"Secrets so vile can only wreck the lives of innocent people."
Reviewed by Sabrina Marino
Posted February 17, 2010
Suspense | Thriller
Lauren Walsh is grieving the death of her marriage,
battling the realization that her ex-husband has moved on
with another woman, and struggling to keep it together for
her three children who are all showing some signs of
divorce fallout. Congressman Garvey Quinn has his sights set on the White
House. He has prepared for the presidency since he was a
young man. His wife and his two daughters help paint the
perfect picture of a loving family man. Yet, Garvey has
secrets -- and secrets in politics are a dangerous thing. Elsa and Brett have moved several times, running from or
separating themselves from memories that cause extreme
pain. Years ago, someone stole their son from their yard.
They have never found him. Elsa seeks counseling and
together, Elsa and Brett have been paying a private
investigator for over 14 years in the hopes that some
thread of evidence of what happened will be found. They
just exist from day to day. When Lauren's daughter loses her stuffed animal in the New
York Train station and Lauren's ex-husband is asked to get
it from lost and found, a lack of care on his part results
in him claiming the wrong stuffed animal. This small
careless task causes a set of reactions to careen out of
control and place Lauren's children in grave danger. The
lack of communication between Lauren and her ex-husband
perpetuate the events of this error, and the horror that
follows leaves only tragedy in its wake.
Wendy Corsi Staub has created strong, emotionally
drawn characters who will sweep you up and draw you into
LIVE TO TELL. There is not a moment you will be able to put
this book down without thinking about what is going to
happen next. I thought the plot was deliciously written to
carry the thrilling story to the last sentence. Fantastic!
SUMMARY
New York Times bestselling author Wendy Corsi Staub takes
thriller writing to a new level with "Live to Tell", her
strongest book to date. Secrets can scandalize . . . In a lovely suburban town just north of New York City, the
gossip mill runs more efficiently than the commuter-train
line. And in every impeccably decorated house, they're
talking about Lauren Walsh. They say that nothing could be
worse than being abandoned by your husband for another
woman. They're wrong . . . Secrets can shock . . . All Lauren wants is to protect her children from the pain of
her messy divorce. But when their father goes missing, a
case of mistaken identity puts all their lives in danger,
and a stealthy predator lurks in the shadows, watching . . .
waiting . . . Secrets can kill . . . Lauren is about to uncover an unfathomable truth—a truth
this cold-blooded mastermind would never let her live to
tell . . .
ExcerptPROLOGUENew York City He lunges across Sixth Avenue mid-block and against the
light, leaving in his wake squealing brakes, honking horns,
angry curses through car windows. No need to look over his shoulder; he knows they’re back
there, closing in on him. Darting up the east side of Sixth, he blows through an
obstacle course of office workers on smoke breaks, tourists
walking four abreast, businessmen lined up at street food
carts. Ignoring the indignant shouts of jostled pedestrians,
he searches the urban landscape as he runs. July heat
radiates in waves from concrete and asphalt. Sweat soaks his
tee shirt. Just ahead, across Fortieth Street, he spots the subway
entrance. For a split second, he considers diving down the
stairs. If a train happens to be just pulling in, he can hop
on and lose them–at least for the time being. If there’s no train, he’ll be trapped like a rat in a
hole—unless he hoofs it through the dark tunnel and risks
being electrocuted by the third rail or flattened by an
oncoming express. No thanks. Nothing can happen to him. Not now. Not when the plan is
about to come to fruition. Not when sweet victory is so close he can taste it like
sugar. He races past the subway, his thoughts careening
through various scenarios of how the next few minutes of his
life might play out. They all end the same way: he’s
apprehended. Incarcerated. Even if he could possibly hide in midtown Manhattan in broad
daylight with the cops hot on his trail, it makes no sense
to try. The NYPD aren’t the only ones looking for him. At
least if he’s arrested, he’ll be safe–for now. But first, he has to stash the file where no one can
possibly stumble across it–and where he himself will easily
be able to retrieve it and resume his plan. When he’s free.
Where? Come on, think. Think! If only he had time to open a safe deposit box somewhere. If
only he could bury it like treasure, entrust it to a
stranger for safekeeping, throw it into an envelope
addressed to a trusted friend in a far-off place… Before all
this, he had a circle of confidantes. Now, he trusts no one
other than Mike. He tried to call his old friend yesterday, since he has a
vested interest in this thing. He did leave a message: “Mike, it’s me. Dude, I was right.
It’s bigger than I thought. I’ll be in touch.” Now that he’s had time to think things through, though, he’s
glad he didn’t reach Mike. Better not to drag him into this
dangerous game. He bounds across Fortieth and up the wide concrete steps
into Bryant Park, zigzagging northeast past dog walkers and
the carousel; past stroller-pushing nannies and office
workers eating lunch out of clear plastic deli containers.
