Dead to Me (28 page)

Those thoughts all disappeared the moment I saw the man in the blue polka-dot suspenders—Walter Hanrahan—leaning against the door outside Annie’s room, gun holstered at his
belt. I took hold of Jerry’s arm and tried not to think about sitting with my hands bound in the back of Conrad’s car or those police officers lying dead on the sidewalk. Hanrahan
smiled at me and tipped his hat as Jerry pulled me quickly through the door.

My mother sat next to the bed holding Annie’s limp hand to her cheek. Her eyes were closed and her lips moved without sound. I didn’t know if she was praying or whispering, but
either way, I hated to interrupt.

“Mom?” I spoke in a gentle whisper so as not to startle her.

No sooner had she opened her eyes and seen my face than she got up and ran toward me. The tendons in her neck were stretched taut as bowstrings as she grabbed me by the arm and yanked me into a
hug that crushed my bruised cheek against her chest.

“What happened?” she asked, shaking me furiously against her. “Who did this to you?”

My eyes darted nervously toward the door. I was terrified that any minute, I’d see Walter Hanrahan come through it, gun drawn.

I leaned in and whispered in her ear, “Conrad Donahue.”

I didn’t expect she’d believe me right away. I thought it would be like it had been with Cassie, and that she’d be furious at me for lying at a time like this.

She didn’t look surprised at all, though.

Her face reminded me of a woman I’d seen years ago in a newsreel. It’d been during the war, and in the scheme of things, not a big story, just something sandwiched in between some
cartoons and a bad Lassie movie. All three of the woman’s sons had been killed in the war. One was a pilot who had been shot down over Germany, one had been blown to bits during the invasion
of Sicily, and the third had died in a freak submarine accident in the Solomon Islands. When they interviewed her for the newsreel, she’d said all the right things—that her boys had
gone off to war together and now they’d come home together, that they had served bravely and not died in vain—but her eyes had told a different story, and I was sure that there was a
part of her that would have waved the white flag to Hitler himself if it meant one more day with her boys.

“No,” my mother said, her voice quaking. “No, no, no.”

She pulled away from me and went to the window that looked out over Hollywood. There was something dangerous about her as she stood there, crackling and quivering like an electrical line on a
humid day. She pressed her palms against the glass, fingers splayed open.

“I’ll kill him,” she whispered, striking the window with the flat of her hand. “I’ll kill him, and he’ll never come near this family again.”

She clenched her hands and began to pound on the glass with her fists.

And then Walter Hanrahan did come storming into the room, hand on his holster. I thought about how fast he’d pulled out his gun when he shot the police officer in the chest earlier that
morning. The man hadn’t even seen it coming.

I pulled my mother’s hands down from the glass and wrapped my arms around her.

“Is everything all right in here?” Walter Hanrahan asked.

“It’s fine,” said Jerry.

“The lady seems upset.”

“Her daughter almost died,” Jerry said, gesturing toward Annie. “She
is
upset.”

“Please leave us alone,” my mother said.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll stay a moment,” he said, giving Jerry a nasty look, “just to make sure everything is okay.”

“I do mind,” my mother said.

I could feel every muscle in her body coiled tight, ready to explode in Walter Hanrahan’s direction the moment I let go of her.

“The LAPD is here to help, ma’am.”

“Like hell you are!” she said. “I asked you to get out. Now, are you going to do it or not?”

That was when Cassie came in, bearing a stack of sandwiches wrapped in paper and two bottles of soda, and looking like a soldier who had seen combat. Without batting an eye, she put down the
sandwiches, took my mother by the arm, and sat her down in a chair on the far side of Annie’s bed.

I knew Cassie had a head for movie stars and Hollywood gossip and field hockey, but when it came to keeping people calm in a crisis, she was a miracle worker. My mother stopped screaming at
Walter Hanrahan and followed her, meek as a lamb.

