.

  Cassie has to call her right away.

  In the white-carpeted master bedroom, she closes the door behind her, and, after a moment’s hesitation, presses the knob button to lock it. Not that she expects Alec to barge in; he respects her privacy.

  The bedroom is shadowy. She left the blinds drawn this morning in her haste to get to the hospital for early rounds. She debates opening them now to let in some late-day sun, but decides against it. It’ll be dark outside in an hour or so—and they’re leaving the house anyway.

  She does turn on a lamp, but oddly the splash of light does little to warm the room.

  As Cassie hangs her tote bag on the white iron bedpost, she glances from the sunny yellow and white patchwork quilt to her framed art posters to the antique bookcase brimming with well-worn childhood favorites.

  Why does she feel so skittish in her own room, among familiar belongings?

  Because I’m scared, that’s why.

  Finding that card in the mail—like she needed a reminder that today is September 7th—has put all sorts of crazy thoughts into her head.

  Now, as she takes the cordless phone from its cradle on the nightstand, she finds herself looking over her shoulder, almost as if…

  As if someone might be here with her, watching her?

  Yeah, right. She’s alone in the bedroom, and Alec is way on the opposite end of the condo.

  You’re not thinking about Alec, are you? You’re thinking about some nameless, faceless stranger.

  Someone who knows…

  What nobody can possibly know.

  Unless one of the others told.

  But we swore each other to secrecy.

  Cassie refuses to consider that any one of her friends—her sisters—could possibly have broken that solemn vow made a decade ago tonight.

  Yes, just as she refuses, absolutely refuses, to check under the bed and behind the slats in the louvered closet door.

  Frightened little girls do things like that. Especially frightened little girls whose big brothers warn them incessantly about the lurking bogeyman.

  But Cassie’s a grown woman now—a doctor, for God’s sake.

  Shaking her head at her folly, she takes the phone into the bathroom and closes that door, too. Then, just to be safe, she turns on the shower. The sound of the water will drown out her voice, should her fiancé decide to eavesdrop.

  Which he won’t. Alec will be safely ensconced in front of the Red Sox game for however long she takes to get ready for dinner.

  She presses the familiar series of touch-tone numbers. The phone rings once on the other end, and again. And then again.

  Come on, pick up, Tildy…Where are you?

  The machine picks up with a lengthy greeting. Not surprising. Tildy always did like to hear herself talk.

  Waiting for the outgoing message to give way to a beep, Cassie gazes into the mirror above the sink. She looks the same as she always does at the end of a workday: a touch of makeup to accentuate her fine bone structure and mocha complexion, her hair in neat cornrows that hang well below her shoulders, her only jewelry a pair of simple gold post earrings, and, of course, her diamond engagement ring.

  Her mahogany eyes are different tonight, though.

  I look like I’ve just seen the bogeyman, she notes, staring at herself as the fog from the shower rolls in from the edges of the mirror.

  Or maybe, I’ve just heard from him.

  “Hey, it’s Cassie…Listen, you need to call me, please, as soon as you get this message. I have to talk to you…”

  Matilda Harrington quickly presses a button on the answering machine.

  “Message…deleted…” a computerized voice informs her.

  Tildy turns and walks briskly from the den, an alcove on one end of the living room, toward the back of the town house.

  Her eyes shift briefly, as always, to the gilt-framed oil painting in the hall.

  The only formal Harrington family portrait that was ever done—or ever will be. The canvas is illuminated from the arc of gallery lighting positioned directly above. It casts the four faces—father, mother, daughter, son—in a soft, almost ethereal glow.

  Tildy has a vague memory of sitting for the portrait at her family’s Beacon Hill mansion, where Daddy still lives.

  She remembers how little baby Jonathan kept spitting up as usual, and her mother had to repeatedly hand him to the nanny to be cleaned up.

  And how she got to sit on her father’s knee for hours, and how the artist commented that she was such a good little girl, never fidgeting or complaining.

  Tildy’s mother said something like, “Oh, Daddy’s Little Girl would be content to just sit there on his lap forever.”

  She sounded somewhat wistful about that, Tildy remembers. For a long time afterward, she thought that must have been because Mother regretted that Daddy was usually much too busy with his real estate empire to spend much time with his family.

  But later—much later, years after the plane crash that killed Mother and Jonathan—Daddy mentioned that her mother was often jealous.

  “She always thought you loved me more than you loved her, Matilda.”

  That’s because I did, Tildy thought matter-of-factly, and without guilt.

  Distraught as she was to lose her mother and baby brother so suddenly and violently, she remembers how relieved she was that it wasn’t Jason Harrington who died that awful night.

  Daddy was her favorite, the one she always worried about; the one who traveled all over the world on business, usually on his private jet.

