Fade to Black

Prologue

It’s raining.

Of course it is.

Mallory Eden tears her concentration from the dark, slick highway to smile grimly at the irony.

A stormy summer night, a deserted mountain road, a frightened blonde driving alone …

It’s like a scene from a movie—not, of course, one of hers.

Mallory Eden does romantic comedy. Period.

The new Meg Ryan they’d called her when she’d burst into mainstream America a few years back. Just as Meg had once been called the new Goldie.

Mallory swerves slightly to avoid a water-filled rut. She peers ahead through the windshield, looking for the bridge.

Not yet. A few more miles to go.

In a few weeks—no, days—they’ll be calling some perky blond actress the new Mallory Eden.

And as for the old Mallory Eden …

She clenches the wheel more tightly.

The old Mallory Eden will be dead.

Not Hollywood dead, as in washed up.

Dead as in …

Dead.

Out of habit, Mallory glances into the rearview mirror to make sure nobody’s following her. The road stretches behind her, empty as far back as the last curve. She hasn’t seen another car since Dry Fork, the tiny town seven miles back through the mountains. She’s alone out here … at least, she thinks she is. But after what she’s been through, she can never really be sure someone isn’t lurking just beyond the shadows.

Mallory wonders how the tabloids will break the news to the world. The New York Post will, undoubtedly, come up with a short, clever headline. They always do.

They’re big on alliteration. Maybe they’ll go with Mallory Meets Her Maker. Or Eden’s End.

You’re sick, she says aloud—not that she’s the type of person who goes around speaking to herself.

Not like Gran.

Her grandmother, who had raised her after Mallory’s teenage mother left, had been a big self-talker. If Gran wasn’t carrying on a spirited one-way conversation as she baked a strudel or dusted the tidy bedrooms, then she was singing to herself. Loudly. Show tunes, mostly.

Gran had loved the theater. And movies. Even television.

Over the past few years, hardly a day had passed when Mallory hadn’t thought wistfully how proud Gran would have been if she could see her now. See what a big star she’d become, how the whole world loved her.

But all Gran had known, when she’d died the week Mallory graduated from high school, was mat her wayward granddaughter had been running around with Brawley Johnson, a redneck gas station attendant who was seven years older than she was.

Gran had loathed Brawley from the moment she met him. Her pursed-lipped reaction had driven Mallory right into his arms. When Gran tried to forbid her to see Brawley, she’d threatened to run away with him.

The second they hand me my diploma Sunday, I’m outta here! she’d screamed at Gran that horrible night.

And where do you think you’re going to go? Vera O’Neal had shouted right back, her fleshy face blotchy from the oppressive heat and her own fury.

Away to … California. With Brawley.

She’d blurted that out on impulse—all of it. But the instant she’d said it, she’d known it was a perfect plan. She’d always wanted to see the West Coast. Santa Monica and San Francisco. Hollywood and Haight-Ashbury.

Oh, there had been a time when she’d been perfectly content to be wholesome and stay put in her heartland hometown. A time when all that mattered was becoming runner-up in the local Dairy Princess pageant, and snagging a part-time job at Burger King, and going out with upright boys named Chad and Brett.

But sometime before her seventeenth birthday she’d entered what Gran had called her rebellious stage. It seemed that she and Gran—who had always been warm and affectionate with each other—were suddenly butting heads at every turn.

The worst part was, Mallory had known all along exactly what Gran was worried about.

Like Mother, like daughter—that was what she was thinking every time Mallory missed her curfew or got a D on a test.

Like Mother, like daughter.

Vera’s only child, Becky O’Neal, had run wild—then, had simply run away. For good.

Gran, worried that Mallory was going to become her mother, had attempted to impose a series of ridiculously strict rules. And Mallory, who knew she had her mother’s looks and her genes, had decided she might as well live up to her legacy.