“What happened?” Cassie whispered in my ear as she guided me toward a chair next to my mother. “You were supposed to be here hours ago.”

Then she looked around the room and saw Jerry Shaffer standing uselessly in the corner. She saw my mother clutch my hands and hold them in hers. She saw all three of us, our eyes fixed on Walter
Hanrahan with some mixture of anger and terror.

Hanrahan had propped himself up against the wall, arms folded across his chest. He stood there watching us watch him, and smirking.

“What’s he doing in the room?” Cassie asked my mother.

Without taking her eyes off Walter Hanrahan, my mother said, “He tells me Annie is in danger and they have to post a guard around the clock.”

Her voice betrayed nothing but scorn, but I could see the fear in her eyes as she squeezed my hands in hers again and again.

“He won’t tell me why, though. Isn’t that strange?”

I nodded as she spoke, then my eyes went wide, though it wasn’t because of anything she said. It was the way she kept squeezing my hands.

A short squeeze, then a long one. Another short squeeze, then two long squeezes. Short, then long. Long, short, long. Short.

Short, long.

Short, long, long.

Short, long.

Long, short, long.

Short.

Again and again she did it. At first I didn’t see the pattern, but then there it was, Morse code as clear and steady as a metronome.

AWAKE

AWAKE

AWAKE

Our eyes met, and my mother dropped my hands and pulled me into her arms, more gently this time.

“Please don’t leave again, Alice. Please stay here with us,” she said. “I need you with me.”

As I hugged my mother, I wished I could pour all the things I wanted to say to her through my arms.

I’m so sorry for everything. Once this is over, things will be different. No more secrets, no more revenge. I’ll stay with you as long as you want. I remember who taught Annie and
me how to do the ciphers, who helped us learn Morse code during the war. I remember it wasn’t all etiquette lessons and hors d’oeuvres trays. I remember there was cake baking and gin
rummy and picture books, too, just the three of us. I know you tried to love us. But I can’t stay. Not until this is done.

As I pulled away, I saw that her face was calm now. It had been so wild just a few minutes ago, when she was talking about killing Conrad.

He’ll never come near this family again,
she’d said. She wasn’t just talking about me. Conrad had hurt all of us. He’d kidnapped my father, beaten my sister nearly
to death.

But my mother didn’t know about either one of those things, so what did she mean?

That was when I heard a girl’s scream coming from down the hall, and there was only one girl it could have come from. I leaped up from the chair and darted around Annie’s bed, past
Hanrahan toward the door, with my mother calling after me, “Alice, don’t—”

I didn’t hear what she said next, because I was already halfway down the hall, just in time to see Rex crashing through the stairwell door. He pushed Gabrielle along in front of him, the
muzzle of his gun jammed into her back.

Walter Hanrahan was right behind me. As he ran by, he checked me with his shoulder and sent me ricocheting toward the wall before he disappeared through the stairwell after Rex and
Gabrielle.

I started after them, but then Jerry was there, clapping a hand down on my shoulder.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked. “Get back in that room.”

Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t have paid him the slightest heed, but back in that room was my sister. Awake. When Jerry ran down the hallway after Rex and Hanrahan, I
didn’t follow him. I went back to the room in time to see Annie’s eyes, finally, blessedly open.

“Was that Gabrielle?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Don’t let them take her.”

Her voice was husky and choked-sounding, her words were slurred, but it was her. I would have jumped through a hoop of fire if she’d asked me to.

Before my mother could protest, I ran down the hall and took the stairs at the other end of the wing. Conrad was one floor up from my sister’s room. That had to be where Rex was taking
Gabrielle. Conrad had been after her for days now, and I knew from firsthand experience he liked seeing girls afraid. There was no way he’d miss the chance to let her know that she
hadn’t escaped from him after all.

