I'd Know You Anywhere Page 0,49

think he was talking about a trip to the grocery store. What he would put where first—his mouth on the hollow of her throat, his tongue in her ear, then his fingers—Oh, please stop, Elizabeth thought, desperate to block out his voice, but Walter continued his play-by-play. Not even he seemed to find it sexy. He might have been reciting a set of instructions he had memorized. It was like listening to a seduction scene from a romance novel, but one read by a robot, so it was reduced to a road map, where he would go when.

“She’d be begging, begging for it,” he said. “But still, I would make her wait. A woman like Maureen, she needs to be broken down. That’s what the book is trying to explain. Women have to wait. Their anatomy dictates that. They wait, they receive. Men pursue, men give.”

Elizabeth, who had read the book almost as many times as Walter—it was, after all, the only reading material available when they were in the car or in a motel room, except for a copy of The Godfather he had allowed her to purchase at a yard sale—did not think the book, awful as it was, meant to say all that. But she knew better than to argue.

“Look at that girl,” Walter said suddenly, slowing the truck. “Look at the shine on her.”

19

THAT EVENING, ONCE THE CHILDREN were asleep—well, Albie was asleep, Iso was probably under the covers, sending texts on the un-satisfactory cell phone they had given her—Eliza told Peter about the second letter. She wished now that she hadn’t shredded it, that he could read it himself, if only so she wouldn’t have to relive it. He listened without comment, although he raised an eyebrow at the peculiar turns of phrase she was able to re-create. Dean of Death Row. The appeals process is formidable. I won’t bore you with it. Eliza realized she had practically memorized the letter word for word.

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” Eliza said. “I feel as if this is out of my control, all of a sudden. This woman—or Walter—could go to the media anytime, tell them who I am and where I am.”

“I can’t imagine a responsible news organization that would write about you, if you weren’t interested in cooperating,” said Peter. He wasn’t arguing with her, only puzzling things out, trying to imagine every angle.

“Unfortunately, the world is full of irresponsible news organizations. What if she found Jared Garrett? Do you realize how exposed we are, how exposed everyone is?”

She showed him what happened when she plugged their address into Google maps, then clicked through to street view. There was their house. Of course, this was no revelation to Peter, whose career as a journalist had taken off, in part, because of his expertise with computer-assisted research. Still, she could tell that he found this image as arresting as she did. Looking at the photo of the white brick house—complete with the clichéd picket fence—Eliza could not help imagining the score of a scary film pulsing beneath the placid image. Barbara LaFortuny had seen this house, had driven by it, then reported back to Walter—what, exactly? Anything was too much. The woman was probably gathering a dossier on Peter, the easiest household member to track, the one who had left the largest public trail. But would she stop there? What if she showed up on the sidelines at one of Iso’s soccer games? Or followed Eliza en route to school with Albie, exciting his imagination, keying him up to ask all sorts of questions. Who is that lady? Why does she want to talk to you? Why does she have a scar on her face? What if Barbara LaFortuny tried to befriend Reba, sneaking scraps through the fence? What if she poisoned Reba, who had growled at her? Would she—

A child’s all-too-familiar scream tore through the night.

“Albie,” Eliza shouted, letting him know that she was coming.

“Albie,” Peter repeated. “I hoped this was behind us.”

I hoped a lot of things were behind us, Eliza thought as she took the stairs, two at a time.

ALBIE’S NIGHTMARES HAD STARTED shortly after they moved to London. Every pediatrician and book that Eliza consulted said it was normal for a child to have bad dreams in the wake of an enormous change, but Albie’s nightmares seemed unusual to Eliza. They were incredibly detailed, for one thing, with such intense imagery and plot twists that she almost itched to