Lisa Gardner - The Survivors Club

And then she just wanted to weep.

He would finish eating soon. He would open the door at the top of the stairs. He would descend into the basement with its musty smell of decay and fresh-turned earth.

And then?

Jillian had told them that they could control their own lives. Jillian had told them that if they tried hard enough, they could win. They could be confident and independent and strong.

But Meg couldn't think like Jillian anymore. She was just a twenty-year-old girl. And she was tired and she was hungry and she was terrified. And soon, very soon, something bad was going to happen. Something worse than even the College Hill Rapist.

Very soon, the man had promised her, David would be here.

In the intensive care unit, Dan sat reading a book. Recovering from Rape: A Guide for Victims and Their Families . He had bought the book two weeks ago. He was now on the chapter “The First Anniversary and Beyond-When You Are Not ‘Over It.' ”

Monitors beeped in steady rhythm to his wife's pulse. Down the hall, some other machine started to beep frantically and a nurse boomed, “Code, code, code!” The words were swiftly followed by the clatter of wheels and metal as someone raced a crash cart to the rescue.

Carol never stirred. Her chest rose and fell peacefully. Her head lay serenely on a golden pool of hair. The white sheets remained smooth and unmussed over the faint mound of her chest.

Every now and then, her right hand would twitch. In the last twenty hours, it was the closest they'd gotten to any sign of consciousness.

Dan finished the chapter from the survivor's point of view. Now he moved on to “The Significant Other-When She's Not ‘Over It.' ”

He read, and though he was not aware of it, sometimes he cried.

Down the hall, the doctors and nurses fought desperately to save a life. While in Carol's room her heart beat steadily, her lungs worked rhythmically, and her very peacefulness threatened to steal her away.

Dan finished the chapter. Now he gazed at his sleeping wife, his elbows planted on his knees, his head bent. His left arm still ached where Carol had shot him. He barely noticed it anymore.

Twenty hours of vigilance. Twenty hours of hoping and praying and wishing and cursing.

He thought of all the years and all the ways fate had been unkind. He thought of all the things Carol had done and he had done. He wondered why we always hurt the people we love. And then he wondered why it took an emergency room visit to understand what was really important in life.

He would turn back the clock if he could. He would forget the lure of blackjack; he would find a way to be happy at a corporate law firm. He would come home more, ignore his wife less, concentrate on all the little things that used to make her smile. He would be the perfect husband, a man who came home in time to stop the vicious attacker, a man who didn't drive his wife to bingeing, purging, booze and pills.

Of course that wasn't an option. All he could do now was slog messily on, with his injured arm and massive debts and drowning sense of guilt. Carol was broken, he was broken. According to the rape book, such feelings were natural and it would probably be a while before either one of them felt whole-if they ever felt whole. You just had to keep going, the book advised. Wade through the pain, keep looking for the other side.

There had to be another side.

“I love you,” he said to Carol.

He got no response.

“Dammit, Carol, don't let him win like this!”

Still no response.

Down the hall, things took a turn for the worse. No more frantic noises. Just a far eerier silence. Then a doctor's voice penetrated the hush. “Time of death,” the doctor announced.

“Fuck it!” Dan cried. He threw down the book. He climbed onto the white hospital bed. He negotiated wires and tape and tubes until he could gather up his wife. Her head lolled against his shoulder. Her long blond hair poured down his chest.

Dan got his arms around Carol. He pressed her against his body, and he held her as close as he could.

While down the hall, the crash team wearily retreated to the break room, where they turned their attention to the TV.

“Hey,” someone said. “Isn't that David Price?”

Still sitting in the Pesaturos' living room, Jillian didn't know what to do. Tom was staring at the floor, as if the worn carpet held the secret to life. Laurie had disappeared into the kitchen, where, judging from the distinct smell of Pine-Sol, she was waging a holy war against dirt. That left Libby and Toppi to entertain Molly. The little girl now had Libby picking through a shoe box of Barbie clothes while Toppi was in charge of getting a hot-pink cape onto a stuffed Winnie the Pooh. Jillian couldn't begin to fathom what that was all about.

Tom stared, Laurie cleaned, Molly played, and Jillian…? She didn't know what she was supposed to do. The Survivors Club was fractured. They had careened away from one another, whether they had meant to or not, and alone they definitely weren't as strong as they had been together. Bitter Carol had given in to her self-destructive rage. Flaky Meg had vanished when her family needed her the most. And Jillian? Grim, determined, holier-than-thou Jillian? She had no troops to lead into battle. She sat next to her mother, slowly twisting Trisha's gold St. Christopher pendant, and tried to rein in her scattered thoughts.

If Griffin was right, the Survivors Club had been doubly victimized. First the rapist had battered their bodies. Then he'd duped them into wreaking not their vengeance, but his vengeance upon some poor guy who'd tried to tell them better. Poor Eddie Como, proclaiming his innocence right up to the bitter end.

If Jillian thought about that too much, thought of the man, Eddie, them, Trish, she was afraid she would start with yelling and end with breaking every object in the room.

If she thought about it too much, she would be down in her sister's dark apartment again. The man would be squeezing her throat, calling her vile names. And while he did these things, he would be laughing on the inside, because he already knew that when she tried to seek justice later, she'd only be serving his needs once again.

While Trish died on the bed.

One year ago, she had called Meg, she had called Carol. She had told them that they had been victimized once, but it never had to happen again. She had told them they could reclaim their lives. She had told them they could win.

She had lied.

Is this what life came down to in the end? You tried and you failed, you tried and you failed. The opposition was not just physically stronger than you but smarter as well? You could struggle as hard as you knew how, but still your sister died. You could finally arrest a murdering pedophile, and the man would simply smile and tell you exactly what he had done to your wife.

David Price. David Price. It all came down to David Price. Charming, seemingly harmless, perfect neighbor, David Price.

Jillian gripped Trisha's medallion in her hand. It wasn't so hard to transfer her rage after all. She wanted David Price dead. And then, for the first time, she truly understood Griffin. And then, for the first time, she had an inkling of an idea.

The front door opened and shut. Laurie, who had gone out to get the mail, walked into the family room, sifting through the pile.

She came to the middle. Meg's mother started to scream.

“THIS IS MAUREEN HAVERILL, REPORTING LIVE FROM THE Adult Correctional Institutions, Cranston. Today, startling new revelations in the College Hill Rapist case, which gained fresh intensity last night with the brutal murder of Brown College student Sylvia Blaire. Was twenty-eight-year-old Eddie Como, tragically shot down Monday at the Licht Judicial Complex, the real College Hill Rapist, as he was charged? Or was Como merely another victim in a sadistic game? I am here with ACI inmate David Price, a convicted murderer, who claims to know the real identity of the College Hill Rapist but tells us that state police have repeatedly ignored his offers of assistance. Mr. Price, what can you tell us about the attack on Sylvia Blaire?”