Approaching the crowded outdoor dining patio of the Bryant
Park Cafe, he spots a commotion beside the entrance. A young
wife tries to soothe the screaming baby propped against her
shoulder as her agitated husband argues loudly with the
hostess about a reservation. The baby’s stroller is
abandoned in his path, a fuzzy pink stuffed animal lying on
the ground beside it. Seeing it, he’s struck by an idea–one that’s either so far
out there it’ll never work, or so far out there that it has
to work. There’s no time to sit around considering the odds. Rather than leap over the stuffed animal, he scoops it up as
he passes, hoping bystanders are too busy watching the
argument at the hostess stand to notice. He doesn’t bother
to look back, and nobody calls out after him as he
cannonballs down the wide concrete steps on the north side
of the park. Emerging onto West Forty-Second Street, he hurtles eastward,
passing the main branch of the library. He scoots across
Fifth Avenue amid hordes of pedestrians in the crosswalk,
then across East Forty-Second against the red Don’t Walk
sign. With the stuffed animal tucked under his right arm,
high against his chestlike a football, he sprints the
remaining block and a half to Grand Central Terminal. No one–not even the national guardsmen on patrol in this
post 9/11 era—gives him a second glance as he races at full
speed from the Vanderbilt entrance toward the cavernous Main
Concourse. Otherwise-civilized people zip pell-mell through
here all the time. The MTA conducts its Metro North commuter
line on a precise schedule; a few seconds’ delay might mean
waiting an hour to catch the next train to the northern
suburbs. It’s been awhile, yet he knows the layout of vast rail
station very well. Knows the location of the ticket counters
and subway ramps, the arched whispering gallery near the
Oyster Bar, the upper and lower level tracks, the Station
Master’s office, the food court, the Lost and Found… The
Lost and Found. Looking furtively over his shoulder, he spots a blue uniform
at the far end of the corridor. Changing direction, he veers
toward the steep bank of escalators leading to the subway
station below Grand Central, slowing his pace just enough to
be sure the cop has time to spot him. Then he skirts down
the left side of the escalator with the harried walkers,
past the line-up of riders holding the rubber rail along the
right. At the bottom, he hops the turnstile. Predictably, those
behind him protest loudly. He races through the familiar
network of corridors to an exit and a set of stairs leading
up to Grand Central Terminal again, closer to Lexington
Avenue. Again, he runs toward the main concourse, emerging
at last beneath the domed pale blue ceiling with its
celestial markings. He takes the stairs beneath the balcony back down to the
lower level, and then ducks into a doorway leading to an
empty track. Panting, huddled in the shadows against the wall, he turns
the stuffed animal over and over, looking for the most
unobtrusive spot. There. With his index finger, he probes at a seam in the synthetic
fur. The toy is well made; it takes a few moments before the
stitching gives way. He creates a small tear just wide
enough. Then he takes the memory stick from his wallet and
shoves it into the hole until it disappears into the
stuffing. Swiftly examining the toy, he convinces himself no
one could possibly discover the gap in the seam unless they
were looking for it. He tucks the animal under his arm again and scurries back
out into the station and down a short corridor to the Lost
and Found. “Can I help you, sir?” asks the middle-aged woman at the
service window, looking up from sorting through a labeled
bin marked February: Mittens and Gloves. Winded, he holds up the stuffed animal. “I just found this.”
She reaches for a pen. “Where? On a train?” “No … on the floor.” “Where on the floor?” “By the clock,” he improvises. She doesn’t ask which clock. In this terminal, “the clock”
means the antique timepiece with four luminescent opal faces
that sits atop the information booth, a meeting spot for
thousands of New Yorkers every day. “All right—“ She reaches for a form— “if you can fill this
out and—” “Sorry,” he cuts in, “but if I don’t catch the 4:39, my wife
is going to kill me.” “It’s only–“ He’s already out the door. He takes the stairs back up to the main concourse two at a
time. Nearby, at the base of the escalators leading up to
the Pan Am building, a transit cop scans the crowd while
speaking into a radio. A moment later, the cop spots him, and he knows it’s over.
For now. CHAPTER ONE Glenhaven Park, New York “MOMMY, HEEEEELLLLLLLLLPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Startled by her daughter’s scream, Lauren Walsh drops the
apple she was about to peel and bolts from the kitchen,
taking the paring knife with her, just in case. Sadie is in
the living room–in one piece, thank God, and sitting on the
couch in front of the television, right where Lauren left
her about two minutes ago. Tears stream down her face. “What’s wrong, sweetie? What happened?” “Fred! Fred’s gone!” She immediately grasps the situation, seeing the contents of
Sadie’s little Vera Bradley tote dumped on the couch beside
her: a sticker album and stickers, a couple of Mardi Gras
necklaces, a feather boa, and the pack of Juicyfruit Lauren
bought her at Hudson News right before they got on the
train. So there’s no intruder to fight off with a paring
knife. She loosens her grasp on the handle, the notion of
using it as a weapon suddenly seeming laughable. Almost laughable, anyway. Lauren has never been the kind of woman who checked the
closets and under the bed. She spent dauntless years on her
own, single in the city, before she met Nick. But this is different. Living alone with a preschooler in a
sprawling Victorian while the older kids are gone at
sleepaway camp and their dad is–well, gone–has bred a
certain degree of paranoia, no doubt about it. “Mommy, find Fred!” Sadie’s cherubic face is stricken, her
green eyes filled with tears. Before Nick moved out last winter, Fred was just another
stuffed animal on Sadie’s shelf. Someone brought it to the
hospital back when Sadie was born, with a mylar It’s A Girl
balloon tied to its wrist. When Nick left, all three of the kids developed strange new
habits. Ryan took to biting his nails. Lucy pulled out her
eyelashes. Poor little Sadie, already a notoriously fussy
eater, now lives on white bread, peanut butter, and the
occasional sliced apple. She also regressed to thumb sucking
and pants-wetting, and started dragging the pink plush
rabbit, newly christened Fred, everywhere she went. Which wasn’t much of anywhere until recently, because Lauren
couldn’t bring herself to leave the house most days. She
felt as if the whole town was talking about her husband
leaving her for another woman. Probably because they really were talking about it. In a
tiny suburban hamlet like Glenhaven Park, the gossip mill
runs as efficiently as the commuter train line. “Mommy.” “It’s okay, Sadie. Where’s Chauncey? Maybe he took Fred.”
