Lisa Gardner: The Neighbor

She wore all black. Black trousers, black shirt. It wasn’t an outfit he recognized, cheap, ill-fitting. He saw now that there was also a dark baseball cap on the bed. The perfect outfit for stealth. Was she stealing in, or stealing away? Why couldn’t he understand what was going on?

“I saw the news,” she said quietly.

Jason stared at her.

“My father made the five o’clock broadcast, claiming he deserves custody of Ree. I realized then that I had to come back.”

“He claims you’re a liar,” Jason murmured. “Your mother was a fine, upstanding woman, and your father’s only sin was loving his wife more than his daughter.”

“He said what?” Sandy asked sharply.

“You’re troubled, have a history of drinking, promiscuity, perhaps multiple abortions.”

She colored, didn’t say a word.

“But your parents were solid. You were just jealous of your mother, then furious about her untimely death. So you ran away from your father, and then… you ran away from me. You left us.” He was surprised, now that he was saying the words out loud, how much they hurt him. “You left me, and you left Ree.”

“I didn’t want to go,” Sandy said immediately. “You have to believe me. Something bad happened. And maybe he didn’t kill me Wednesday night, but it was only a matter of time. If I stayed, if he could find me. I… I didn’t know what to do. It seemed better if I disappeared for a bit. If I was gone, he couldn’t want me anymore. It would make things all right.”

“Who? How? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Shhh.” She took his hands, and the first touch jolted him. He didn’t know if the feel of her fingers against his skin was the best or the worst thing that had ever happened to him. He had wanted her. Prayed for her to come home. Despaired over her return. And now, heaven help him, he wanted to wrap his fingers around the white column of her throat and hurt her as badly as her leaving had hurt him…

She must have seen some of it in his eyes, because her grip on his hands tightened, becoming painful. She urged him closer to the bed, and after a moment, he followed her. They sat on the edge of the mattress, a couple returning to their marriage bed, and still none of it made sense to him.

“Jason, I screwed up.”

“Are you pregnant?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Is it mine?”

“Yes.”

“From… from family vacation?”

“Yes.”

The breath finally left him. His shoulders sagged. He felt bewildered, but less pained. He shrugged off her hands because he had to touch her. This is what he had dreamed of doing, what he had wanted to do, since he’d first heard the news.

He splayed his fingers across the slender expanse of her stomach, seeking some sign of growth. That a little miracle existed here. A real life. One they had made together and-at least on his part-with love.

“You’re still flat,” he murmured.

“Honey, it’s only been four weeks.”

His gaze finally came up. He stared at her, taking in her shadowed blue eyes, gaunt cheekbones. He could see the remains of a bruise above her right temple. A swollen cut on her upper lip. His hands moved on their own, across her stomach to her waist, her shoulders, her arms, her legs. He had to feel each piece of her, to assure himself she was all here, whole, intact, okay. That she was safe.

“I had to learn that you were pregnant from the police. From some sergeant who’s one step away from hanging me.”

“I’m sorry.”

He turned the screws a little tighter. “If they’d arrested me, Ree would’ve become a ward of the state. They would’ve placed her in foster care.”

“I never would’ve let that happen. Jason, please believe me. I knew when I disappeared it might be risky. But I also knew you’d take good care of Ree. You’re the strongest person I know. I never would’ve done this otherwise.”

“Let me be accused of killing my pregnant wife?”

She smiled wanly. “Something like that.”

“Do you hate me?” he whispered.

“No.”

“Is our little family that intolerable?”

“No.”

“Do you love the other man more?”

She hesitated, and he felt that, too, another bruise to nurse in the days and nights to come.

“I thought I did,” she said at last. “But then, I thought my husband was Jason Jones. So I guess we’re both very good at wanting what we can’t have.”

He winced, then forced himself to nod. This is what it came down to in the end. He had started their marriage with a lie, so if she chose to end it with a lie, well, who was he to judge?

He removed his hands from her body. Sat upright, squared his shoulders, steeled himself for what had to come next. “You came back for Ree,” he stated. “So your father can’t have her.”

But Sandra shook her head. She lifted her hand, brushing the moisture from his cheek.

“No, Jason. You still don’t understand. I came back for both of you. I love you, Joshua Ferris.”

D.D. made it out of Roxbury in record time. She had sirens blasting, lights twirling, the whole nine yards. She was simultaneously working her radio, demanding that officers be immediately deployed to the Hastings residence. She wanted Ethan Hastings safely in police custody and she wanted it right now.

In addition, she wanted BPD detectives dispatched to the state police crime lab crime scene, even if that pissed the state off. Wayne Reynolds might be their man, but he was BPD’s witness and whatever he’d known about Sandra Jones had no doubt gotten him killed.

Furthermore, she wanted officers dispatched to the Boston Daily offices. Not a single computer was to be touched until they had further word from Ethan Hastings.

Finally, she had explicit instructions for the two officers watching the Jones residence. If Jason Jones so much as cracked open his front door, he was to be arrested. Pick him up for loitering, late parking tickets, she didn’t care. But he was not to leave the confines of his house unless he was wearing a pair of BPD bracelets.

They had just lost a man, and she was furious.

So it definitely didn’t help when Dispatch returned to tell her that two officers had arrived at the Hastings residence. Unfortunately, the thirteen-year-old boy was not in his room and his parents had no idea where he might have gone.

Three minutes past eleven, Ethan Hastings had vanished.

“How did you finally figure it out?” Jason was asking his wife.

“Your birthday. I was installing the iPod software on the computer and I found a photograph in the recycle bin.”

“Which one?”

“You were naked, badly beaten. There was a tarantula crawling across your chest.”

Jason nodded. His gaze was on the floor. “That’s the hardest part,” he said, softly. “On the one hand, it’s been over twenty years. I got away. The past is the past. On the other hand, the man took so many photos… and movies. He sold them. That’s how he earned money. Selling child porn to other pedophiles, who of course are still reselling the pictures, over and over again. There are so many images out there, hundreds of countries, ten of thousands of servers. I don’t know how to get them back. I can never get them all back.”

“You were abducted,” she said quietly.

“Nineteen eighty-five. Not a good year to be me.”

“When did you get away?”

“Three or four years later. I made friends with an elderly neighbor woman, Rita. She let me stay at her place.”

“And the man just let you go?”

“Oh no. He came looking for me. Tied Rita up, handed me the gun, and ordered me to kill her. That was my punishment for disobeying him.”