Kate White - Hush

Fifteen minutes later the door swung open and a woman close to sixty and barely over five feet tall burst into the room.

“Madelyn Silver,” she said as she shot out a hand as wide as a mitten and shook her head, indicating that Lake shouldn’t get up.

She wasn’t wearing pajamas, but Madelyn’s black pants and tan cotton blazer looked like they’d been thrown on in a hurry. Her hair was jet black with a fine band of white down the center part, and the corners of her eyelids were so hooded they gave her small brown eyes a triangular shape. The only makeup she wore was a swipe of red lipstick that ran roughshod over the outline of her mouth. At first glance she looked like someone’s grandmother, the kind of person you’d see knitting in a train station, but a few seconds after she entered the room, Lake could feel the force field around her.

“How you doing, kiddo?” she said, taking the seat next to Lake and positioning her chair so they were face-to-face.

“Not so great. I’m just glad you’re here. Is Kit outside?”

“Yeah, they’re making him cool his pretty heels in their cheery waiting area. What’s the story on your head there? How bad are you hurt?” As Madelyn spoke, she shrugged off the shoulder strap from her worn leather briefcase, dropping the bag onto the table, then drew out a yellow legal pad. Something about that pad and Madelyn’s brusque but maternal style made Lake feel safe for the first time.

“It’s cut-but not bad enough for stitches. I might have a concussion, though.”

Madelyn cocked her head and parted her full lips hopefully, as if she’d just heard a rumor of a sixty-percent-off sale at Saks.

“Possible concussion. That means we could get this interview postponed. Are you really up to talking to these guys tonight?”

“I-I don’t know,” Lake said. “Everything-it’s all such a mess. I-”

“Even if we decide to postpone the interview, you and I need to talk while everything’s fresh in your mind. So why don’t we start and see how you feel as we go.”

“Okay,” Lake said hesitantly. She still had no clue what she was going to say to Madelyn. If she said that Rory had accused her of having an affair with Keaton and had lured her to the house because of that, all roads would then surely lead back to her reckless night with him. “Is it safe to talk here?”

“Yes, that’s not a problem. On the way up, Archer filled me in on what you’d uncovered at the clinic. He said you drove to Ms. Deever’s house because she claimed to have evidence to show you.”

“Yes, some files-and she actually did have them. They’re probably still on the kitchen table, and the police need to get them as evidence.”

“Okay, we’ll alert them to that.” Madelyn had begun to make notes on the legal pad, using an elegant Mont Blanc pen. With her other hand she pulled the edges of her jacket over her full breasts, as if the fit felt awkward. “Now, why don’t you start from the beginning.”

Lake just sat there, paralyzed. How much should she say ?

“Can I ask you one question first?” Lake said finally. “Do you know anything about Rory? Was she injured? Has she had a chance to speak to the police yet?”

Madelyn set down her pen and peered at Lake. The look in her eyes was dark and grave.

“What is it?” Lake asked weakly.

“I have some disturbing news that I didn’t want to drop on you the minute I walked in. The police don’t know I know this, but…Rory Deever was killed in the accident. She died instantly.”

Lake’s heart seemed to stop mid-beat. She could barely believe the words. She felt a surge of relief. At nearly the same moment, she thought of the unborn baby and winced in distress.

“But she wasn’t driving that fast,” Lake argued.

“Apparently she wasn’t wearing a seat belt, and her head hit the windshield hard.”

“How-how did you find this out?”

“Archer has some contacts up this way in the news media.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” Lake asked. “The detective who spoke to me-Kabowski-implied that he was about to talk to Rory tonight.”

“I’m sure he was just playing you. But, look-I don’t want you to worry. This complicates things, I know, but I’m going to make sure you’re okay. Got it?”

Lake nodded as her mind fully processed the news. This changed everything, she realized. There would be no version of events from Rory. Lake fought the urge to laugh like a crazy person.

“Got it,” Lake said.

“Okay, now tell me what happened.”

Lake started with the call from Rory and took Madelyn through everything that followed. As she relived the terrifying minutes in the basement, her voice choked. For the first time she fully imagined what it would be like to end up in that freezer, lying on top of piles of frozen meat and gasping for air until there was no more.

“But why ?” Madelyn asked. Her eyes were perplexed, not accusatory. “What was the point of trying to kill you?”

“Because…she thought I’d figured out that she’d killed Dr. Keaton. And she needed to shut me up.”

“But had you figured it out? How?”

Lake paused for a moment, her mind racing ahead of her words.

“She had a slip of the tongue,” she said. “As we were looking at the files in her kitchen, she said that maybe Keaton had also learned the truth about the clinic and he was killed because of that. I said it was a possibility but that Keaton’s death might well have been a coincidence, that it could have been related to, say, a burglary. The nurse who’d watered his plants mentioned he had a terrace and I suggested to Rory that someone could have broken in from there. And then-that’s when she made the slip. She said there was no access to the terrace from anyplace… She’d obviously been there.”

It had come to Lake in an instant-to turn the slip she’d made with Rory at the piano bar into a lie that could save her. Who could ever know for sure it wasn’t true? And it didn’t connect her to Keaton in any way.

“That’s when you knew? When she made that slip?” Madelyn looked incredulous now.

“No. I didn’t make the leap right then. But the comment seemed kind of odd, and that must have shown on my face. I think she thought I knew. After that she gave me the tea. And later in the basement, she started railing on as if I had figured it out. That’s when I knew.”

Madelyn pinched her jacket closed again and sealed her ragged red lips tightly together. Lake could tell she sensed there was something off kilter about the story but didn’t know what or why.

“So Rory assumed you were going to expose her?”

“I guess so. She acted totally crazy then, like she’d started to break. She said she was pregnant with Keaton’s baby and that she’d killed him because he was sleeping around and didn’t take her pregnancy seriously. She clearly had psychological problems-maybe borderline personality disorder.”

“Okay,” Madelyn said after a moment, as if she’d accepted Lake’s words despite her instincts. “Take me through the rest. How did you escape?”

Lake told the story exactly as it happened-locking Rory in the basement, being tackled in the yard, Rory giving chase in her car. There were moments when she felt tentative and then had to remind herself: This part is all true.

“She tried to run me off the road,” Lake said as she came to the end of the story. “The road was slick and she must have lost control of the car.”

Madelyn leaned back and sighed.

“Do you feel up to talking to the cops tonight? It will certainly add to your credibility if you do it now.”

Lake took a deep breath. The idea was scary as hell but she wanted desperately to get it over with, especially while the story was fresh in her mind.