Authors: Wendy Corsi Staub
Scared to Death (34 page)
Now that homeâand everything in itâbelongs to someone else.
Not, however, to the Cavalons. It was sold before they won a sizeable portion of her family's assets in the damages settlement.
Back when that happened, her attorney, Andrew Stafford, relayed the news gingerly, as though he thought she might explode in anger or grief at the news that Jeremy Cavalon and his adoptive parents had been awarded what should rightfully have belonged to her.
She didn't explode. She clenched her handcuffed fists so hard her nails drew blood from her palms. But of course, Andrew couldn't see her hands. He could only see her face, and she was an expert at masking her emotions. She remained as stoic as she had the day Andrew told her that Jeremy had married Lucy Walsh.
It's been over a year now since she's had any contact with her lawyerâor anyone from prison life, other than Chaplain Gideon. He had been her one true confidante through all those years in prison, visiting her in her cell and praying with her.
Now, presumably, he's the only one in the world who knows she didn't die along with dozens of fellow inmates when the building collapsed and burned, rendering most victims' charred remains unidentifiable.
She surveys Sylvie Durand's waterlogged corpse. Having made good and sure to slam the woman's head hard against the edge of the tub, she's not worried about anyone suspecting foul play.
An elderly woman, living alone, slips getting into the bathtub, bangs her head, is knocked unconscious, and drowns. A terrible accident, the medical examiner will conclude. But the kind that happens every day.
Pooled water on the floor and spatters on the walls and mirror are the only signs of a struggle. She easily obliterates them with the thick, absorbent towel. After draping it over the hook with the other soggy things, she opens a linen closet.
The shelves are stacked with neatly folded white towels identical to the soggy one. That's how it is in wealthy households like Sylvie'sâand her own, long ago: everything belongs to a luxurious linen set, no mix-and-match.
With her gloved fingers, she lifts a towel from the top of the nearest pile and drapes it over the heated towel bar. Then she rolls the wet things into a tight bundle and tucks it beneath her arm.
Better to risk taking the bathrobe and towel than to arouse suspicion should someone show up here unexpectedly and discover the wet evidence. Surely the Cavalons will be too caught up in grief and shock to notice anything is missing.
After taking one last look around the bathroom, she slips out and closes the door behind her.
With gratitude to John Gullo, Gregg and Kristin Casalino, Wendy Zemanski, and Michael Dwyer, all of whom patiently answered my research questions; to my editor, Lucia Macro, and the many talented folks at Avon Books who had a hand in this endeavor; to my agents, Laura Blake Peterson and Holly Frederick, Tracy Marchini and the rest of the gang at Curtis Brown, Ltd.; to Carol Fitzgerald and staff at the Book Report network; to Peter Meluso, who keeps www.wendycorsistaubcommunity.com up and runningâ¦and, most of all, to my loyal readers, who make it so worthwhile.
USA Today
and
New York Times
bestseller
Wendy Corsi Staub
is the award-winning author of more than seventy novels. She lives in the New York City suburbs with her husband of eighteen years and their two children. Learn more about Wendy at
www.wendycorsistaub.com
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SCARED TO DEATH
. Copyright © 2011 by Wendy Corsi Staub. Excerpt from
Hell to Pay
copyright © 2012 by Wendy Corsi Staub. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
First Avon Books paperback printing: January 2011
EPub Edition © MARCH 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-210098-6
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