CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 22

Brooke heard a gasp on the other end of the wireless call. "What? Marilee knows? Oh my God, I can't believe it!" Elyse Carelli's voice cracked. "For the love of God, where is she?"

Glancing at her daughter, who seemed to want to melt into the floorboards, Brooke said, "Allison may be with a cousin."

"What? A cousin? No way? Like Diane?" Elyse's voice faded, as if she'd turned away from the phone. "Tony!" she yelled. "Tony! Get the hell in here! Marilee Harmon says Allison is with Diane."

"What?" a male voice said faintly. Then, more clearly, "Diane? Are you shittin' me? We talked to her! That little liar—"

"No!" Marilee cut in, shaking her head violently as she heard the conversation. "It's . . . it's . . . a guy cousin, I think. And that's . . . that's all I know."

"Did you hear that?" Brooke asked. "Marilee said she thinks it's a male cousin."

"Yeah, but she doesn't have any boy cousins. All girls . . ." Elyse muttered, her voice drifting off. "Oh fuck, is she talking about Robert?" she said on a gasp. "Holy shit! Tony! We need to check with Robert ASAP—no, better yet, go there! You drive over there. Just show the fuck up! That little son of a—oooh!"

Marilee slunk down further in her seat.

"And Allison. Why would she do this to us?" Elyse's voice was clogged, as if she were fighting sobs. "Why would she put us through this? I thought . . . I mean I was almost sure that she was . . . that I would never see her again!"

"Tell them everything you know," Brooke instructed her daughter as she put the phone on speaker.

Haltingly, shooting daggers at her mother with her eyes, Marilee repeated what she'd told Brooke a few minutes earlier amid gasps and expletives from the other side of the connection. She heard Tony say, "I'm going over there right now!" just before a door slammed, while Elyse started crying in earnest.

By the time the call was over, Marilee, pale as death, cowered against the window, where her heart drawing was disappearing. "Can we just go now?"

"I guess." Brooke put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb.

"And I can still see Nick?"

"I can't believe your priorities! Allison has been missing for what? How many days?"

"I don't know."

"And you—"

"But—" Marilee's big eyes were round, pleading.

"Once we straighten a few other things out, we'll talk about you seeing Nick."

"You promised," Marilee charged.

"I haven't forgotten. Now, who else knows about this—about Allison?" she asked, still squinting; the rain wasn't letting up and the windshield was immediately awash again.

"Just me and a couple of other friends. Zuri and Katie Chen."

"And Nick?" Brooke prodded, seeing her daughter in a new light. Gone was the innocent girl and in her place was a scheming, sullen teenager.

How many other things had Marilee lied about? She prayed there was nothing as monumental or catastrophic as this.

When they reached the house Brooke noted that every light shone from the windows, the porch lamp illuminating the arch of the porch, where one of the rocking chairs was moving slowly back and forth, though no one was sitting on it.

Was it swaying because someone had just been rocking?

Was there something on the cushion? A red splotch against the yellow twill? Brooke squinted.

"Weird," Marilee said, noticing the chair as well.

"Maybe your dad was on the porch waiting for us." Brooke turned into the drive.

"And then he saw your car and went inside?" Marilee looked directly at her for the first time since getting into the Explorer. "I don't think so."

Neither did Brooke.

"Like I said, ‘weird.'" Marilee glanced back to the front of the vehicle. "Oh shit!" she yelled. "Mom! Watch out!"

"What!" Brooke stood on the brakes.

The SUV skidded on the wet pavement.

From the corner of her eye Brooke caught sight of a shadow darting past.

The Explorer jolted to a stop, headlights glowing in the downpour.

Through the watery glass she saw something indistinct—someone? A dark figure?—scurrying around the corner of the garage.

"What the hell was that?" she whispered, her heart clamoring, her pulse jumping as she pounded on the button to open the garage door.

"I don't know." Marilee's voice was weak, her eyes round.

Loudly, the garage door clambered up, the light switching on, illuminating the surrounding area.

No one was visible in the apron of light.

"You saw that, right?" Brooke asked.

"I saw something. Or someone."

Pulse pounding, Brooke drove the Ford into its bay. "Go into the house," she ordered, then switched off the engine and was out of the SUV in an instant. "Close the garage door. Lock it!"

Running, she rounded the corner to the backyard and to the short fence where she'd seen whatever it was disappear. The gate was ajar and she slipped through, squinting against the rain as she scanned the uneven yard, the grass in tufts, the old broken fountain. But no movement. No dark figure scuttling near the fence line or around the corner of the house.

Something rustled in the shrubs near the deck and she whirled to face the noise, only to spy a shaggy raccoon squeezing beneath the fence.

Above, on the deck, the French doors flew open. "Mom!" Marilee ran across the deck, her footsteps overhead quick and light. She leaned over the rail. "Is Shep with you?"

