I shook my head, and continued to feel both confused and worried. What was he getting at? I saw Jennie every day. Of course she had her own life and her own friends. I operated on the principle that the best thing a mother can do for her teenage daughter is to give her a reasonable amount of space to grow up in. That, plus love.
“Certainly not sick,” I said. “What’s going on, Dr. Follett? Please tell me why you called.”
He drummed his fingers on his desk. “This semester, Jennie has skipped seventeen days of school.”
Bombshell! I felt suddenly cold all over. “Skipped seventeen days?”
“Cut her classes. Didn’t show up at all.”
“My God! I had no idea. I almost don’t believe it, but of course I do. It isn’t like Jennie.”
“No, it isn’t like Jennie,” he agreed.
He handed me some papers from his desk. A report card and several illness notes. “Is that your signature?”
I looked at the notes and the report card. My hands were shaking. “My name, not my handwriting.” Another bombshell.
“Jennie’s?”
“I’m not sure. Could be.” My head was spinning too. This was the last thing I’d expected. Jennie had never been in trouble.
“We think she was trying to forge your signature,” Dr. Follett said, bringing me back from my reverie.
“Jennie wouldn’t do something like that.” I winced. Obviously, she had.
“Are you sure? If it’s not your signature, and it’s not Jennie’s forgery, then whose could it be?”
My brain whirled. “I really haven’t a clue.” Suddenly, I was angry at Jennie though. We had always trusted each other. I’d made time for Jennie no matter what else was going on.
“Mr. Shepherd?” the dean asked.
“No. He’s her stepfather. He’d simply sign. And this isn’t his signature either.”
“Look at the latest report card,” he said. “Have you seen this?”
I looked. B’s and C’s. I wanted to cry. Jennie had always been an A student. Maybe I hadn’t been paying enough attention because of that?
“Mrs. Bradford, Jennie is one of the best students at Bedford Hills Academy. Then suddenly, just this semester, she gets very bad marks. For her anyway. That sometimes happens in the senior year, when a kid’s been accepted at college and feels she deserves a break. But Jennie’s a sophomore. Just the time her grades should be highest.”
“I know. Jennie knows,” I said. I didn’t understand what could have happened. This had come out of the blue. I didn’t think she had picked up on Will and me, but maybe she had. Kids can tell.
Dr. Follett stood up from his desk, and extended his hand. “We all love Jennie here at the Academy. Faculty and her classmates both. If you find out anything, please call me. It wouldn’t be betraying her secrets. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to a student, and we’re pretty good at fixing things.”
I shook his hand, then I headed out—to try and find Jennie. She had skipped classes again today.
First though, I sat in the school’s visitor parking lot and tried to stop my body from trembling. My world seemed to be falling apart again.
CHAPTER 81
JENNIE ARRIVED HOME around three-thirty, her knapsack full of books, looking innocent of any wrongdoing. I asked her to take a ride with me.
I drove to the Pound Ridge Reservation, a nature preserve in the heart of Westchester. At around four, the two of us hiked up a hill toward an antique fire tower, from the top of which you could see Long Island Sound, and even the New York City skyline far to the south.
Jennie, of course, wanted to know what was going on. I asked her to wait. All in good time, my sweet darling.
We walked silently—I didn’t know where to start—and stopped, breathless, when we reached the crest. I was feeling maternal, angry, hurt, optimistic—just as in the songs I wrote. True songs out of life, right?
“I’ve been to see Dean Follett,” I finally told her. The first shoe drops!
Jennie had been looking at me. Now, she turned her head away. Not a word.
“He says your grades are falling. He also says you’ve been skipping school.” The second shoe.
“School’s boring and I hate it.” Jennie’s tone was surly and defiant. Not like her at all. It was Jennie at her absolute worst, and not something I saw very often.
“You didn’t used to think so,” I said to her.
“I do now. There’s nothing worth learning. The teachers there aren’t very bright, you know.”