God knows their border collie has been known to steal a
fuzzy slipper or two—which is why he hasn’t been allowed
upstairs in the bedrooms in years. “No, Fred wasn’t in my bag. He didn’t come into the house
with me.” “Okay, so he’s probably in the car.” “Go look! Please!” Lauren is already headed for the kitchen to exchange the
paring knife for her keys, biting her tongue. It’s probably
not good parenting to say, “I told you so” to a four
year-old. But she did tell Sadie not to bring Fred with them
to the city today. And when she insisted, Lauren wanted to
carry the stuffed rabbit herself, worried Sadie would lose
it. Sadie protested so vehemently that it was simply easier
to give in. More bad parenting. And the fact that Lauren’s about to serve apple slices with
a side of peanut butter for dinner doesn’t exactly cancel it
out. But why bother cooking for two—one finicky preschooler
and one mom who lost her appetite, along with a lot of other
things, in the divorce drama. The screen door squeaks as Lauren steps out the back door
into the hot glare of late afternoon sun. The neighborhood
at this hour is so still she can hear the bumblebees lazing
in the coneflowers beside the small service porch. She could cut some of the purple and white blooms and bring
them inside. But again, why bother? It’s just her and Sadie. Why bother … why bother… So goes the depressing refrain. There was a time when she didn’t consider cooking or
gardening a bother at all. She remembers wandering around the yard with pruning shears
on summer days as Ryan and Lucy romped on the wooden play
set. She’d fill the house with a hodgepodge of colorful
flowers arranged in Depression-era tinted glass Ball jars
discovered on a cobwebby shelf in the basement. Then she’d
feed and bathe the kids early, letting them stay up just
long enough to greet Nick off the commuter train. He’d tell
her about his day as they shared a bottle of wine over a
home-cooked dinner for two, something decadent and cooked in
butter or smothered in melted cheese. That was before Nick became overly health conscious—which,
surprise, surprise, was not long before he left. But she doesn’t want to think about that. Nor does she necessarily want to think about the good old
days, but she can’t seem to help herself. It was on one of
those hot summer nights, Lauren recalls, that Sadie the Oops
Baby was conceived, after an unhealthy, fattening romantic
dinner laced with cabernet and Van Morrison. The pregnancy put on hold their plans to remodel the house.
They were going to expand the kitchen, add a mudroom,
replace the back stoop with a deck–something that wouldn’t
clash with the Queen Anne style. Nick was a big believer in
preservation of architectural integrity. Only when it came to marital integrity did he run into
trouble. They never did get around to remodeling. Now they never will. Lauren gazes up at the house–two stories, plus a large attic
beneath the steep, gabled roof. The clapboard façade, fish-scale shingles, and gingerbread
trim are done in period shades of ochre and brick red. The
classic Victorian design—tall, shuttered bay windows, a
cupola, and a spindled, wraparound porch—charmed her the
first time she laid eyes on it, years ago. Painted Lady Potential, proclaimed the ad in the Sunday
Times real estate section. She kept reading. It got better. Four bedroom, two bath fixer-upper in family neighborhood.
Eat-in kitchen, large, level yard, detached garage. Walk to
shops, train, schools. It was located, the Realtor told her when she called about
the ad, on Elm Street in Glenhaven Park. Elm
Street—evocative of leafy, small town charm. Elm
Street—where families live happily ever after. Sight unseen, Lauren was sold. Nick was not. “Nightmare on Elm Street,” he told Lauren.
“Ever see that movie?” She hadn’t. But lately, she’s been feeling as though she
lived it. How did she end up living alone in the house of their
dreams? She’ll never forget the day she and Nick first set
foot inside, looked at each other, and nodded. They knew.
