Мэг Кэбот – Overbite (страница 12)

But somehow she could picture Mrs. Delmonico in it, all the same.

She could tell from the woman’s tone that she suspected that her son was right there in bed next to Meena, and that Meena was covering up for him.

Maybe in an alternate universe—one in which vampires, and therefore Lucien Antonescu, did not exist—this might have been true. Because then David would never have gotten bitten, and then Meena might actually have had the low self-esteem to have brought him home with her. Because she wouldn’t have known that something better existed out there.

But in this universe?

Never.

“No,” Meena said. “I do not know where David is.”

It wasn’t a lie. She didn’t know where David was. She hoped he was in heaven, but she wasn’t going to bet on it.

“Oh. Well, then.” Mrs. Delmonico’s voice sounded suddenly defeated. “I just don’t know what to do. I’ve called every number in his address book, and no one else has heard from him either. This number … well, it was my last hope. His cell phone goes straight to voice mail, just like Brianna’s. David Junior was up all night crying. He’s never spent a night before without his mother and his father, and he’s just hysterical—”

Meena sat bolt upright in bed. Her pulse, which had been racing before, now felt as if it had stopped.

“Wait,” she said. “Are you saying that you don’t know where David’s wife is either?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Delmonico said. She was sobbing openly now. The picture of her sitting in her pearls and Chanel suit vanished from Meena’s head. Now she heard only the voice of a frantic grandmother. “No one’s heard from her since she went to pick up some formula. And that was at six o’clock last night. I’ve called all the hospitals, but no one fitting David or Brianna’s description was brought in—”

Meena swung her legs from her bed. This wasn’t possible. Because she’d killed David. She’d killed him. There was no way Brianna could be gone, too. Meena had saved Brianna. Last night, she’d saved her.

“I just don’t know what to do,” Mrs. Delmonico was babbling, in a shaking voice. “Just now a New York City policeman called. David’s car has been found—its registration was still inside—near Little Italy. Why would David have been there? He never goes into the city. Maybe he and Brianna decided at the last minute to go to the Feast of San Gennaro? But why wouldn’t they have called?”

“Mrs. Delmonico,” Meena said, her throat very dry. “I want you to listen to me. This is very important. Are you in David’s house right now?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Delmonico said. “Someone has to stay with David Junior. My husband is here, too. He’s on the other line with the impound people, trying to figure out how we can get David’s car back—”

“Mrs. Delmonico,” Meena said. “Is there anywhere else you can take the baby? Just for a little while?”

“Well, I suppose we could take him to my daughter’s house.” Mrs. Delmonico sounded confused. “David’s sister lives a few miles away. But what does Naomi have to do with any of this? I already spoke to her and she hasn’t heard from David or Brianna—”

“I just think it would be best if you and your husband packed up some of the baby’s things and took him over to Naomi’s. Right away.”

“But when we spoke to that police officer from New York, he said the best thing to do was sit by the phone and wait for David to call. Or if we wanted to formally report that David and Brianna were missing, we could go over to the police station here in Freewell, which I thought was rude since I had him right on the phone, and you would have thought he could have taken the information. But he said we’ve got to do it in the jurisdiction in which they live.”

Meena took a deep, steadying breath. She realized now that just like Cassandra, she really was cursed.

Because Cassandra—poor, clairvoyant Cassandra, who’d denied the love of a god—had taken up with Agamemnon, only to end up murdered by his vengeful wife, Clytemnestra.

“Mrs. Delmonico,” she said, her mouth gone dry as sand, “have you reported them missing yet?”

“Well,” Mrs. Delmonico said, “no. The officer said we’d have to do it in person, and we can’t just leave the baby here by himself—”

“Exactly,” Meena said. “Drop the baby off at David’s sister’s, and then go to the Freewell Police Department as soon as you can. Do you hear me, Mrs. Delmonico? It’s very important that you report David and Brianna missing right away.”

