Lisa Gardner - The Survivors Club

“Dan shuts me out so much, I don't know why he bothers coming home,” Carol was saying. Her shoulders had come down, her angry expression giving way to a pain that was far worse. “He won't talk. He won't fight, grieve or even rationalize. The subject is strictly off-limits. We live in a house with a giant elephant both of us pretend not to see.”

“You've never talked about the rape?”

“In the beginning we talked about what the doctors said. Then we talked about what the police said, or what D'Amato said. Sometimes we talk about what our group says. So we talk. About what other people say.”

“It's got to be hard for him,” Meg spoke up. “I mean, he's a guy. Look at my father. He still hates himself for not being there when Eddie attacked me, and he didn't even live in my apartment. For your husband, that's gotta feel like a hundred-pound weight around his neck. I wonder what other guys say to him.”

“Other guys?”

“Well, sure, guys talk. Well, okay, not really. I mean, not like us. But he's a guy and other guys know his wife was raped in his own home. That's gotta make him feel… bad. Like a first-class failure. What kind of man doesn't protect the woman he loves? I know if something ever happened to my mom, my father would get out the brass knuckles. Then probably a chain saw. And then my Uncle Vinnie would… Well, that's a whole 'nother story.”

“He had no way of knowing what was going to happen that night,” Carol said.

Jillian looked at her curiously. “Have you told him that?”

Carol hesitated, then shook her head.

“Why not?”

“Because I do blame him, all right? Because I prayed for him to come home that night. I lay there while that man did unspeakable things to me hoping that Dan would come home. And it went on and on and on, and still, where was my husband? I needed him. How could he not come home?”

“He had no way of knowing…” Jillian tried.

“You said yourself he was always working late,” Meg offered.

“ But he wasn't at work! Goddammit… Goddammit.” Carol sat down hard. She buried her face in her hands. And then in the next moment, her head came back up and her cheeks were covered in tears. “I'd suspected it for months. All the late nights. All his sudden ‘meetings.' So I started calling his office. There was never any answer. Never. And then, that night. I called his office at nine-thirty. Nobody was there. Nobody. Face it. My husband couldn't save me from being raped because he was too busy fucking his girlfriend.”

“Oh, Carol…”

“Oh, Carol.”

“So how do you bring that topic up?” Carol demanded thickly. “Huh? Anyone? Hey, Dan, I'll apologize for being raped if you'll apologize for having an affair. Or, Dan, how about I say I'm sorry for being an emotional train wreck if you'll say you're sorry for not coming home in time to stop my attacker. Or, I'll say I'm sorry for not being able to have children if you'll say you're sorry for constantly shutting me out, for putting your job ahead of me, for ensconcing me in some four-thousand-square-foot mausoleum that only reminds me of how much I am alone. And then what happens? We grow old together, always looking at each other and knowing what big failures we are?

“That's the problem with marriage, you know. You start out wanting intimacy, and then when it happens, you remember too late that familiarity breeds contempt.”

“Do you still love him?” Jillian asked.

“Oh God, yes,” Carol said, and then she started to cry again. For a long time, no one said a word.

A knock sounded at the door. The waitress, an old hand with their meetings, poked her head in.

“Jillian, the police are here.”

Jillian looked at Carol. “Do you want to postpone?”

It was, Meg thought, the closest Jillian had ever come to a peace offering.

Carol, however, was already pulling herself back together. She picked up a napkin, worked on blotting her face. “No. Let them in. We have to hear about this girl. We have to know.”

“It's probably just a copycat,” Jillian said.

“It's not,” Meg spoke up.

“We don't know that.”

“I do.”

“Meg-”

“No, if Carol can have a nervous breakdown, then I should be able to have my feelings, too. And this feels all wrong. This girl, she was one of us. Except we learned about her too late.”

Carol and Jillian frowned at her, reunited again over their shared sentiments for flaky little Meg. But Meg stuck to her guns. She was right about this. She knew. This morning the eyes had been following her again. And she had understood for the first time. Eddie Como's death. It was not an end for them, but simply a new beginning.

That poor, poor girl…

“Show the police in,” Jillian told the waitress.

“I'm sorry, Carol,” Meg murmured.

“I'm sorry, too,” Jillian said.

Then they all fell silent as Detective Fitzpatrick and Sergeant Griffin walked into the room.

TAKING IN THE THREE WOMEN FOR THE SECOND TIME IN AS many days, Griffin's first thought was that none of them looked nearly as composed as yesterday. Carol Rosen, sitting across the table, bore the red cheeks and puffy eyes of someone who'd recently been crying. Jillian Hayes, standing at the head of the table, had the pale features and dark shadows of someone who hadn't gotten any sleep at night. Finally, Meg Pesaturo, sitting closest to the door, looked pasty around the edges. Hangover, he would guess. From yesterday's champagne. Maureen had included eyewitness testimonies from the rue de l'espoir as part of this morning's news report.

The women didn't know it yet, but they were rapidly becoming the center of a first-rate legal hailstorm. And all this after Eddie Como had been dead for only twenty-four hours. It made Griffin wonder what the next twenty-four might bring.

“Jillian, Carol, Meg.” Fitz greeted each woman in turn. Griffin didn't know if Fitz was even aware of it, but he always greeted the women in the same order. By rank, Griffin thought dryly. Or ascending order of victimhood.

The women didn't say anything. They just stared at Fitz and Griffin with the flat eyes of people who were expecting bad news and only wanted to get it over with.

“Thank you for taking the time to meet with me,” Fitz said formally, pulling out a chair and preparing to take a seat. “I'm sure you all remember Detective Sergeant Roan Griffin from yesterday. I invited Sergeant Griffin to join us as a professional courtesy-to the extent that last night's activities may be tied in with the death of Eddie Como, the sergeant is also participating in this case.”

Griffin smiled at the group, careful not to let his gaze linger too long on Jillian. Professional courtesy. You had to like that. Fitz had just welcomed him to the party while simultaneously putting him firmly in his place. You couldn't get anything past these Providence boys.

“Now then,” Fitz said briskly. “I understand there was some excitement at your home last night.”

Carol and Jillian both said, “Yes.”

Fitz's smile grew tight. “Carol, why don't you start.”

“I got a note,” Carol said stiffly. “In a pink envelope. The return address was Jillian's. I didn't look at the postmark. When I opened it, however, it was from Eddie.”

“Do you still have it?”

Carol's chin came up. “I know the drill.”

“All right. What did the note say?”

“It said, ‘I'm going to get you. Even if it's from beyond the grave.' I… panicked a little. I was home alone and that scared me more. So I got my gun out of the safe. And then, well, unfortunately, I ended up shooting Dan when he returned.”