On that final muggy June night when Gran had attempted to forbid Mallory to go out with Brawley, she had been filled with rage. Not just at Gran, but at her mother for getting herself pregnant at fifteen and then abandoning Mallory when she was a toddler; at her father, whoever he was; even at Brawley, for refusing to attempt winning Gran over by ditching the sullen attitude he always flaunted around adults.

When Mallory had grabbed an overnight bag and stormed out of the house, Gran was crying. And she had gone anyway, even though she had known that Gran was thinking of how her own daughter had left the same way … and never come back.

Gran couldn’t have known that Mallory had no intention of really leaving town that night.

And Mallory couldn’t have known Gran would drop dead of a heart attack a few hours after Mallory slammed the door in her face.

Now, as she drives around a sharp, sloping curve, the car’s headlights pick up a sign up ahead in the road.

ROCK RIVER FALLS BRIDGE.

This is it.

She takes a deep breath as she slows the car, checking again in her rearview mirror for headlights.

There’s no one there. No one up ahead either, on the opposite side of the water.

No one to see her drive onto the wet two-lane bridge high above the swift currents of the Rock River Falls.

No one to see her pull over halfway across and turn off the lights, and then the engine.

No one to see her fumbling, with violently trembling hands, for the envelope she had stashed earlier in her Italian leather purse.

No one to witness Mallory Eden, this year’s buoyant Hollywood blonde, propping a suicide note on the dashboard, stepping out into the pouring rain, and walking over to the rickety railing to stare, mesmerized, at the foaming black water below.

Chapter

1

It’s a white sweater that catches Elizabeth Baxter’s eye today.

Yesterday it was the most minuscule pair of jeans she had ever seen; last week, a small straw sun hat with a navy and white polka dot bow at the back.

But today it’s a teeny white sweater edged with lace, not ruffly, strictly feminine lace, but scalloped lace, the kind that would suit a boy or a girl. On the sweater’s little pocket, a pale yellow duck has been embroidered.

Elizabeth stands staring at the sweater in the window of the shop.

Wee World.

That’s the name of the shop.

Elizabeth has never ventured inside.

She never will.

Because she’ll never have a baby.

Tears threaten to flood her eyes, and she does her best to drag her gaze away from the exquisite white sweater she will never have reason to buy.

If only—

Hey, Liz!

In the plate-glass window she sees a reflection of Pamela Minelli waving at her from across the street.

She groans inwardly and rolls her eyes behind her sunglasses but turns away from the window, pastes a smile on her face, and waves back. She starts walking again, slowly, pretending to be engrossed in flipping through the mail she’s just removed from her post office box.

Maybe Pamela, who’s loaded down with shopping bags and toting her newborn in a Snugli and pushing her toddler in a carriage, will just stay there on the other side of North Main Street and be on her way.

But no, being Pamela, she won’t.

Even as Elizabeth jabs her key into the driver’s side lock of the red Hyundai parked in the ten-minute zone, Pamela’s making her way across the street, flipping her blond pageboy around and calling, Liz, hang on a sec!

Elizabeth turns and pretends to be surprised to see Pamela approaching.

"Hi, guys,’ she says, smiling down at two-year-old Hannah, who rewards her with a drooly smile.

What’s going on? Pamela huffs and adjusts the straps of the Snugli.

Not much.

We’ve been shopping, Pamela informs her, holding up the bags she’s clutching in one hand.

I see that. How’s this little fella been? Elizabeth peeks over the fabric pouch to see the precious sleeping baby, trying to ignore her stab of envy for what breezy Pamela seems to take for granted.

Children.

Two beautiful children of her own.

Jason? He’s a handful, that’s how he’s been. All he wants to do is nurse. And he weighs a ton. He’s gaining weight a hundred times faster than I did when I was pregnant. On him it looks good. But look at me. I can’t seem to take off this last twenty-five pounds. She pats her ample hips, then eyes Elizabeth, who’s wearing a baggy white T-shirt and denim shorts. You know, Liz, you’re one of those people who looks good with curves.