“So you don’t go anymore. That’s interesting, Jen. Quite a revelation. What do you do with your days?”
“Nothing much. But nothing is better than my classes.”
“You’re not home.”
“How would you know that for sure? You’re shut up in your study most of the day.”
Now she was being completely unfair, but I kept my cool. “I’d know, and you know I would. I love you, Jennie, and if you’re in any kind of trouble—”
“Nobody gives a damn about anybody else. Don’t fake it. Don’t condescend to me now.”
Even without touching her, I could sense an awful tenseness in her body, the effort she had to make to speak at all. When had this happened? How had it happened? Why?
“I love you,” I said, my voice unsteady. “You’re the most precious thing in my life. It’s always been that way.”
Her composure finally broke. So did mine. “Don’t say that,” she suddenly wailed. “Don’t say you love me, Mom. I don’t deserve it.”
I could barely speak. I was holding back great, racking sobs. “Why? I do love you. Why shouldn’t I tell you what’s true?”
“Because you couldn’t. You don’t know who I am, and it takes something like this to get your attention. Failing grades! I mean—who cares?”
I finally bowed my head, and I started to cry. I thought that I could handle anything, but not this.
Suddenly, Jennie flung herself at me, burying her face in my neck. I could feel her hot tears, her body’s warmth.
“I can’t tell you,” she sobbed. “I’m not even sure that I know. I’m fifteen and it’s all a little nuts. So what’s new?” she finally choked out a laugh.
“My God, Mom,” Jennie said to me then. “You’re shaking all over.”
We sat on the ground and held each other for a long, long time. A breeze came up, and I wrapped my sweater around her. My baby, I thought. My friend for so many years. My sweet Jennie.
But I could think of no way to comfort her, and make it better for either of us. I blamed myself, of course. I’d tried so hard to be supermom, but it wasn’t enough. It never is.
CHAPTER 82
I SPENT A blessed hour the next morning, which was unseasonably warm, working in the garden behind the swimming pool. The time alone, the feel of sunlight on the back of my neck, the physical exertion—all were exactly what the doctor ordered. I began to regroup.
I needed time to think things through in a straight line. The worsening situation with Will. Jennie’s problems at school. My own bad experience in San Francisco. It was a lot to take at one time; I was afraid that I wasn’t handling it very well.
There was an explosion in the woods beyond the pool.
I stopped digging, stopped thinking, stopped breathing, and listened with total concentration. And dread.
A second explosion came from behind a thick wall of evergreens. The trees masked my view.
Gunshots? Oh my God.
I was on my feet, running at full speed toward the thick pocket of trees. A scream was stuck in my throat.
Oh God, dear God … what’s happened?
What’s happened now?
I plunged into the woods, heading for the sound of the shots. My heart was pounding and there was a sharp pain in my chest.
Instinct drove me; I didn’t even think of calling for help. Whom would I call to anyway?
Gunshots? Near our house? How could tha
t be?
My ankles were stabbed by rocks and thistles. There were no more shots, just a frightening, desolate silence. Finally, I came to a clearing. I stopped running.
Will was standing there. Will was holding a rifle in the crook of his arm.
He turned at the sound of my footsteps. He looked at me as though I didn’t belong there.
“What are you doing?” I managed to speak.
“Target practice,” he said. He motioned to a row of beer and soda cans set up on a log. “Care to give it a go, Maggie?”
He flashed his best North Downing smile. “I’m getting quite good. I’m a natural it seems. Great hand-to-eye.”
Phillip had a gun too. I had used it to kill him. I remembered dark blood pouring from his mouth, saw his look of horror, heard his grunt of surprise as the fatal bullet struck him.
“Get rid of it!” I screamed. “I don’t want it anywhere near my house. Get rid of that gun!”
Will looked at me coldly, but then he grinned. “Our house. But it’s your call, Maggie. If it disturbs you, it’s gone. If you don’t trust yourself around guns, I understand.”
