Savage Lane (38 page)

Then he saw that Karen was looking past him, toward the other side of the kitchen, and he turned and saw dumb-ass Mark Berman standing there, holding a baseball bat.

“Where is she?” he asked.

Owen grabbed Karen, had the knife close to her throat, and said to Mark, “Get out of here, you’ll get us all killed.”

“I know you two have her someplace. Is she here?”

Karen said, “Mark, what’re you
doing
?”

“I just want my wife back,” he said, coming closer with the baseball bat. “I know she’s here.”

He thought Karen had Deb in here? Jeez, the guy had his head farther up his ass than Owen had ever thought.

“Take one more step, I’ll do it,” Owen said. “I swear to God I’ll do it.”

“Mark, just leave,” Karen said.

“Shut up,” Mark said. “I know what’s going on, okay? I know you and this maniac here have been fucking.”

“
What
?” Karen said.

“Is that true?” Elana asked her.

“No, it’s not true,” Karen said.

“Hey, don’t lie to her,” Owen said, seeing Niagara Falls, hearing the water.

“Oh my God,” Elana said. “Oh my God.”

“Mom, watch out!” Matthew yelled.

Idiot Mark was charging at them with the baseball bat. He tried to swing it at Owen, but Owen grabbed the barrel with one hand, and jabbed the knife into Mark’s neck with the other. Owen wasn’t surprised by how much blood there was, and how bright red it looked. He flashed back to his room, the day Melanie told him it was over for good and he’d jabbed those scissors into her throat to shut her up. His mother came in and saw him, with blood all over him, and he was happy because he’d wanted her to see what he’d done. He wished she were here now, to see this—Mark squirming on the floor in a puddle of blood, Karen and the kids screaming.

He thought he heard his mom’s voice, or maybe it was Deb’s, but it didn’t matter because he couldn’t understand what she was saying.

The blood puddle was growing.

D
RIVING WITH
the siren on, Larry made it to Savage Lane in about ten minutes, meaning he must have been going at least eighty on the narrow, windy roads. He’d tried Karen’s cell a few more times, gotten voicemail, and she wasn’t picking up her landline either. He was hoping Owen wasn’t there, but unfortunately his instinct hadn’t let him down so far.

“He’s in the house,” a reporter, a young woman, said as he got out of his car.

“Who?” he asked.

“Mark Berman,” she said. “He went in through the garage. We just heard screams inside.”

Shit, now what? What the hell was Berman doing in there, trying to play Superman?

Larry didn’t want to risk waiting for backup.

“Get the reporters away from the house,” he instructed her. “
Now
.”

Larry called for backup, then, with his gun out, he approached and heard a kid, a girl, maybe a teenager, scream.

Larry couldn’t get a view into the house through any of the front windows. He didn’t want to break down the door, and wasn’t sure he could even do it—well, not fast enough anyway.

Wait, she’d said Berman went in through the garage, right?

He went around the house, to the garage, and saw that the door to the house was open. There was more screaming now—he thought he heard Karen’s voice.

Rushing in, up the stairs, with his gun aimed, Larry stopped when he saw Owen, holding a large knife with blood on it. Berman was down, wounded. The kids were tied up, and Karen was looking right at him.

Thinking about Stu, about how much he needed him, Larry aimed at Owen’s chest.

“Drop it!” he shouted. “I said drop it!”

Stu was with him, rooting him on, saying,
Be strong, buddy, be strong.

Owen’s arm, the one with the knife, moved toward Karen, and Larry fired, knowing he’d gotten him right in the heart, but he fired again in the same spot, just to make sure.

Owen was on the floor, Karen was hugging her kids, and Larry was kneeling next to Mark, telling him to “hang on” and that he was going to be “okay.” Sirens were getting louder and Larry was imagining Stu, hearing about the news, hearing that Larry was a hero, realizing how much he’d lost, and wanting to be with him forever.

He’d have to want me back now. He’d have to
.

T
HE DAY
after the night from hell Riley didn’t believe what people were saying about her mom. Even though they’d found a bunch of disgusting texts on Owen’s phone, she didn’t believe that her mom had really been having an affair, an actual affair, with him, and she definitely didn’t believe that he’d killed her.

After her dad got stabbed and Owen got shot to death by that detective, Walsh, there was so much crazy drama at her house with cops and reporters and neighbors coming over to make sure she and Justin were okay that it was a blur for Riley. All she really remembered was somebody, maybe a cop, telling her what had happened and her yelling, “It’s not true, you’re lying! Karen did it! It was Karen!” At some point that night, she and Justin were brought to a neighbor’s house—the Walkers who lived down the road. Her dad was at some hospital, in critical-but-stable condition. The doctors said her dad was “lucky.” When Owen stabbed him it had just missed something in his neck and if it had been like a quarter of an inch in another direction he would’ve died. Riley was happy her father had survived, but she knew she’d never forgive him for having that stupid affair with Karen and ruining their lives.

The next day her grandma Fran and grandpa Allen—her mom’s parents—came from Florida so Riley and Justin were able to move back home. Later, Detective Walsh, who they were calling a “hero,” came to the house to ask Riley about her mother and Owen. He wanted to know if Riley had ever seen them together, or if she had mentioned anything about their affair to her.

“No,” Riley said, “because she wasn’t having an affair.”

They were in the living room. Her grandparents were maybe in the kitchen.