Not sure whether it’s a sincere compliment or a veiled insult, Elizabeth murmurs, Thanks.

I’ve got to go on a diet, Pamela declares, then hollers, Hannah, don’t put that in your mouth! She swoops down over the carriage and wrestles something out of her towheaded daughter’s grasp.

Hannah promptly starts screaming.

Elizabeth shifts her mail from her left hand to her right, looks at her car, and says, Well, I’d better hit the road. I’m in a ten-minute spot.

They won’t ticket you if you’re standing right by your car, Pamela announces with the authority of a woman who’s married to a Windmere Cove policeman.

They won’t? Elizabeth tries to think of another reason to make a quick getaway.

Nope. Pamela hands an animal cracker to the howling Hannah, who promptly shuts up and shoves it into her mouth. Even if they tried to ticket you, you’re with me and everyone on the force knows I’m Frank’s wife. Listen, were you planning to go straight home?

I—yes, Elizabeth says, thinking that Pamela might want her to go over to the Sailboat Cafe for coffee, and that’s the last thing she wants to do.

Great. Would you mind doing me a huge favor?

What is it? Elizabeth tries not to sound wary, but it isn’t easy. Pamela’s a nice enough person, but there are times—a lot of times—when Pamela doesn’t seem to respect the boundaries Elizabeth is doing her best to establish.

My back and my arms are breaking and I can’t fit these bags in the rack under the stroller. Would you mind …?

Of course I’ll take them for you, Elizabeth says, relieved, opening the car door and motioning for Pamela to put the bags in.

Not just the bags, actually. Would you mind taking the stroller too?

I guess I—

And Hannah?

Elizabeth blinks.

It’s just that I have a few more errands to run—there’s a sale on diapers over at Carmen’s Drugs—and then I have to take Jason to the doctor for his two-month shots, and it’ll be so much easier to do it if Hannah’s not with me. She screamed as soon as she saw the syringe when I took him for his two-week shots, even though I promised her she didn’t have to have one this time. Did you ever try to wrestle two screaming kids down a flight of stairs and into their car seats?

Elizabeth can only shake her head and open her mouth to protest, but before she can, Pamela continues talking.

Pamela always does this—asks for some huge favor and then rattles on and on so that Elizabeth can’t get a word in to refuse.

I was going to leave Hannah with Ellie Hanson from our play group, but her daughter’s got one of those nasty summer colds and the last thing I need is for Hannah to catch it and give it to the baby. Did you know that colds are linked with crib death?

Elizabeth helplessly shakes her head again, fully aware of Pamela’s insinuation that if she doesn’t baby-sit Hannah, and Jason subsequently succumbs to crib death, it will be entirely her fault.

I read that in some magazine article the last time I was at the pediatrician’s office, Pamela goes on, bending and unstrapping the cracker-munching Hannah, then pulling her out of the stroller. The little girl reaches out with a soggy-crumb-covered hand and grabs a handful of Elizabeth’s long, dark hair.

Let go of that, sweet-pea, Pamela says, and unpries her daughter’s fingers. Sorry, Liz. She loves to pull hair. I’m practically going bald.

My name isn’t Sweet-pea. It’s Babe, Hannah announces, lifting her chin stubbornly.

Pamela rolls her eyes and informs Elizabeth, She’s been telling everyone that lately. Babe has always been Frank’s nickname for me, and I guess she just—I don’t know, maybe she’s jealous. You know how little girls love their daddies.

No, I don’t know that, Elizabeth thinks. I’ve never had a daddy to love. Or a mom.

Anyway, Pamela continues, you’d think I wouldn’t be as worried about SIDS this time around, but every night, there I am, hopping out of bed a thousand times to check and make sure Jason’s still breathing.

Pamela plops Hannah in the passenger seat of the car and pulls the seat belt snugly over her, continuing to talk. I think I’m worse than I was after Hannah was born, but you know, boys have a higher risk than girls do. Frank said that if I don’t stop being so neurotic about Jason, he’s going to start sleeping on the couch—Frank, not Jason—but I can’t help it.