Mrs. Delmonico sounded even more surprised. “Oh,” she said. “Well, the police officer didn’t say that. I don’t know how Naomi is going to feel about us leaving David Junior with her. She’s got the triplets now, you know. But I suppose under these circumstances, it would be all right. I just don’t know what we’re going to do about David’s car. Apparently, the impound people are being difficult. The police are searching it, or something—”

“Look,” Meena said, finally, in desperation. “Why don’t I just meet you? At the police station in Freewell. I might be able to help.”

Now Mrs. Delmonico sounded more than just surprised. She sounded stunned. “Help? How?”

“I might have some information,” Meena said. “About David. Information that the police may find useful. It’ll take me a little while to get there, because I’ll have to shower, then take the train. But I’ll be there no later than nine o’clock. You’ll meet me there, right? You and Mr. Delmonico? And you’ll leave the baby at David’s sister’s house?”

“Well,” Mrs. Delmonico said, clearly flabbergasted, “I … yes. Thank you, Meena. That’s very … kind.”

Meena said it was no problem and hung up, feeling guilty.

Because she wasn’t being kind. She had no other choice. She was the last person to have seen David Delmonico alive.

She was also the person who’d tried to save his wife’s life.

And apparently, she’d failed. She couldn’t understand how … except for the part where she’d made out with the guy who’d provided her with the weapon with which she’d murdered Brianna’s husband.

Now she had the lives of David’s parents, and his baby, to worry about. Who knew where Brianna Delmonico was?

But Meena wasn’t taking any chances that Brianna might be looking for breakfast in her own house. She had to make sure the Delmonicos got out of there, just in case.

She could see she had a lot of work to do if she was going to rectify all the wrongs she’d committed the night before.

But when she got to the station house where she’d promised to meet Mrs. Delmonico, she could see that her karmic punishment was going to be even worse than she’d anticipated.

That’s because the last person in the world she wanted to see was waiting for her on the station-house steps:

Alaric Wulf.

Chapter Eight

Why are you here?” she demanded.

He thrust a cup of coffee at her. “I thought you might need this.”

The truth, however, was that he needed it. Especially now that he’d seen the scarf.

“I called Abraham, not you,” she said rudely.

“I noticed,” he said. “Do you want the coffee or not?”

She looked down at the cup. “Light?”

She had on sunglasses, so he couldn’t see her eyes. But he guessed from the throatiness in her voice that she’d been crying.

“I think I know by now how you take your coffee,” he said stiffly.

She took it from him. “Thanks,” she grumbled.

They stood outside the station house in silence, drinking coffee and watching the good people of Freewell drive by on their way to work … or wherever they were going so early on a Saturday morning.

The police department was a fairly new building, on a grassy embankment attractively landscaped with new trees. Birds sang prettily in the treetops, oblivious to the impending doom. Alaric reflected that, if they had been in front of a station house in the city, police officers would have been hauling transvestite hookers past them. Instead, a squirrel, foraging for nuts for the winter, hopped nearby.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on,” Alaric asked, “or am I supposed to guess?”

“It’s not what you think,” Meena said.

“I thought you could only tell how people are going to die, not what they’re thinking.”

“You’re not exactly hard to read, Alaric,” she said.

This stung. He said, “Well, as it happens, neither are you. The last time you wore a scarf like that around your neck, it nearly cost me a leg. So I’d appreciate a little heads-up this time, since I happen to enjoy being able to walk.”

Her cheeks went almost the same color pink of the scarf.

“All right,” she said, reaching up to remove the sunglasses. Beneath them her dark eyes, which she’d carefully made up, were nevertheless red-rimmed from crying. “Yes. I did get bitten last night. But it wasn’t by Lucien, Alaric. Not this time, I swear.”

He felt the sidewalk sway beneath him. He didn’t understand this, because despite his protests that they should get to Freewell as quickly as possible, Abraham had pulled into a fast-food drive-through in the Prius (Alaric would never get over the indignity of having been forced to ride in such a vehicle) along the way, insisting that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, and they’d need the protein.

Now Alaric was glad, even if the alleged “McMuffin” he had eaten was sitting like a rock in his stomach.