  Ironic, then, that it was Mother and Jonathan who were killed, along with Daddy’s pilot, when the jet went down in a snowstorm near Baltimore. That night, Tildy was back home in Beacon Hill with Lena, her nanny; Daddy was at a business dinner with his protégé and closest friend, Tildy’s godfather, Troy Allerson.

  It wasn’t even snowing in Boston that night. Tildy’s biggest worries were that she’d lose a hand of Old Maid to Lena, and that her father wouldn’t make it back home in time to tuck her in, though he’d promised he’d try.

  But she wasn’t worried about her mother and brother, even though she knew little Jonathan was very sick with some kind of degenerative disease. That was nothing new; he had been ailing since birth. Her mother took him to specialists all over the country; they were on their way to Johns Hopkins on that particular trip.

  Tildy won Old Maid. She always did. She didn’t realize back then that Lena always le
t her win.

  But Daddy never made it home to tuck her in.

  She woke, late, to find him sitting on her bed in her darkened room, sobbing. He held her close and he told her that Mother and Jonathan were gone. He promised her that he would always take care of her.

  “But you’re never home, Daddy,” Tildy cried.

  “That will change now, baby. You’ll see.”

  And it did.

  Daddy’s Girl. That’s Matilda Harrington, to this day.

  The heels of her Dior pumps click across the hardwood floor of the hall and into the dining room, where they encounter the antique area rug that once belonged to French royalty, and then to American royalty. It had been passed down through the Kennedy family, and one of the cousins gave it to Daddy, who later agreed that it would look beautiful in Tildy’s dining room.

  The swinging door to the kitchen is propped open, as always, with a cast iron pineapple-shaped doorstop, also antique. Troy bought it at auction and gave it to her as a housewarming gift.

  “A pineapple?” she asked dubiously.

  Troy told her that in Colonial times, wealthy hostesses kept their dining room doors closed so their guests could only anticipate the luscious food being prepared in the kitchen. When the elaborate, sumptuous platters were ceremoniously presented—topped with precious, expensive pineapples—the guests were duly impressed.

  Now, according to Troy, the fruit symbolizes elegant hospitality.

  Tildy decided it would be ironically fitting to use the doorstop in her own dining room—where, incidentally, the door to the kitchen is always kept open. She doesn’t cook, though she did just install professional-grade chef’s appliances.

  A few more tapping footsteps across the newly lain stone floor of the just renovated—and yet-to-be-used—kitchen, and Tildy reaches the rear French door.

  As she emerges into the twilight, she notes that the night is warm, much too warm to light the living room fireplace.

  She hesitates on the brick patio, gazing across the small, stockade-fenced yard toward the woodpile in the far corner neatly covered by a blue tarp. She could lay a small fire—just a couple of logs and some kindling.

  But what if one of her Back Bay neighbors smells the wood smoke and asks her about it?

  So what? That’s not going to prove anything.

  Still…better to avoid the slightest chance of arousing suspicion.

  Tildy returns to the kitchen. This is her favorite room in the Victorian-era Commonwealth Avenue town house, which she’s spent three years renovating from top to bottom. She spared no expense, and barely put a dent in her trust fund, as she pointed out to Daddy when he mentioned that she’ll never get back out of the house what she’s put into it.

  “Who says I’m selling it?” she retorted.

  “You will when you meet someone and settle down.”

  “I am settled,” she informed him, neglecting to add that she’s already met someone.

  Pacing, she considers her next move—even as she appreciates the aesthetics of the recently completed room.

  The stunning floor is made of flat stone imported from Provence; the countertops are gray granite, the sleek new appliances stainless and black. The only splash of color in the monochromatic room is the bouquet of red tulips in a vase beside the stainless steel double sink.

  Tulips. Out of season, and as out of place in her cool modern decor as that loser Ray Wilmington is in her life. But he can’t seem to take a hint.

  “Did you get my flowers?” he asked this morning, showing up beside her desk at the nonprofit organization where they both work—Tildy, because it’s something to do and the minuscule salary is inconsequential; Ray, because he fervently believes in the cause.

  “Yes, I got them, thank you.” She offered a brief, closed-lip smile.

  “I saw those red tulips and of course I thought of you.”

  She couldn’t help but wonder why. She’s not Dutch, she never wears red, and, anyway, what business does he have thinking of her?

  She never thinks of him.

  That is, she never thought of him until the flowers arrived.

  Well, she can fix that.

  With a haughty toss of her flaxen hair, she marches over to the counter, wraps a fist around the red petals, and pulls the flowers from their vase. Turning on the faucet and the garbage disposal, she feeds the tulips down the sink drain stem by stem, satisfied by the subterranean rumbling as they’re devoured.

  Then she grabs the vase—stock florist-shop glass, not even crystal—and deposits it into the empty rolling garbage bin concealed behind a white cabinet door. It makes a satisfying shattering sound as it smashes against the bottom.