“I understand it’s hard for you to accept,” Walsh said, “but we have text messages—”

“I don’t care,” Riley said. “I know my mother, and I know there’s no way she’d be having an affair, an actual
affair
, with the grossest guy on the planet. She’d think that was the biggest joke ever. She’d be laughing about it so hard right now.”

“You have to understand,” Walsh said, “that people who are having affairs can be very clever. They take precautions, almost like the way spies take precautions. This was why your mom bought disposable phones.”

“How do you know? You can’t prove that.”

“Actually we saw her old credit card bills, on the card she kept with her maiden name. Like I said, people who are cheating can be very clever.”

“Maybe she bought the phone for somebody else, for a friend of hers or something.”

“She purchased multiple phones, and the messages Owen received were clearly from your mother.”

“What about Karen and my father? How come you forgot all about them?”

“Because there’s no evidence that your father and Karen were having an affair.”

“What’re you talking about? It was so obvious to everybody.”

“Sometimes the truth isn’t what’s obvious.”

“Yeah,” Riley said, “and what makes you such an expert about all this?”

Walsh stared at her. He crossed his legs, then uncrossed them again, and said, “Well, it’s my job.”

“No, your job is to find out the truth,” Riley said, “and the truth is that Karen killed my mother, not Owen Harrison.”

Her grandmother rushed into the room and said, “Everything okay in here?”

“Everything’s fine, Grandma.”

Riley waited for her to leave then said to Walsh, “I know why you’re doing this. Because you like being famous, that’s why.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your name’s in the news, people are talking about you, like you’re this big hero. And Owen’s dead now, so nobody can prove anything, but you’re going around acting like you have all the answers. Meanwhile, you know nothing.”

“Look, you’re right.” Walsh’s eyes were bloodshot, the lids were puffy; maybe he was tired, but it looked like he’d been crying too. “We don’t have all the answers yet, and that’s why I’m here talking to you. Your mother’s officially missing, but based on evidence and witness accounts, and information we have about Owen’s past—”

“His past?” Riley said. “You mean his
babysitter
? You can’t prove that he killed her either. I read all about that online. Even her parents think she ran away.”

“That’s true too,” Walsh said, “but right now, based on what we know, and what occurred last night, we’re presuming that Owen was responsible for your mother’s disappearance.”

“Well, I’m
presuming
that Karen’s responsible,” Riley said. “So what makes you more right than me?”

Finally Walsh gave up and left.

Riley was exhausted. She was up crying all night, missing her mom and hating Karen, and hadn’t slept at all. Her grandparents were worried about her and insisted that she keep talking to this grief counselor guy, Dr. Adler, who’d been talking to Justin too. Justin had been crying a lot and had peed his pants a couple of times. Riley didn’t trust Dr. Adler, though, because even though he was acting like her friend, and saying he understood why it was so hard for her to accept the truth, she knew he was just playing mind games, and he actually thought there was something wrong with
her
, that she had a problem, because she didn’t want to believe the lies that everybody else were believing. It turned out she was right. He must’ve said something about her to her grandparents because the next day a shrink arrived to talk to her, and the shrink gave her some kind of drugs to take. Drugs, like she was insane, just because she wanted the police to punish her mother’s killer.

On Friday, Riley’s grandparents made her and Justin go back to school. It was weird how all the kids were suddenly acting nice to her, even the people who’d posted all that shit on her Facebook just a few days ago. The story was all over the news—not just in Westchester, so the whole country knew about it—and everyone felt sorry for her because of everything she’d been through. Elana wasn’t in school, supposedly because she was still recovering from trauma, but Riley knew that Karen was just keeping her home from school, to keep the whole act going. She wanted everyone to believe that her family were victims and were suffering, while she was actually responsible for everything.

Then, when Riley got home from school, her grandparents were in the living room, staring at the TV with the cracked screen. They were both crying.

“What’s going on?” Riley asked, hoping that the truth had come out, and Karen had been arrested.

“They found your mother’s body,” her grandfather said.

He explained that the police had found her body at the country club, in the woods, not far from where Owen had worked.

Her grandmother came over to Riley, sobbing, and hugged her and said, “You have to let go now, sweetie. You have to let her rest in peace.”

“Why should I?” Riley asked, not crying at all.

“Because they know what happened now,” her grandfather said. “They know Owen killed her.”

“How do they know that?” Riley asked. “Maybe Karen buried the body there to make it look like Owen did it.”

“Please,” her grandmother hugged her tighter. “You have to stop this craziness.”

Riley wriggled out of the hug, went up to her room, and slammed the door. She spent the rest of the afternoon and evening online, reading the latest news about her mother. They said that she’d been strangled and that skin under her fingernails had Owen’s DNA on it, but Riley knew these were just more lies so Detective Walsh could go on playing Mr. Hero. Karen had probably found out that Owen’s old babysitter had disappeared and knew that Owen would be blamed for the murder. Karen had probably been having an affair with Owen and when she broke up, he got jealous and went to her house to confront her, but that was part of her plan too.

Riley called Detective Walsh a bunch of times, but kept getting his voicemail. She had a feeling he was screening calls. Finally she left a message: “Hi, this is Riley Berman, and I’m begging you to arrest Karen Daily. She killed my mother, and she’ll kill somebody else if you don’t stop her. Please, you have to listen to me. Somebody’s life depends on this.”