Shouldn’t she be in a car seat? Elizabeth asks when Pamela pauses for a breath. I mean, isn’t it illegal to—

The seat belt is fine for now. She’s big for her age. Anyway, you’re driving only a few blocks, and you’re a safe driver. I trust you. If you get stopped, just tell them she’s Frank’s child, and they won’t fine you.

But I don’t—

No big deal, Liz, Pamela assures her. Trust me.

But it’s not—

I’m her mother. I wouldn’t do anything mat would put her in danger, would I? There you go, sweet-pea. Listen to Aunt Liz. Ignoring Elizabeth’s protest, Pamela plants a kiss on Hannah’s head, sticks another cracker into her hand, and delivers the box and a bedraggled stuffed skunk to Elizabeth.

She’s had her nap and she’ll be fine without a snack since she has her crackers, although if you happen to have any fruit or juice around, she’ll probably love it. But not bananas. I’m positive she’s allergic to bananas, even though the doctor says she isn’t. I should be back at around four. Are you sure you don’t mind?

Elizabeth numbly shakes her head.

You’re a sweetie. Anytime you need a favor, you just ask, Pamela says, collapsing the stroller with a single practiced move. Want to open your trunk? I can just shove this in there. Or I can put it in the backseat, but the wheels might be kind of yucky. I dunk we rode right through a pile of doggie you-know-what on Front Street.

Dog poopie, Hannah clarifies, bouncing in the front seat. Pee-eeuh. Dog poopie stinks.

I’ll pop the trunk, Elizabeth says hurriedly, and hits the button on the door handle.

She’s at that age when all she wants to do is talk about you-know-what, Pamela confides, putting the stroller into the car.

Poopie, Hannah announces happily. Poopie, poopie, poopie.

If I tell her not to say it, she does it even more, so I just ignore it, Pamela whispers to Elizabeth, then says, Hey, this is a new car! I just realized it. It’s really nice. Look how clean the upholstery is. Hannah, don’t smear anything on Aunt Liz’s seat.

Elizabeth glances inside the car to see that the toddler has already left a sticky cracker-colored smudge beside her dimply leg.

Pamela doesn’t seem to notice. She’s running a fingertip along the hood of the car. I love the color, Liz—very sporty. You know what Frank says? That there’s a better chance of getting stopped by the cops if you’re driving a red car.

Really? Elizabeth keeps her voice carefully neutral, thankful for the sunglasses that shield her eyes from her neighbor’s scrutiny. Why’s that?

I don’t know. Maybe they think people who drive red cars are more daring—the types who might be smuggling drugs or something. Who knows? Frank’s not on traffic patrol anymore. Well, we’ve got to run, don’t we, Jason-boy? Thanks again, Liz.

No problem, she lies, and gets into the car beside Hannah.

Where Mommy go? Hannah asks in alarm, watching as Pamela and Jason stroll off down the street.

Your mommy and Jason have to go someplace, sweetie, but I’m going to take you home with me, Elizabeth says, fastening her seat belt, putting the key into the ignition, and smiling reassuringly at the child.

Hannah contemplates that for a moment, then opens her mouth and lets out a screech.

Hannah want Mommy!

No, it’s okay, Hannah, Elizabeth says, reaching over and catching the little girl’s hands, which are clawing at the door handle. We’re going to have such fun together, you’ll see.

Hannah want Mommy!

But if you go with Mommy, you’ll have to go to the doctor’s office. That’s where she’s taking Jason.

The doctor? Hannah stops clawing, but she’s still sobbing.

Yes, and you’ll have to have a shot.

A shot? No! No! Hannah don’t want a shot! Hannah cries harder, shaking her little head back and forth so quickly that she’s a blur of bobbing blond curls.