CHAPTER 83
THIS WAS THE day. I just couldn’t have known it. I wouldn’t have expected it. This was the day.
Having been unable to sleep, I slipped out of the house at dawn. I was wearing a terrycloth robe and my rattiest sneakers. My long hair was in knots. Hopeless.
I figured the air would be good for me, give me a fresh start. I hoped no one would see me like this. No paparazzi sneaking shots through the fence.
I walked to the partly crumbled fieldstone wall that divided my property from the grounds of the Lake Club. My sneakers stamped defiantly through damp leaves and creepers. Chattering blue jays and robins darted among the high trees over my head.
“Oh, shut the heck up,” I grumped at the birds.
I was startled to hear another kind of sound in the woods. A human voice.
“Who’s there?” I called ahead. “Hello?”
J. C. Frazier appeared. He was coming out of a meadow that belonged to the Lake Club, where he worked as head groundskeeper. J.C. was always outside, so we met from time to time. I knew that he was seeing Mrs. Leigh, and she thought he was a good man. Yes, and they are hard to find, I was tempted to tell her.
“Mornin’, Mrs. Bradford. You the one responsible for this fine weather?” he asked. Not a care in the world, and why should he? His grounds were in perfect order.
“I thought you were in charge of the weather, J.C.”
“No way, ma’am. I’m charged with the grounds only. I believe you have the upper atmosphere. And a real good job you’ve made of it today. Blue skies everywhere I can see.”
We stopped to talk over a mossy stone wall. J.C. probably knew more secrets about the residents of Bedford than anyone around, but his discretion was as much responsible for his keeping his job as was his skill, so our talk was of seasonal flowers and the approaching summer. Harmless small talk, but it hit the spot, and took my mind off my problems, if only for a little while.
I remembered something I’d been meaning to ask somebody at the club, or maybe something I’d been afraid to bring up before.
“Sometimes at night I’ve noticed lights on in the club. I’d say around one or two in the morning.”
J.C. thought about what I’d said, then shook his head. “That’s not possible. No, I’m afraid not, Mrs. Bradford.”
“I’ve seen the lights. I’m positive that I have.”
“No, ma’am. I don’t think so. Couldn’t be. The club closes at eleven. Always. That’s the golden rule.”
I thought of arguing with him further, but gave up. If J.C. didn’t want to talk, he wouldn’t talk.
He tipped his ballcap, a blue one that read “N.Y. Giants.” “Got to get back, plenty of work to do. You have a pleasant day, Mrs. Bradford.”
I watched J.C. make his way back toward the large estate house of the club.
Strange, I thought. Why wouldn’t he know about the lights? Or why would he lie to me?
I finally went back to the house determined to talk to Will that morning. It had to be done, however painful for both of us. This seemed like as good a day as any.
Jennie and Allie were toasting Pop-Tarts in the kitchen. They were both dressed. Jennie looked ready for school, which pleased me.
“Is Will up?” I asked, trying to make it sound as though it were not a big deal, nothing special.
“You just missed him, Mom,” Jennie said. “He had to go to the city on business. Said he’d be back around four.”
I groaned. Will was almost never out of the house this early. Just my luck.
This was the day.
CHAPTER 84
WILL DIDN’T COME home at four that afternoon. He still hadn’t arrived at seven-thirty when we sat down for dinner.
Or at ten, when we went upstairs to get ready for bed. He never called to say he’d be late, or maybe that he wouldn’t be coming home at all.
I lay in bed with the lights off, but my eyes wide open. I was blaming myself, and I knew I shouldn’t do that. Will had been so incredibly romantic and sensitive in the beginning of our relationship, and then he had just switched it off. Completely.
I wondered if he was having an affair now, or maybe more than one. I guess I shouldn’t have cared about that, but I did.
I don’t know how I finally got to sleep, only that I did.
“Damn! Damn it to hell!” I heard.
