The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [60]
“Mandy . . . You knew Mandy . . . Her expressions, my nickname . . .”
“Have you seen me take any pills, Bethie? Haven’t you wondered if a man with a brand-new kidney should drink two bottles of champagne? My cover is never perfect, you know. I like to leave the person a sporting chance. But you women insist on seeing only what you want to see—at least while you’re falling in love. We all know it changes after that.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your understanding is not important to me.”
“Pierce is a high-ranking FBI agent. You won’t get away with this!”
He smiled thinly. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his black leather gloves. “That’s what I’m counting on. You know, I wasn’t going to do this so soon. I was going to wait until the night you came to me, hysterical about what had happened to Kimberly. And then I was going to tell you how much she always hated you. Kimberly and Mandy. It was never their father who traumatized them, Bethie. It was you, weak, overprotective, unforgiving you.”
“Don’t hurt my daughter. Don’t you touch Kimberly!”
“Too late.” He pulled on the gloves. “Run, Bethie,” he murmured. “Run!”
Greenwich Village, New York City
In the middle of the night, Kimberly bolted awake. Her breathing was harsh and sweat had glued her T-shirt to her skin. She was shivering. Bad dream. She didn’t remember of what.
She waited, focusing on breathing again until her heart finally slowed in her chest. Then she turned on her bedside light and padded silently into the kitchen. The door of her roommate’s bedroom was closed. She could just make out the low undertones of Bobby’s rhythmic snores. The sound soothed her. Bobby had a new girlfriend and hadn’t been around much lately. That was his business, of course, but tonight she was glad that he was here. Someone else shared the tiny apartment. She was not alone.
She sat down at the kitchen table. She knew from prior experience that it would be a while before she would go back to sleep. Even then, she could not be sure that she wouldn’t dream. Sometimes it was Mandy driving her Explorer while Kimberly tried desperately to grab the steering wheel. Sometimes it was herself, running through a long dark tunnel, seeing her father far ahead but never able to catch up with him. Once she dreamed of her mother. Bethie was dancing ballet in a beautiful white tutu and no matter what Kimberly did, she could not get Bethie’s attention. Then a rift opened up in the floor, and Kimberly watched her mom dance right over the edge.
Anxious dreams from an anxious subconscious. Kimberly glanced at the phone. She should just pick it up. Call her mother. Call her father. Get over whatever it was she needed to get over.
But she didn’t do it. She sat at the kitchen table. She listened to the deep sound of silence that exists only after midnight. And then, after minutes turned into an hour, she made her way back to bed.
Motel 6, Virginia
Rainie had just returned from her salvage-yard rendezvous, when the phone in her motel room shrieked to life. She glanced at the clock. Three A.M. She looked back at the phone. She wondered if the caller was Quincy or the hotshot lawyer Carl Mitz. Then she wondered which would be worse. She picked up the phone.
It was Quincy. “I’m in Philadelphia. At Bethie’s house. She’s dead.”
Rainie said, “I’ll be right there.”
16
Society Hill, Pennsylvania
Rainie made the nighttime drive to Philly in just over two hours. She ignored speed limits, rules of the road, and most standard courtesy. And she arrived in full-warrior mode.
Elizabeth Quincy’s elite town house was not hard to find. Rainie simply drove into Society Hill and followed the garish display of flashing lights. A white medical examiner’s van was illegally parked up on the sidewalk. A cluster of three police cruisers represented the ground troops. One older unmarked sedan would be the pair of homicide detectives; they’d had the decency to also park up on the sidewalk, trying to leave enough room for traffic to squeeze by on the narrow lane. Three larger,