If you come with me, you don’t have to have one, Elizabeth says, and Hannah calms down. She picks up her skunk from the seat and cuddles him against her cheek, sticking her thumb in her mouth.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Elizabeth starts the car and backs out of the spot. She heads down busy North Main Street through the heart of Windmere Cove, past the white clapboard Congregational church and the redbrick town hall and the row of green awnings that front a cluster of shops.

At the end of North Main she makes a right onto tree-lined Center Street, which runs along the waterfront. It’s dotted with bait and tackle shacks and fish markets and a few small, no-frills pubs and cafes. Beyond the street and the shops, the deep blue sailboat-dotted waters of Narragansett Bay sparkle in the August sunshine.

Daddy! Hannah announces, taking her thumb out of her mouth and pointing.

Elizabeth glances in that direction and sees a white police car at the intersection of Center and Pine. The officer behind the wheel has a shock of white hair and he’s wearing glasses.

That’s not your daddy, Hannah, Elizabeth says, glancing at the speedometer as she passes the cop. She’s only going five miles above the speed limit, but, remembering what Pamela just said about red cars—and with Hannah not in a car seat to boot—she half expects a siren to sound behind her.

It doesn’t, of course. She’s noticed that here in Rhode Island, people seem to drive at breakneck speed without getting stopped.

Hannah’s daddy, Hannah insists, looking over her shoulder and sounding like she’s on the verge of tears.

That’s not your daddy. Your daddy has dark hair, Hannah, remember? And a mustache. And he’s young. That man was old.

Daddy!

Hannah, when we get to my house, would you like some juice? Elizabeth asks.

Juice? Need juice. Okay.

What kind of juice? She is mindlessly trying to distract Hannah, trying to relax, trying not to keep glancing in her rearview mirror as she drives two more blocks down Center.

What if the cop really had come after her? What if he asked to see her license?

It isn’t the first time she’s gone over that terrifying scenario.

She’ll have to say that her license is expired and that she doesn’t have it with her—which, in a sense, is the truth.

She thinks of the license back at home, the expired one from Illinois that bears the name Elizabeth Baxter and a photo that looks strikingly like her.

She should probably get rid of it. If anyone ever found it and connected her …

Need juice, Hannah says urgently.

I know you do, Hannah. But what kind? I have apple … and orange …

She turns right onto Green Garden Way, following the road as it curves past the dead end sign.

Hannah has decided on apple juice by the time Elizabeth pulls into the driveway of the small gray-shingled, white-shuttered Cape Cod she’s been renting, fully furnished, for nearly five years.

When the middle-aged woman who lived there passed away shortly before Elizabeth came to town, she left the place to her only son, who is overseas in the military. He presumably plans to return someday, having chosen not to put the place on the market.

Elizabeth doesn’t like to think about what she’ll do when that happens. It wasn’t easy to find a suitable house in her price range, and an apartment or town house is out of the question. The last thing she wants is close daily contact with neighbors.

The house is set way back from the street and fronted with three tall maple trees and a row of shrubs that offer considerable privacy—not that Green Garden Way is exactly teeming with activity. It’s a hushed, pleasant neighborhood of small ranch houses and one-story Cape Cods, populated mostly by retired people with grown children.

Janet Kravinski, the local Realtor who had rented the house to Elizabeth, had promised peace and quiet when Elizabeth told her she would be working from a home office.

In the back and on one side, your neighbor would be the woods, she’d told Elizabeth over the phone the day she’d called about the listing. On the other, there’s an eighty-year-old woman who’s very sweet. I don’t think she’ll be having wild drug parties, she’d joked, and Elizabeth had forced a laugh.

In any case, Janet had gone on, New Englanders tend to pretty much keep to themselves, so I don’t think there will be a problem.

That Yankee disdain for outsiders was one reason Elizabeth had chosen to move there, but Janet Kravinski didn’t know that.