They knew this house would become home. It—like the fact that they’d found each other, fallen in
love, gotten married—seemed too good to be true. They
marveled at the china doorknobs, gaslight fixtures,
cast-iron radiators, chair rails, and pocket doors; high
ceilings with crown molding; the ornate wooden staircase in
the entrance hall. There were even a couple of hidden
compartments where the nineteenth century owners had stashed
their valuables. Yes, the place needed work. So what? They were young and had
a lifetime ahead of them. Now Lauren wonders, as she often has for the past few
months, whether she’ll have to sell the house. Some days,
she wants to list it as soon as possible. Others, she’s
certain she can’t bear to let go. What’s the old saying? If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. She
takes a deep breath, inhaling the green scent of freshly
mown grass. The lawn service guys must have been here today
while she and Sadie were in the city. The flowerbeds have
been freshly weeded and the boxwood hedge has been shorn
into a precision horizontal border. The yard looks a lot tidier than it did in summers past,
when she handled the gardening and Nick mowed. But when they
moved up here from the city, they never wanted that
manicured landscape style. They never wanted to become one
of those suburban Westchester families that relied on others
to maintain the yard, the house, and the pets, even the
kids. Yeah, and look at us now. First came the weekly cleaning service Lauren’s friends
insisted on hiring for her right after she had Sadie. By the
time the two-month gift certificate expired, colic was in
full swing and Lauren was relieved to let someone else
continue to clean the toilets and do the laundry. She kept the cleaning service. By the time Sadie was toddling, her older siblings’ travel
sports teams kept the whole family on the go. Chauncey was
left behind so often that Lauren was forced to hire a
dog-walking service. Sure, she occasionally misses those
early morning or dusk strolls with Chauncey–but not enough
to go back to doing it daily. She kept the dog walkers, too. Nick hired the lawn service last March, just in time for the
spring thaw, as he put it–ironic, because it was also just
in time for the killing frost that ended their marriage.
Yes, she had seen it coming. For a few months before it
happened, anyway. That didn’t make it any easier for her to
bear. And the kids—Lauren hates Nick for their pain; hates
herself, perhaps, even more. She was the one who’d gone to
great lengths to maintain the happy family myth, such great
lengths that the separation blindsided all three of them.
Nick had wanted to tell Ryan and Lucy last fall that they
were seeing a marriage counselor. But Lauren was afraid
they’d start piecing things together, suspecting the affair.
Or that they’d ask pointed questions that would demand the
ugly truth or whitewashed lies. Nick was probably right–though she wouldn’t admit that to
him. They should have given the kids a heads up when things
first started to unravel. He was right, too, that sending Ryan and Lucy away to camp
for eight weeks was the healthiest thing for everyone. When
he suggested it back around Easter, Lauren–who for years had
frowned upon parents who shipped their kids hundreds of
miles to spend summers in the woods among strangers–had
taken a good, hard look at what their own household had
become. She was forced to recognize that her older children
would be better off elsewhere while she picked up the pieces. Still, she didn’t give in to Nick about camp without a
fight. God forbid she make anything easy on him in the blur
of angry, bitter days after he left. She wanted only to make
him suffer. In the end, though, Ryan and Lucy went to camp. They were homesick at first–so homesick Lauren was tempted,
whenever she opened the mailbox to another woe-is-me letter,
to drive up there and bring them both home. Now that it’s
almost August, though, it’s clear from their letters that
Ryan and Lucy are having a blast in the Adirondacks. Lauren has only Sadie to worry about for the time being,
while she figures out how to move on after two decades of
marriage. She has yet to come up with a long-term plan. It’s hard
enough to keep her voice from breaking as she reads bedtime
stories in an empty house, to fix edible meals for two–and
to keep tabs on Sadie’s toys. Find Fred. She walks down the back porch steps, past fat bumblebees
lazing in the flowers, and crosses over to the Volvo parked
on the driveway. Please let Fred be in the back seat… Please let Fred be in the back seat… Fred is not in the back seat. A lot of other crap is: crumpled straw wrappers, a dog-eared
coloring book and two melted crayons, a nearly empty tube of
Coppertone Kids, a couple of fossilized Happy Meal fries,
and one of Sadie’s long-missing mittens whose partner Lauren
finally threw away in May. Lauren carries it all back into the house and dumps it into
the kitchen garbage before returning, empty-handed, to the
living room. Sadie, tear-stained and sucking her thumb, looks up
expectantly. “Sweetie, you must have dropped him, somewhere in the city.
I couldn’t find–“ Cut off by a deafening wail, Lauren helplessly sinks onto
the couch. “Oh, Sadie, come here.” She gathers her daughter
into her arms, stroking her downy hair–not as blonde this
summer as it has been in years past. Is it because she’s growing up? Or because she’s been stuck hibernating with a shell-shocked
mother who’s barely been able to drag herself out of bed and
face the light of day… Riddled with guilt, Lauren says, “I’m sorry, baby.” About so
much more than the lost toy. “I want Fred! I love him! Please,” Sadie begs. “I need him
back” I know how you feel. In silence, Lauren swallows the ache in her own throat and
fishes a crumpled tissue in the back pocket of khaki shorts
that last August felt a size too small. Now they’re a few
sizes too big, cinched at the waist with her
fourteen-year-old’s belt. The Devastation Diet. Maybe she should write a book. Lauren
wipes her daughter’s tears, then, surreptitiously, her own.
