CHAPTER 40 - Molly

CHAPTER 40MollyI’M CURLED UP ON MY BED AT CORRINE’S. SHE ASKED ME IF I WANTED to come out and eat dinner, but I don’t. My stomach is in knots. When we drove up to the apartment, several news vans were parked at the curb. Have they finally started putting the pieces together? Thank God, there’s a gated parking lot, and they couldn’t follow us.I flip on the TV just to block out the hum of Corrine and Rich’s conversation in the other room.An entertainment news show starts. After upbeat bumper music plays, the news anchor comes on. She’s smiling broadly, and her slick blond bob glistens under studio lights. My picture, a small square in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, appears, and my heart pounds. There has been coverage on the local news of Jay’s murder and the woman found at the mountain house, but nothing national so far that I’ve seen until now.The anchor’s red lips part.“Melinda Wright Bradley is no stranger to tragedy. On Sunday, January fifth, someone broke into her Massachusetts home and brutally murdered her husband, psychologist Jay Bradley, while Melinda slept upstairs. But that’s not the first catastrophe to befall this hard-luck beauty. In 1991, the nation fell in love with little red-haired Melinda when she, along with neighbor India Arndt, disappeared from the Arndt backyard in upstate New York. After a three-day search, the girls were located in the cellar of an abandoned farmhouse, where they had been brutally assaulted by a disturbed teenager. Unfortunately, little India did not survive her ordeal.“And now, if things weren’t bad enough for Melinda, the body of a missing New Hampshire woman has been found on property owned by her late husband. Authorities are working to establish a connection between the woman’s murder and that of Dr. Bradley—”Corrine strides into the room and turns off the TV.I’m stunned and lie on the bed like a dead thing, feeling nothing. My phone is ringing, texts chiming. Everybody knows now, and I’ve got nowhere to hide.