Another thing Janet Kravinski didn’t know was that the eighty-year-old woman next door would die only a year after Elizabeth moved in, and that her house would be sold to Frank and Pamela Minelli.

Pamela may have been born and raised in Massachusetts, but she never, ever kept to herself. The day they’d moved in, she’d come bouncing across the yard to introduce herself and Hannah, who was a month old then. She’d asked all kinds of personal questions too.

About Elizabeth’s work as a writer—a lie—and about why she’d gotten divorced from her husband—another lie—and about where she’d grown up, and so on and so on.

If Pamela noticed Elizabeth was reticent about answering her countless queries, she hadn’t let on.

And since that first day, Pamela hasn’t asked many more questions. She’s the kind of self-absorbed person, Elizabeth has discovered, who talks endlessly about herself and her husband and her kids.

Hannah go home now, Hannah says as Elizabeth pulls up in front of the garage and shuts off the car.

No, you’re coming to my house, Hannah. Remember?

Home! Hannah insists, pointing at the yellow aluminum-sided house beyond the hedge.

Elizabeth sighs and gets out, then goes around and unbuckles Hannah’s seat belt. She tucks her mail under her arm and picks the child up before she can escape across the yard. Come on, Hannah, let’s go get your apple juice.

Hannah don’t like apple juice!

How about grape? Elizabeth suggests, unlocking the door and hurrying Hannah inside before she can start screaming again.

Grape? The child considers it for a mere second before nodding agreeably and saying, Okay.

As she settles Hannah at the kitchen table with a small glass of grape juice, Elizabeth wonders what kind of mother she would be. She used to do a lot of baby-sitting back when she was in high school, and the kids always seemed to like her, cuddling up to her and begging her to stay and play even after their parents were home.

I probably would be a great mom, she tells herself, patting Hannah’s white-blond hair. Not that I’ll ever find out.

And it’s just as well. Always, in the back of her mind, is the knowledge that she might not have inherited only her mother’s looks. What if she’d also inherited her mother’s …

Violent tendencies?

She has very few memories of Becky O’Neal, who had left the Nebraska farmhouse not long after her daughter’s third birthday. But she remembers certain things about her mother—bits and pieces of scenes that occasionally run through her mind even now, like the rough cut of a film in the hands of an overzealous editor.

Her mother yanking her out of her high chair by her hair …

Screaming at her for messing her diaper right after being changed …

Smacking her across the face.

Slamming her into the wall.

Throwing her onto the floor.

Kicking her.

Elizabeth squeezes her eyes shut to block out the images and finds Hannah watching her with solemn eyes, a thumb in her mouth.

I could never hurt a child, Elizabeth tells herself, reaching out to stroke Pamela’s daughter’s silky blond hair.

Never.

I would never be the kind of mother she was.

She feels a sharp sense of loss at the thought, because she’ll never have the chance to prove that to herself, or anyone else.

No, she’ll never be anyone’s mother.

I’ll be right back, Hannah, she says, shaking her head to rid herself of the disturbing truth, of lingering images.

She goes back down the hall to the front door and pulls it closed, then locks both bolts and the chain.

She glances into the living room out of habit, to make sure everything is as she’d left it. Yes, there’s her needlepoint sitting on the Shaker pine coffee table in front of the floral print couch, and there, on the hardwood floor beside the navy recliner, is the copy of People magazine she’d been reading the night before. The drapes are carefully closed.

She decides to open them, since Pamela will be coming over to get Hannah and might think it’s odd to have everything shut in the middle of a sunny summer afternoon.

Pamela’s been inside her house only a few times, and every time she made Elizabeth nervous. It wasn’t as though she’d snooped through the cupboards or asked a lot of questions., but she’d looked around with a shrewd eye that didn’t miss anything. And she’d asked to see Elizabeth’s office.

I’d love to see where a real writer works, she’d insisted when Elizabeth had protested that her office was a mess. And anyway, our house is always a mess and I’ve basically gotten over caring. You need to lighten up a little, Liz. Don’t be such a June Cleaver.