“Come on, calm down. It’s going to be okay.” “I want Fred!” Lauren sighs. “So do I.” I want a lot of other things, too. Looks like we’re both going to have to suck it up, baby
girl. “Please, Mommy, please … where is he? Where? Where?” “Shh, let me think.” Mentally retracing their steps, Lauren is sure the stuffed
animal was with them in the cab from her sister Alyssa’s
apartment to Grand Central, because it almost fell out of
Sadie’s bag when they climbed out on Lexington. She
remembers carrying both Sadie and the bag across the crowded
sidewalk, through the wooden doors, along the Graybar
passageway. She set Sadie down and gave the bag back to her
when they stopped to buy a New York Post and some gum at
Hudson News. “You must have dropped Fred at the station or on the train.
Next time we go to the city we can check Lost and Found,”
Lauren promises. That’s not going to cut it: Sadie opens her mouth and wails.
Now what? Lauren closes her eyes and lifts her face toward the
ceiling. Where the hell is Fred? Never mind that, where the hell is Nick? Why does he get to start a new life and leave Lauren here
alone to handle the fallout from the old? Lost toys, lost
souls … none of it seems to be his problem anymore. No, he’s
moved on to a two-bedroom condo down in White
Plains–furnished with “really cool stuff,” according to
Lucy. Complete with a “gi-mongous, kick-butt flat-screen,”
according to Ryan. On a high floor, “close to God and the
moon,” according to Sadie. “Good for Daddy,” Lauren says whenever the kids tell her
stuff like that. She tries hard to keep sarcasm from lacing
her words because you’re not supposed to speak negatively
about your ex to the children. That’s got to be right up
there with letting them have their way, saying Why Bother?
and I Told You So, and giving them apples for dinner. Then
again, as far as Lauren’s concerned, any bad parenting on
her part is vastly outdone by the ultimate worst parenting
on Nick’s. Walking out on three kids pretty much takes the
prize, right? Sadie sobs on. Lauren’s eyes snap open. “You know what? Daddy will get Fred for you.” That’s right. Let Daddy deal with something for a change.
Poor Sadie cries harder–probably because she’s already
figured out that Daddy is hardly the most reliable guy in
the world. But it’s time for him to step up. Lauren grabs her cell phone. Nick’s is still the first number on her speed dial–only
because she has no idea how to change it. Ryan had to
program the phone for her when she got it, and it seems
wrong to ask a twelve year-old boy to bump his father’s
number to the bottom of the list–or, for that matter, delete
it altogether. At least, from the speed dial. Several times, carrying her
phone in her back pocket, she’s apparently accidentally
bumped the keypad, calling him without realizing the line
was open. “Pocket-dialing,” Lucy and Ryan call the phenomenon. They
think it’s hilarious that Nick, in the middle of a client
luncheon, once got to hear tone-deaf Lauren driving along
and singing at the top of her lungs the way she does when
she’s alone in the car—or thinks she is. Nick was amused by
it, too, back when they were married. Now that he’s gone, though, pocket dialing is no laughing
matter. She really doesn’t want him privy to what she says
or does when she assumes she’s out of his earshot. Today,
Lauren dials his number the traditional way, and the line
rings repeatedly. Just when she thinks the call is going
into voice mail, Nick picks up. “Hey, what’s up?” He’s answered her calls that way for as long as he’s had
Caller ID: Hey, what’s up? She used to think it was sweetly intimate. Now it seems cold
and impersonal. Go figure. Maybe that’s because he used to
pick up on the first ring. Now it’s the fifth, undoubtedly
giving him time to roll his eyes and inform whoever happens
to be in the vicinity of his window office in the Chrysler
Building that it’s the Ex, calling with some unreasonable
request. This time, he would be absolutely correct about that. She
holds the phone away from her for a moment, toward Sadie,
still sobbing beside her. “Do you hear that, Nick?” “What is
it?” “It’s our daughter.” “What’s the matter with her?” “She’s crying because she’s lost Fred.” Lauren waits for Nick to ask who Fred is. When he does, she hates herself for asking, in return, “How
can you not know?” Of course he doesn’t know. He doesn’t live here. Then again,
even when he did, he never paid much attention to the kids’
little quirks. To be fair, a lot of men don’t. Even her perfect
brother-in-law, Ben, is an occasionally imperfect dad,
according to her sister. But Lauren isn’t in the mood to be fair right now. Not with
an inconsolable child on her hands and yet another lonely
night stretching endlessly ahead. “Fred is Sadie’s favorite stuffed animal,” she succinctly
informs Nick as she carries the phone to the kitchen. “She
takes Fred everywhere.” “Oh. Well, did you check the compartment in her room?” He’s
referring to a small nook concealed by a secret panel in
Sadie’s closet. Awhile back, Lauren had followed her nose
and discovered her youngest was stashing uneaten meat and
vegetables there, tired of being nagged about her fussy
eating habits. “She lost Fred in the city, not at home.” Lauren picks up
the paring knife again. “What were you doing in the city?” “Having lunch with my sister. Nick …” She pauses, and then
swallows the next two words she was about to say. Can you– No, that’s too wishy-washy. If she phrases it as a question,
he’s free to say no. “I need you,” she says instead, “to stop by the Lost and
Found at Grand Central and pick up Fred, then bring him over
here when you get home tonight.” “How do you know it’s at Grand Central?” Leave it to Nick to de-personalize Fred. “I don’t, for sure. But we were in the city when she lost
him.” Emphasis on the him. “You were in the city today and you didn’t bring Sadie to
see me?” “We were busy. I’m sure you were, too.” “Not too busy to take five minutes out for my daughter. My
office is right across the street from Grand Central. You
could have told me you were going to be there.” She could have. But then she’d have had to see him. And
today was supposed to be an escape, not a miserable reminder
of her estranged husband. “I know where your office is,” she says curtly. “Listen, you
need to go check the Lost and Found, and if Fred’s not
there, then … I don’t know, look around the station.” “Look around?” he echoes incredulously. “How would I ever be
able to–“ “You need to do this, Nick, because believe me, Sadie will
never be able to function without Fred.” There’s a pause on the other end of the line. Lauren begins slicing the white flesh of the apple with
rhythmic little jabs of the knife. “Sadie won’t be able to function?” Nick finally echoes in
her ear. “Don’t you think that’s a little dramatic?” “Hell, yes, it’s dramatic. She’s four, Nick. Think about it.
