Acclaim for THE QUEEN OF SUSPENSE #1
New York Times Bestselling
Author MARY HIGGINS CLARK
TWO LITTLE GIRLS IN BLUE
“Bestseller Clark is at her best when writing of crime against children, as shown in this chilling tale of kidnapping, murder, and telepathy.”
—Publishers Weekly
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
“Mary Higgins Clark’s awesome gift for storytelling has always been the secret of her strength as a suspense novelist. But let’s credit her as well for something more subtle—her intuitive grasp of the anxieties of everyday life that can spiral into full-blown terror. In [No Place Like Home], this canny writer . . . comes up with a cunning variation on the haunted-house theme.”
—The New York Times
NIGHTTIME IS MY TIME
“Creeping menace that is genuinely scary.”
—The New York Times
“Clark’s multitude of fans will be happy . . . to participate in the guessing game.”
—Publishers Weekly
THE SECOND TIME AROUND
“Clark keeps the chase lively throughout.”
—People
“[Clark] knows how to spin an intriguing tale . . . she’s created a convincing heroine in Carley.”
—Booklist
“There’s something special about Clark’s thrillers. . . . Grace, charm, and solid storytelling.”
—Publishers Weekly
DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL
“A fast and fascinating read.”
—Knoxville News-Sentinel (TN)
“Her best in years . . . a tightly woven, emotionally potent tale of suspense and revenge. . . . With its textured plot, well-sketched secondary characters, strong pacing, and appealing heroine, this is Clark at her most winning.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Few stories of obsession will grab readers quite like this one.”
—Ottawa Citizen
“The plot is classic Clark, except the author tells her story from a first-person perspective. She pulls it off well.”
—Star Ledger (NJ)
ON THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE
“Is a reincarnated serial killer at work in a New Jersey resort town more than a century after he first drew blood? That’s the catchy premise that supports [this] plot-driven novel.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A suspenseful page-turner that will delight her many fans.”
—Booklist
BEFORE I SAY GOOD-BYE
“Mary Higgins Clark knows what she’s doing. . . . This savvy author always comes up with something unexpected. . . . A hold-your-breath ending.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“For someone who loves plot, Mary Higgins Clark’s Before I Say Good-bye should be like manna from heaven. . . . [The] ‘Queen of Suspense’ clearly knows what her readers want. Here she provides it, in spades.”
—Los Angeles Times
“The storytelling skills of the newest grandmaster of mystery writing have never been better.”
—The Hartford Courant (CT)
“Clark holds the reins the whole way through this tale of mischief and secrets, allowing us to unwind her labyrinth of hidden clues only as she wants them to unfold.”
—The Christian Science Monitor
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Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Epilogue
I Heard that Song Before excerpt
For Michael V. Korda
Editor and Friend
With Love
Acknowledgments
The telepathy that exists between some people has always fascinated me. From early childhood I can remember my mother, a worried frown on her face, saying, “I have a feeling about . . .” And as sure as day follows night, that person was experiencing or about to experience a problem.
I have used telepathy to a degree in some of my books, but the bond that exists between twins, particularly identical twins, is nothing short of fascinating. That subject has been growing in my mind as the plot of a novel for a long time.
My gratitude to the authors of books on this subject, particularly Guy Lyon Playfair for his Twin Telepathy: the Psychic Connection; Nancy L. Segal, Ph.D., for Entwined Lives; Donna M. Jackson for Twin Tales: The Magic and Mystery of Multiple Births; Shannon Baker for her article, “On Being a Twin”; and to Jill Neimark for
her cover story “Nature’s Clones” in Psychology Today. The examples they offer of the psychic connection between twins were most helpful to me in the telling of this tale.
Others, as always, made the journey with me. My continuing gratitude to my forever editor, Michael V. Korda, and senior editor Chuck Adams for their gifted guidance.
Lisl Cade, my dear friend and publicist, is always in my corner. My circle of readers-in-progress remains constant. My thanks to them and to our children and granchildren, who cheer me along the way and keep my life lively and fun.
I wanted this book to be a tribute to the dedicated commitment of the Federal Bureau of Investigation following a kidnapping. I especially want to honor the memory of the late Leo McGillicuddy, a legend among his fellow agents.
Retired Agent Joseph Conley has been of tremendous help in the step-by-step unfolding of the behind-the-scenes activity of the Bureau. I have telescoped some of the procedures for the sake of the storytelling, but I hope I retain the sense of fierce commitment and compassion that is typical of the agents.