Will’s curses woke me. He was inside the bedroom. He was home.
I could see him standing near the door, examining his toe. He’d stubbed it in the darkness. Well, good. Serves him right.
The bedroom door was half-open and light from the hallway silhouetted his body. His face remained in shadow.
He turned to look at me, but I pretended to be asleep. I held my breath. Then he crept out of the room.
He pulled the door awkwardly behind him. The door slammed shut. More of his stupid head games? Damn him.
I looked at the luminous face of the bedside clock: 12:45.
Where had he been tonight? Maybe I should get up and talk with him now, while the kids were asleep.
I got up, walked to the window, and looked outside. I saw Will. What was he doing? Where was he going down there?
I put on my robe and left the bedroom. The hallway was dark. On his way out, Will had turned off the night light we kept on for Allie.
I hurried downstairs.
The lights were off in the living room and den. There was no sound, no movement.
Something seemed wrong to me! Why were the lights off?
What was he up to?
The downstairs rooms were dark and quiet too. There was no one in the kitchen, or in Mrs. Leigh’s room. Fridays were her night off, I remembered.
I went back to the foot of the stairs and peered up. Nothing to see. Was Will back inside the house?
I started to climb the stairs again.
Halfway up, I saw something standing against the wall. My heart almost stopped. My legs nearly went out from under me.
It was the rifle! I’d finally found it. In the middle of the stairway, where Will had left it!
My head was filled with loud noise. Chaos and confusion. None of this made sense to me.
What was going on?
Was Will upstairs again? What was he planning to do with the rifle? Where had it come from?
I started to run up the stairs. I reached the top step and stopped. At the far end of the corridor a line of light showed from beneath a door.
It was Jennie’s door. The light hadn’t been on just a few minutes before.
I was suddenly terrified that Will was in there. He’s taking the children, I thought.
I ran to get the rifle, then I hurried back. At least I had the gun now, not Will.
Had he planned to murder us all? Disturbed men did things like that. It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?
I had a flashback
. Phillip!
I ran down the corridor and yanked open Jennie’s door. The rifle was ready, at least I thought it was. I really didn’t know very much about guns. Next to nothing, actually.
What I saw inside the bedroom drove me absolutely out of my mind.
CHAPTER 85
THIS IS THE day! Oh, Jesus God, Will!
Don’t shoot him. Don’t do it. Maggie, don’t! a voice inside my head screamed at a deafening level.
Jennie was on the bed, wearing short, white pajamas. Her long, bare legs were exposed. Her eyes were closed; she seemed to be breathing normally. There was a glass of milk on the night table, half-finished.
I took in every tiny detail, understanding nothing yet.
This was so bad. This was so bad.
Will stood at the foot of her bed. He was dressed in khakis and a sport shirt. What he’d worn for his business meeting in New York? He looked too casual for business. What was Will doing in Jennie’s bedroom?
“Maggie!” he said, as cool as could be. His film star persona. “I thought you were asleep. Were you trying to fool me?”
My heart was pounding so hard and fast it was difficult for me to breathe. “What are you doing in here?” I gasped out the words. “What is going on?”
Jennie suddenly sat up, and rubbed her eyes. She looked frightened. “Mom? Will? What’s the matter? What’s happening? Is that a gun? Mom?”
Will smiled at the horrifying scene. It was the most scary and evil expression I had ever seen. I didn’t know the person I was looking at. What was he doing in Jennie’s bedroom? I thought that I knew.
“Jennie and I were just getting ready for some fun,” he said. “Care to join us in bed? Ménage à trois?”
Ménage à trois? I was too scared and stunned to speak. For a moment my body was paralyzed. My pulse was racing crazily. I felt my mind implode. Will and Jennie? Oh, my God, no!
I raised the gun and aimed it at Will. I didn’t care about the consequences.
I couldn’t pull the trigger though. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t.
“Get out of this house, and don’t you ever come back,” I said in a steady voice.