Brooke held up a hand to shield her eyes from the rain. "What? Shep? No!" She was shaking her head, feeling cold drops on her cheeks as she squinted upward.

"He's not in the house."

"No. He's not in the yard," she said nervously. "Look again. He probably got locked in a closet or something."

"Wouldn't he bark?"

Yes."I don't know."

But a new fear was growing within Brooke.

"I'm telling you, he's not here!" Marilee's voice was high and panicked.

"He's got to be!"

This couldn't be happening; she couldn't lose her kid and her dog in one night!

Leah appeared on the deck next to Marilee. She held a jacket over her head and looked frantic. "I swear, Shep was here earlier. I saw him, but now we can't find him."

"No one let him out?" Why? Why was the dog missing? Brooke scanned the yard again. Dawn was breaking, the cloud-covered sky offering some pale illumination, rain pouring and running noisily down the gutters. "You're sure?"

"Yes!" Marilee yelled, obviously near tears again.

"Okay, okay! Let's not panic," she said, though she already felt her pulse quickening. "I'll check out here."

She saw Leah try to urge Marilee inside, but the girl remained at the rail, her head swiveling slowly as her eyes searched the sodden shrubbery and lawn.

"Shep!" Marilee yelled. "Shep. Come!"

Brooke too walked the perimeter and called for the dog. Using the flashlight app on her phone, she scoured the dripping rhododendrons and hydrangeas, then searched through a hedgerow of arborvitae and a small pile of forgotten pots near the corner of the house. "Shep!"

But no wet, bedraggled dog lumbered out from a hiding spot. As she traveled along the fence line, rain running down her neck, her shoes sinking into the bark dust, mud, and weeds, she saw no sign of him.

The gate to the alley where they kept their garbage cans was unlatched and hanging open.

Why?

They never unlocked it.

This was wrong. "Shep!" she yelled as she stepped into the alley, her voice ringing down the empty lane. "Damn it." Then, more loudly, "Shep! Come, boy!"

A startled, bedraggled cat leaped from a trash bin to run along the fence before climbing into the overhanging branches of the neighbor's lilac tree.

But there was no sign of their shaggy retriever.

First the kid went missing.

Now the dog.

Could the morning get any worse?

The answer was yes.

Because she saw him then.

Through the pouring rain.

Standing at the end of the alley.

Dressed in black leathers.

His motorcycle parked near a neighbor's garage.

Gideon stared at her for a long moment, then climbed onto his bike and with one searing look over his shoulder, kick-started the engine.

With a roar, he tore out.

"You bastard! You sick, sick son of a bitch!" She kicked at a rock in the driveway and sent it reeling into the hedge. Her hands clenched into fists and if she saw him now, she swore, she'd kill him. Why, for the love of God, was he tormenting her and terrorizing her family?

Thoughts of how he'd targeted, stalked, and taunted her spun through her mind, memories rotating sharply, cutting into her brain.

He'd been at the school posing as a security guard.

He'd been in her house riffling through her drawers, leaving the bracelet, stealing her underwear.

He knew the name of Marilee's boyfriend.

That she would be at the dance.

That Brooke would be at the dance.

In fact, he knew more about her and the family than she'd ever divulged.

How?

Not by a tracking device on her car. Neal had claimed that awful little bug as his own and she'd seen the information about it on his computer. So how had Gideon known where she was? How did he know what was going on in the family?

And where the hell was Shep?

Angrily, she left the gate open on the off chance that the dog returned on his own, then crossed the yard, swept the rain from her face, and mounted the steps to the deck. Pausing at the birdhouse, she decided to destroy the remainder of her cigarettes—no smoking now that she was pregnant. She reached inside and crushed the pack out of frustration and then remembered the bracelet.

She'd left it in here earlier, but now, as her fingers explored the inside of the little house, she touched something else: not metal and stones but something wet and soft and squishy and—

She pulled out her hand as if she'd been burned.

Her fingertips were red.

Blood!

What?

Looking into the birdhouse, she saw the dead rat, its nasty little teeth visible and tinged red beneath scraggly whiskers, its eyes dull, its fur matted, its long, naked tail curved to fit into the recess.

"Oh." She recoiled.

Bit back a scream.

"Oh . . . oh . . . no." She backed up, sick to her stomach, horror curdling her insides. Bile climbed up her throat and it was all she could do not to retch.

"You fucking bastard," she said, her skin crawling, her stomach convulsing as she clung to the deck rail and stared in horror at her bloodstained fingers. No, no no! What kind of a sicko would kill a rat and leave its carcass where she was certain to find it? She thought of her dog and closed her eyes at the thought of what Gideon might do to the retriever.

Don't even go there!

Even he wouldn't hurt the goofy, loving dog.

But the image of the dead rat with its slimy, wet fur superimposed itself over her mental picture of Shep.

It was all she could do not to scream.