First you left, then Ryan and Lucy did, and now Fred’s gone
…” And that means I’m all she’s got … and I’m overwhelmed,
so step up, dammit! “I’ve got a client meeting. I doubt Lost and Found will even
be open by the time it’s over.” “Then go check before the meeting.” “I’m in the middle of a workday.” “You’re not too busy to take five minutes out for your
daughter. And anyway, you’re right across the street from
Grand Central,” she reminds him pointedly. He sighs. “Okay. I’ll go check when I have a chance. What am
I looking for, exactly?” “A pink stuffed rabbit.” “Got it. A pink stuffed rabbit that answers to Fred.” He
snickers. There was a time when Lauren might have cracked a smile. But
now her face feels as brittle as the rest of her. “Call me
when you find him.” “You mean if I find him.” Him. Good. Small triumph. “If he’s not in the Lost and Found, then check the floor on
the entrance off Lex, and check Hudson News.” “Which Hudson News?” “The one just off the Main Concourse.” “There are about a hundred Hudson Newsstands off the Main
Concourse.” “A hundred? Don’t you think that’s a little dramatic?”
Touché, Nick. He sighs. “I suppose you want me to check them
all.” “Only if Fred’s not in the Lost and Found,” Lauren tells
him, and hangs up. * * * It’s been over fourteen years since Jeremy vanished, yet
every moment of the horrific aftermath remains fresh in Elsa
Cavalon’s mind. She relives the nightmare daily: realizing her son was
missing, searching the house, calling Brett at work, calling
911, calling Jeremy’s name through the streets of the
neighborhood until she was hoarse. “It doesn’t go away.” Elsa didn’t make the statement, but she might as well have.
“No,” she agrees with Joan, her latest therapist, seated in
a chair opposite her. “It doesn’t go away.” She isn’t sure what they were talking about, exactly—her
mind tends to wander during her sessions. No. Not just then.
Her mind wanders always, no matter where she is, to the
past, and Jeremy. It doesn’t go away… The pain? The regret? The guilt? No matter. None of it goes away. “You constantly go over every detail in your mind, looking
for clues,” she tells Joan. “Even after all these years, you
think there might be something you missed.” Joan nods. “You wonder what really happened that day. You wonder what’s
going to happen today—whether a police officer is going to
show up at your door and tell you they found him. But not
him. His—” Her voice breaks. She can’t say it. His remains. Chin in hand, Joan sits silently waiting, the way therapists
so often do, for Elsa to regain her composure. Intimately familiar with the process, she’s been through
more than her share of shrinks since her son disappeared.
The first, when they were still in Boston, was Dr. Hyland.
She was the one who told Elsa that she had only two options.