  Perfect.

  Now that all reminders of Ray Wilmington have been obliterated from her house, she can focus again on the matter at hand.

  She turns the front burner of the gas stove on HIGH, producing a satisfying orange-blue flame. Then she takes wood-handled barbecue tongs from a drawer.

  She reaches into the pocket of her navy blazer, which, according to dorky Ray, exactly matches her eyes. Can’t argue with that.

  And she didn’t.

  Compliments, she’ll accept.

  She removes from her pocket the envelope she took out of her mailbox when she got home, and, after a moment’s thought, opens the flap. She wants to give the card a final once-over.

  It’s as generic as a greeting card can get: a cluster of primary-colored balloons against a white background beneath the words “Happy Birthday” in gold script.

  Inside, letters clipped from newspaper headlines spell out the words “TO ME,” and beneath that, “XOXOXOXO, R.”

  She signed everything that way.

  It stood for “Hugs and Kisses, Rachel.”

  Oh, hell…

  Tildy might have known this could happen—that the dark secret from her past could resurface someday.

  But when year after year went by, the memory of that night fading like a photo left out in the sun, she pushed the possibility from her mind with increasing ease.

  Okay, Rachel…So you’ve come back to haunt me.

  Well, guess what? I don’t get spooked that easily.

  The tongs steady in her hand, Tildy extends the card over the open flame and thoughtfully watches it burn.

  CHAPTER 2

  Just minutes ago, Brynn was lamenting the fact that Thursday is Garth’s late night on campus; he has a class until nine o’clock and often stays on campus for hours afterward, doing research in the library and his office there.

  A sociology professor whose concentration is the study of death and dying, he’s been working for a few years on a book. The den at home was littered with macabre research materials until recently. Brynn asked him to move it all to his campus office after she caught Caleb browsing through a gruesome book on the forensics of death.

  The downside of having Garth move most of his research away from home is that it takes him away, too.

  Too bad, Brynn was thinking just now, that her husband couldn’t be here to hear Caleb’s happy kindergarten chatter. As he plowed through his favorite meal of macaroni and cheese with ketchup, her older son regaled her with breathless details about snack time, potty time, lunchtime, nap time, construction-paper art time…

  Waiting to share a more adult meal with her husband later, Brynn sat with her children at the table in her pretty blue and yellow kitchen. She was multitasking as usual: listening to Caleb’s ongoing account of his first day, overseeing Jeremy in his booster seat, and opening the day’s mail.

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY…TO ME.

  XOXOXOXO, R

  She actually gasped aloud when she read it, dropping the card on the table like a red-hot coal. Then she snatched it up again…as if it mattered. Even if the boys could read cursive, they wouldn’t understand the seemingly innocuous message.

  Nor would Garth, if he stumbles across the card—which he won’t, because she plans to hide it, just as she’s hidden the dark truth ab
out Rachel all these years.

  “Mommy, what’s wrong?” Caleb asks as she reaches for the phone.

  She stammers some kind of reply, her thoughts reeling.

  Her hands shaking so badly she can barely hit the right buttons on the dial, she can only think thank God, thank God, thank God Garth isn’t here.

  Her husband doesn’t know what happened that night.

  Nobody knows.

  Nobody but her three sorority sisters who were there.

  Or so Brynn always tried to convince herself, despite the nagging memory of that twig snapping in the forest.

  Was somebody really spying on them?

  Did—does—somebody know?

  As Alec pulls into the parking lot of her condo complex after a quick dinner at Mama Rossi’s, Cassie cradles on her lap the still-warm foil-wrapped package that contains her barely touched lasagna.

  She’d have been content to leave it behind on the plate, but Alec insisted that she bring it back.

  “I’ll eat it later, baby,” he told her, “as a midnight snack.”

  Now she debates whether or not to tell him she’d rather be alone tonight. She could just come right out and say it—that she’s tired, and she has to be up early, and she’d rather he didn’t stay over.

  Then again, maybe she shouldn’t be alone. Maybe she’s too spooked by that card she got in the mail. Maybe she’d feel more comfortable with Alec there, just in case…

  Well, in case the bogeyman shows up.

  She smiles faintly, remembering how Marcus used to torment her with bogeyman tales when they were kids, still living at home.

  That was before they were both enrolled in fancy Connecticut boarding schools located well over an hour from their home in the city, and more than two hours from each other.

  She was eleven when her parents sent her away. After that, she saw them and her beloved big brother only on holiday breaks and the occasional long weekend.

  Summers were spent at sleepaway camp, which was fine with Cassie, actually. There were lots of horses at camp, and she would always rather ride than do anything else in the world.

  She still feels that way.

  “Alec,” she says abruptly, “I think you should sleep at your place tonight. I’ve got an early day tomorrow and…I’m just beat.”