What could she do but lead Pamela to the spare bedroom, where she kept her computer, desk, and books? She’d half expected Pamela to point out that the room was in perfect order, but for some reason she’d kept her mouth shut about that.

She had examined the rows of titles on the bookshelf. They were mostly poular fiction, and a few reference books.

And she had asked, What is it that you write, again?

Elizabeth told her, even though she’d said it several times in me past. Technical stuff. I freelance. I do annual reports and newsletters and articles for trade journals, that kind of thing.

She’d hurried Pamela out of her office before she could pry further, and distracted her by asking whether she’d gotten a haircut.

Pamela loves to talk about her hair. She’s always relating details about how she has it dyed and cut and styled.

The few times Pamela has been inside Elizabeth’s house were never by invitation. She seems to have a way of seeping in, especially in the summer, when she and Elizabeth bump into each other outside more often.

Elizabeth opens the curtains in the living room and in the small dining room, then goes down the hall to shut the doors to her bedroom and the office. When she returns to the kitchen, she finds that Hannah has spilled grape juice all over herself, her pink and white sunsuit, and the white ceramic tile floor. A river of purple is running across the red Formica tabletop and has soaked the pile of mail she just picked up from the post office.

Oops, Hannah says guiltily when Elizabeth comes in and sees the mess.

It’s okay, she tells the child.

She picks up the mail, which she has yet to examine, and sticks it into one half of the double stainless steel sink. Then she grabs a pile of wet paper towels and cleans the floor and Hannah’s sticky hands and face.

Yucky, Hannah comments, then adds, Poopie.

Remembering what Pamela said, Elizabeth ignores that. She surveys the purple-streaked sunsuit and says, You know what? If we don’t get that into the washing machine, it’s going to stain really badly. Will you let me take it off you?

Hannah nods, looking bored.

Elizabeth wrestles her out of the sunsuit and leads her, clad only in her training pants, into the living room. Do you want to sit here and watch television while I go down and put your outfit into the laundry?

TV, Hannah agrees, climbing onto the couch.

Elizabeth turns it on, finding a late-afternoon cartoon show. Here you go, sweetie. Is this good?

Good.

Elizabeth smiles and leaves Hannah in the living room, thinking that as much as she dislikes Pamela’s taking advantage of her, it’s kind of nice to have a little child around the house.

You’ll never have one of your own, she reminds herself. You’ll be alone for the rest of your life.

Sighing, she unlocks the door in the hallway that leads down to the basement. It’s unfinished, and filled with cobwebs and junk left behind by the woman who lived there before and died in the house.

Elizabeth flicks on the light and makes her way gingerly down the steep steps, ducking to avoid a shred of spiderweb dangling near the bottom of the stairs. She puts the sunsuit into the washer that sits in one corner, near an old, deep laundry sink.

Cold, delicate, she murmurs aloud as she sets the controls.

She turns to go back up to the kitchen and jumps, gasping at the sight of someone moving in the shadows under the stairs.

She opens her mouth to scream, men realizes that it’s nothing.

Just an old wooden coat stand, some boxes, and her imagination.

But her heart is still pounding as she hurries back upstairs.

"Were you a good girl for Aunt Liz?" Pamela asks when she returns an hour later and scoops a squirmy Hannah off the couch.

She sure was, Elizabeth lies, wishing she could tell Pamela about how she’d found Hannah—whose poopie comment was apparently meant to be a warning—smelling to high heaven and shredding the People magazine when she’d come back up from doing the laundry. She could also mention how Hannah had, in one swift movement, shattered her favorite crystal candy dish that had been sitting on the coffee table.

She wished, too, that she knew how to tell Pamela she didn’t want to be called aunt or Liz.

What happened to her clothes? Pamela balances Hannah on her hip and steadies the crying baby in his carrier. Did she throw up on them or something?

Oh, I almost forgot. Elizabeth tells her about the