“You can either curl up and die, Elsa, or you can go on living.” Elsa didn’t care much for Dr. Hyland. There were others. They move a lot because of Brett’s job as
a nautical engineer, and he insists that wherever they land,
she get herself right into therapy. In Virginia Beach, she saw grandfatherly Dr. Saunders; in
San Diego, a tattooed woman named Hedy; in Tampa, the effete
John Robert—pronounced Jean Rob´ere, though he wasn’t
French. Here in coastal Connecticut, it’s serious,
bespectacled Joan. None of the trained professionals can
give Elsa the answers, or the forgiveness, she so
desperately needs. None of them can convince her that what
happened to her son wasn’t her own fault, on some level. They merely help to keep her going, reminding her of the
possibility, however slight, that Jeremy himself–or the
truth about what happened to him–might someday surface. That
wisp of hope keeps her alive. Hope, and the medication she’s been on since her suicide
attempt years ago, not long after she lost Jeremy. Anti-depressants, they’re called. As if swallowing a pill
could magically erase one’s bleak state of mind and make the
world right again. It can’t. But swallowing enough pills could make it all go
away—or so she decided one morning just before they moved to
Virginia Beach. She had made the choice between Dr. Hyland’s
options at last. She had chosen to curl up and die. Brett found her, though—just in time. In the hospital, he stayed by her bedside for days on end,
as though he was afraid she was going to try it again. She
didn’t. She saw the ravaged look in his eyes. She couldn’t
do that to him. He couldn’t bear to lose her, too. So she
was released from the hospital, and she started taking
medication. Back then, it was all Elsa could manage just to get out of
bed in the mornings, numbly moving through her waking hours
doing what is necessary to stay alive: namely, eating and
breathing. Not much more than that, most days. In her early twenties, Elsa had been a runway model, and
she’d kept her looks over the years. But after the tragedy, her dark hair—always kept sleek and
chic—grew long and straggly. Her face, preternaturally bare
of makeup, became gaunt; her figure dangerously skeletal.
For a while, she honestly thought she was going to die, even
if not by her own hand. Brett and all those therapists were right, though, about her
needing to find a new purpose. When she did, she slowly came
back. Not back to life. But back. Dr. Hyland was wrong. There are other options. You can curl
up and die, or you can go on living … or you can, as Elsa
has, settle on something in between. * * * Every night when Nick Walsh walks into Grand Central
Terminal at rush hour, he has a single objective: getting
right back out again, on a northbound train, as quickly as
possible. More than ninety-nine percent of the time, that’s exactly
what happens. But once in awhile, things go wrong. A car
gets struck at a suburban crossing; a tree falls across the
tracks, there’s flooding in the Bronx, a power failure, ice…
You never know when you’re going to be stuck here for a
while, waiting for service to resume, or forced to rely on a
bus or car service with tens of thousands of other stranded
commuters. That’s why, on nights like this, when everything is moving
like clockwork, you don’t hang around and thus increase the
odds for something to go wrong. There’s a 6:22 leaving in ten minutes from track
twenty-nine, but by the time Nick detours down to Lost and
Found on the lower level, grabs Sadie’s lost toy, and makes
it onto the train, there won’t likely be any seats left.
He’ll have to wait twenty-three minutes for the next one,
and by the time he’s walked to his building, taken his car
from the garage, and driven up to the house in Glenhaven
Park and back, it’ll be well past nine o’clock. Well, if things go well in the Lost and Found, maybe he can
still make the 6:22. Better to stand around on a moving
train than in the station, right? Having lied to Lauren earlier about having a late-day
meeting, he just hopes karma won’t come back to bite him in
the ass. But it just slipped out. He couldn’t help it. He was
irritated that she’d been in the neighborhood with Sadie,
hadn’t bothered to tell him, then had the nerve to call him
up and start ordering him around. She seemed to assume he
had nothing better to do in the middle of a workday than go
on a scavenger hunt to retrieve something that shouldn’t
have been lost in the first place. Aren’t you being a little hard on Lauren? asks an annoying
little voice in the part of his brain reserved for
post-marital guilt. Maybe. But not nearly as hard as she is on me. When he reaches the small Lost and Found office, several
people are there ahead of him. One, a blond teenaged girl
about Lucy’s age, is standing at the service window,
scrolling on a hot pink iPod, accompanied by an equally
blond friend who’s busily texting into her phone. Behind
them, a middle-aged businessman impatiently checks both his
Blackberry and his watch. Taking his place on line, Nick thinks back to what the world
was like in the good old days before everyone was plugged
in; tries to recall whether people actually interacted with
each other in public places. At forty-five, he’s plenty old enough to remember the
pre-technology era, but he’s never given it much thought. It
all must have been terribly inconvenient and
inefficient—communication, entertainment… Then again, if you don’t know what you’re missing, you can’t
miss it, right? Nick thinks of his marriage. Right. Absolutely right. All those years spent stagnating in
suburbia, thinking he was content, and he had no clue. Then
he met Beth. Well—not exactly. He knew Beth. Casually. He’d
seen her around town, and on the commuter train. But she
didn’t travel in the same circles. Her kids are older than
his; in fact, Beth is a few years older than he is … not
that she looks it. He never really knew her, though, until
that snowy December night a year and a half ago, when they
found themselves sharing a double seat on the late local
home after their respective corporate holiday parties. Glenhaven Park is almost at the end of the line. By the time
they reached their stop, the rail car was all but empty.
They were both tipsy. Flirting shamelessly. He’d been too distracted to call Lauren to come pick him up.
Beth had her car; she drove him home. It was snowing.