The hallway was empty—Conrad’s stardom must have earned him a private ward. But I knew better than to think he was alone or unguarded. I stayed where I was, looking out through the
tiny window in the stairwell door. There was no sign of Jerry, and I wondered if I’d been wrong and Rex and Hanrahan had taken Gabrielle down the stairs rather than up them. They
couldn’t have lost him running up a single flight of stairs. But then, after a moment or two, Hanrahan emerged from one of the rooms empty-handed.

He and Rex had delivered Gabrielle straight to Conrad.

I wondered how many people were left in the room, and how many of them were armed. Conrad had a gunshot wound in his leg—if he was in there by himself. Would I be able to get Gabrielle out
of there on my own? I had to get closer.

After Hanrahan reached the end of the wing and turned the corner, I unbuckled my shoes and crept down the hallway, carrying them by the straps, my back pressed against the wall. I inched closer
until I came to the room next to Conrad’s, and slipped inside, hiding myself behind the door and pressing my ear to the wall. The voices were muffled, but I could still make out almost
everything.

“I remember you being older.”

That was Conrad, I was sure of it. It was the same voice he’d used on me in the hills, big enough to scare you into a corner, jovial enough to deny he’d meant anything by it.

“You look like a kid, but that doesn’t mean anything. I truly could not care less.”

“I was never going to say anything, I promise.” Gabrielle’s raspy little voice had an unpleasant wheedling sound in it that I didn’t like. A begging sound.

“So then why were you chumming around with the Gates girl?”

Conrad wasn’t alone. It was another man’s voice I heard then—Rex, by the sound of it.

“I was scared. I didn’t have anyplace to go. Please, just let me go home, and I swear I’ll never tell anyone.”

“Tell anyone what? Anyway, it’s much too late for anything like that. There’s only one way to make this go away now.” His voice was gentle, honeyed, like he was trying to
calm a crying infant. “I’m sorry, really I am. I just don’t see any other way.”

So placid, so sincere, as though he genuinely did feel bad about what had to be done, but really, wasn’t it a small sacrifice? Gabrielle began to cry quietly, and then there was another
voice in the room with them.

When I realized who it belonged to, I squeezed the doorknob until my knuckles turned white and my fingers ached. I knew that if I didn’t hold on to something, I’d run into the next
room and wrap my hands around her neck instead.

“Pull yourself together,” Ruth said. “It’s not like we’re going to kill you.”

“You’re not?” Gabrielle whimpered.

“Not if you’re a smart girl. Not if you can learn how to sing the words we tell you to.”

How could she?

How could she pretend she wanted to help my sister protect Gabrielle, then turn around and double-cross us all? That meant Ruth had been the one who’d set Annie up that night in the park.
She must have led Conrad and Rex right to her. I gripped the doorknob with all my strength and bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming.

“She’s right,” Conrad said. “Ruth and I have been talking it over, and she’s got me thinking there might be another way to sort this whole thing out. So, what
I’d like now is for you to go with my friends here. I’d like you to go to the police and tell them what you
really
saw. How Nick Gates forced you to pose for those pictures, how
he took you and Irma out into the woods after that party and made you do horrible things. And that somehow, things got out of hand.”

Ruth chimed in. “And that you went to Annie because she told you that she’d help you, but instead she kept you under lock and key. That she only wanted to protect her dear daddy from
what you knew.”

“And that when I brought the police to the apartment to rescue you, Nick Gates gunned them down in broad daylight,” Conrad said. “He shot me in the leg and would have finished
me off if I hadn’t managed to escape.”

“Is that a story you think you can tell?” Ruth asked.

At first, there was no answer, then a choked sob, and then Gabrielle said, “Yes.”

I
n the end, none of it would matter. Not the pictures, not the newspapers, not Millie’s letter, two dead cops, or the word of a girl
who’d seen the whole thing happen. Maybe Conrad couldn’t make those pictures of him and Annie go away, but he and Ruth could make them look like something else. I could already hear him
telling the newspapers:
I didn’t want to do it, but I had no choice. Annie Gates was holding that poor little girl prisoner.