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“What private detective?”
“The man in the white van.”
“I don’t know about any white van. I just know that I shouldn’t have told him. I should have kept the secret, let him go on thinking nothing was wrong. Let him believe that we’re just one big fake happy family. But I couldn’t keep it in.”
“Did you also tell him Larry is your dad?”
“No, I didn’t know it washim.” She makes a face, a look of disgust that is absolutely appropriate. What other face would you make when you discover you share genes with Larry Leopold? “I can’t believe my mom—andhim…” She shudders.
“Then how did Rick find out?”
“My mom finally confessed. That evening, she told him who the man was. And that’s why all this happened. Why my dad drove to Larry’s house.”
“Oh, Tricia. What a mess.”
“I know. I know.” She sighs. “And it could’ve been worse, so much worse, if you hadn’t been there to stop him, Mrs. Rizzoli. He might’vekilledLarry. Then he would’ve ended up in jail for the rest of his life. All because of me.”
“No, honey. It’s not because of you. Don’t ever blame yourself for this. It’s the grown-ups who messed up here.” I pause. “It’s usually the grown-ups.”
She drops her head into her hands and cries silent tears. She is so unlike my own daughter when she was a teenager. My Janie didn’t cry silent tears. If she got punched, she didn’t cry; she punched right back. But Tricia is a far more sensitive girl,and she is going to need her mother’s help to get through this.
I need to call Jackie. It’s going to be an uncomfortable conversation because she doesn’t know how much I know about her family, but she and Tricia need each other, and I may have to be the one to shove them back into each other’s arms.
I walk Tricia to the front door and as she walks away down the street, I think about what I will say to Jackie on the phone. Nothing judgmental; she already knows she screwed up (and withLarry Leopold!) but now she needs a friend. For a moment I pause on my porch, surveying the neighborhood, girding myself to make the dreaded phone call. Even though everything looks the same, somehow the street seems different. The Leopolds’ garden is as well-tended as it’s always been, but inside that house is a marriage in crisis. Jonas, the man formerly known as our neighborhood Navy SEAL, is not at his usual spot in the window lifting weights. He’s probably afraid to show his face, now that he’s been exposed as the fraud he is. And the Greens? Even on this bright and beautiful Sunday, their blinds are closed, their secrets tucked away.
I’m about to step back into my house when I spot a familiar white van approaching. It’s the same van that keeps driving down my street, the one I saw a few nights ago parked outside the Leopolds’ house. I had assumed it belonged to some private investigator that Rick hired, but now I know that isn’t true. So who is driving the van, and why is it back in my neighborhood?
Slowly it cruises past my house and pulls over to the curb a few houses down. There it just sits, its engine turned off. Why isn’t the driver getting out? What is he waiting for?
I can’t stand the uncertainty any longer. I’m the woman who faced down a gunman, who saved Larry Leopold’s life. Surely I can solve this little mystery.
I grab my cell phone and step outside. It’s the first time the van has stopped here long enough in the daytime for me to get a good look at it. I snap a photo of the rear license plate, then I go to the driver’s door and tap on his window.
“Hello?” I call out. “Hello?”
He glances up from his cell phone and stares at me. He’s a blond man in his thirties with bulked-up shoulders and no smile. Absolutely no smile.
“Who do you work for?” I ask.
He just keeps staring at me, as if I’m speaking a foreign language.
“Because it’s my job to keep an eye on this neighborhood. I’ve seen you on this street a number of times now, and I’d like to know your business here.”
I don’t think I’m getting through to him, because he still doesn’t answer me. Maybe it’s because all he sees is a middle-aged housewife, someone he can simply ignore. I’ve been ignored too long and I’m tired of it. I stand up straight. It’s time to channel my daughter’s voice, my daughter’s authority. What would a cop say?
“I’m going to have to call this in,” I tell him.
That does the trick. “I have a delivery,” he finally says. “Flowers.”
“For who?”
“Let me check the name again. It’s on the clipboard in back.”
He steps out of the van. He’s even bigger than he looked in the driver’s seat, and as I follow him to the rear of the van, I feel like I’m walking behind Hercules.
“Maybe you can take a look at the name on the card,” he says. “Tell me if I’m at the right address?”
“Show me.”
He opens the rear door and steps aside so I can look in at the flowers.
Only there are no flowers. There’s just an empty van.
A hand clamps over my mouth. I try to twist free, try to fight back, but I’m wrestling with a wall of muscle. My phone clatters to the ground as he lifts me off my feet and heaves me into the back. He climbs in and yanks the door shut, trapping me inside with him. After the glare of sunshine, the van seems so dark I can barely make out his figure bent over me. I hear the screech of duct tape.
Just as I draw in a breath to scream, he slaps the tape over my mouth. Rolls me over onto my belly, and savagely yanks my hands together behind my back. In seconds he binds my wrists and ankles, working with swift and brutal efficiency.
A professional. Which means I’m going to die.