Springsteen was on the car radio, singing “Santa Claus is
Coming to Town,” and it reminded him of college, and snowy
nights after bars in cars with girls. He didn’t kiss Beth goodnight when she dropped him off, but
he wanted to. Damn, he wanted to. Out of the blue, he, Nick
Walsh, husband and father of three, wanted to kiss a woman
who wasn’t his wife. And suddenly he, Nick Walsh—who had been estranged from his
own mother for decades because she’d left his father for
another man—got it. What are you supposed to do when you meet the right
person—and realize you’re married to the wrong one? Suffer
on indefinitely? Or seize a chance at happiness? That night, for the first time in years, he considered
reaching out to his mother. He’d lost track of her—hadn’t
even bothered to find her and let her know when his father
passed away a few years earlier—but if you really want to
locate someone in this day and age, you probably can. He climbed into bed beside Lauren, sound asleep in flannel
pajamas, and he thought about his mother, and then he
thought about Beth. It was the first time he ever wondered what he might be
missing. And so, Beth later told him, did she. And now I know. Good old pre-tech days forgotten, Nick checks his
Blackberry. There’s a text message. He smiles. Did you find Sadie’s toy? Are you on the train yet? Not yet, he texts back to Beth, and I wish. A woman behind him emits a phlegmy cough. Hoping she covered
her mouth, though it doesn’t sound like it, Nick looks up to
check the progress at the counter. “This is it,” the teenaged girl decisively informs the very
patient middle-aged woman behind the counter. Then the girl
turns to her friend and adds, less decisively, “Don’t you
think, Miranda?” “Huh?” Her friend looks up from her phone. “Like, don’t you think this is my iPod?” “Check the playlists.” “Yeah, but everyone, like, has the same playlists as me, you
know?” “I don’t have the same ones as you.” “Yeah, but you’re a freak.” Miranda sticks out her tongue. “Brat.” The businessman makes the impatient sound Nick was just
about to make, sparing Nick a couple of dirty looks from the
two blondes. Behind him, the woman coughs again. “So what’s the consensus, ladies?” asks the Lost and Found
woman. The one who isn’t Miranda shrugs. “I guess it’s mine.”
“Great.” She hands over a form. “You’ll need to fill this
out, and I’ll need to make a photo copy of your ID.” Photocopies? Paperwork? No way is Nick going to make the
6:22. Unless the paperwork is only for valuables? Apparently not. The businessman, it turns out, left a
five-dollar folding umbrella on a New Haven local the other
morning. It takes him forever to figure out which of the
couple dozen black folding umbrellas in the July-Umbrellas
bin belongs to him and when at last he does, he, too, has to
fill out a claim form. Finally he’s on his way, and it’s Nick’s turn. It’s 6:20. “My daughter lost her stuffed animal in the station,” he
tells the woman, admiring the patience in her
chocolate-colored eyes. If he had to work here and deal with
people all day, he’d want to kill them or himself. “When did she lose it?” Good question. “Recently.” He’d assume today, considering that Lauren told
him Sadie couldn’t live without it—if his ex-wife didn’t
have an annoying habit of turning even minor household
issues into urgent crises. “Recently as in this week? This month?” He nods. For all he knows, the toy has been missing for a
month, but… “She lost it in the station?” “Yes.” “Do you know where, exactly?” Nick quells the urge to challenge her exceeding patience and
remind her that if he knew where, exactly, he most likely
wouldn’t be here. “I have no idea. She was with my wife. Ex-wife,” he amends
hastily … and is rewarded with, not a dirty look, but not
exactly a pleasant one. “Do you know what the toy looks like?” “It’s pink,” he tells her, “and it answers to Fred, and if I
don’t get it back to Sadie then believe me, life as we know
it is over.” She smiles, God love her. “You have kids,” he guesses. “You bet. Hang on a second.” She turns to peruse the shelf behind her, and returns to the
counter with a large blue bin marked Misc: July. “It’s pink, you said? Is it a pink flamingo?” She pulls one out. “No. Not a flamingo.” The woman behind him hacks away like she has tuberculosis.
Repulsed, he tries to remember what Lauren said about Fred.
Was he a cat? A duck? Whoever heard of a pink duck? “Is it a dog?” She shows him one. “It’s the only other pink
toy in here.” He nods vigorously. “Yup, that’s Fred.” “You sure? Because it’s been here for a week.” “Positive,” he lies. “That’s when she lost it. About a week
ago.” Maybe not, but it’s pink, and it’s furry, and there are no
other pink toys, and the woman behind him is coughing up God
only knows what, and he’s desperate to get out of here. If
it’s not Fred, Sadie will probably never know the
difference. “I just need your driver’s license so that I can
make a copy, and I need you to fill out this claim form.”
The woman slides a clipboard across the counter. “You actually keep a record of every single thing people
lose and find around here?” She smiles and nods. “Every single one.” * * * “Do you have a feeling, one way or another?” the therapist’s
voice intrudes on Elsa’s melancholy thoughts. She looks up to see Joan watching her. “A feeling about what?” she asks. “About whether Jeremy is alive?” Or dead. Ever tactful, Joan doesn’t complete the question. The wisp of hope drifts, as it does from time to time, like
a helium balloon whose string was swept beyond her grasp by
a cold, cruel wind. “What do you think, Elsa?” In this particular moment, she doesn’t think. She knows. A
mother knows. There’s no mistaking the aching emptiness; the sense that
you will never again cradle your sweet child in your arms. “He’s dead,” she says resolutely.
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