And now as another story begins to take root in my mind, it is time to let go of this one, sit by the fire with Himself, the ever-perfect John Conheeney, and wish all of you who begin these pages an enjoyable reading experience. Cheers!
1
“Hold on a minute, Rob, I think one of the twins is crying. Let me call you back.”
Nineteen-year-old Trish Logan put down her cell phone, got up from the couch, and hurried across the living room. It was her first time babysitting for the Frawleys, the nice people who had moved into town a few months earlier. Trish had liked them immediately. Mrs. Frawley had told her that when she was a little girl, her family often visited friends who lived in Connecticut, and she liked it so much she always wanted to live there, too. “Last year when we started looking for a house and happened to drive through Ridgefield, I knew it was where I wanted to be,” she told Trish.
The Frawleys had bought the old Cunningham farmhouse, a “fixer-upper” that Trish’s father thought should have been a “burner-upper.” Today, Thursday, March 24th, was the third birthday of the Frawleys’ identical twin girls, and Trish had been hired for the day to help with the party, then to stay for the evening while the parents attended a black-tie dinner in New York.
After the excitement of the party, I’d have sworn the kids were dead to the world, Trish thought as she started up the stairs, headed to the twins’ room. The Frawleys had ripped out the worn carpet that had been in the house, and the nineteenth-century steps creaked under her feet.
Near the top step, she paused. The light she had left on in the hall was off. Probably another fuse had blown. The wiring in the old house was a mess. That had happened in the kitchen this afternoon.
The twins’ bedroom was at the end of the hall. There was no sound coming from it now. Probably one of the twins had cried out in her sleep, Trish thought as she began to inch her way through the darkness. Suddenly she stopped. It’s not just the hall light. I left the door to their room open so I could hear them if they woke up. The night-light in the room should be showing. The door’s closed. But I couldn’t have heard one of them crying if it was closed a minute ago.
Suddenly frightened, she listened intently. What was that sound? In an instant of sickening awareness, she identified it: soft footsteps. A hint of equally soft breathing. The acrid smell of perspiration. Someone was behind her.
Trish tried to scream, but only a moan escaped her lips. She tried to run, but her legs would not move. She felt a hand grab her hair and yank her head back. The last thing she remembered was a feeling of pressure on her neck.
The intruder released his grip on Trish and let her sink to the floor. Congratulating himself on how effectively and painlessly he had rendered her unconscious, he turned on his flashlight, tied her up, blindfolded and gagged her. Then directing the beam onto the floor, he stepped around her, swiftly covered the length of the hall, and opened the door to the twins’ bedroom.
Three-year-olds Kathy and Kelly were lying in the double bed they shared, their eyes both sleepy and terrified. Kathy’s right hand and Kelly’s left hand were entwined. With their other hands they were trying to pull off cloths that covered their mouths.
The man who had planned the details of the kidnapping was standing beside the bed. “You’re sure she didn’t see you, Harry?” he snapped.
“I’m sure. I mean, I’m sure, Bert,” the other responded. They each carefully used the names they had assumed for this job: “Bert” and “Harry,” after the cartoon characters in a sixties beer commercial.
Bert picked up Kathy and snapped. “Get the other one. Wrap a blanket around her. It’s cold out.”
Their footsteps nervously rapid, the two men raced down the back stairs, rushed through the kitchen and out to the driveway, not bothering to close the door behind them. Once in the van, Harry sat on the floor of the backseat, the twins wrapped in his beefy arms. Bert drove the van as it moved forward from the shadows of the porch.
Twenty minutes later they arrived at the cottage where Angie Ames was waiting. “They’re adorable,” she cooed as the men carried the children in and laid them in the hospital-style crib that had been prepared for them. With a quick, deft movement of her hands she untied the gags that had kept the little girls silent.
The children grabbed for each other and began to wail. “Mommy . . . Mommy,” they screamed in unison.
“Sshhhh, sshhhh, don’t be scared,” Angie said soothingly as she pulled up the side of the crib. It was too high for her to reach over it, so she slipped her arms through the rails and began to pat their dark blond ringlets. “It’s all right,” she singsonged, “go to sleep. Kathy, Kelly, go back to sleep. Mona will take care of you. Mona loves you.”
“Mona” was the name she had been ordered to use around the twins. “I don’t like that name,” she’d complained when she first heard it. “Why does it have to be Mona?”
“Because it sounds close to ‘Momma.’ Because when we get the money and they pick up the kids, we don’t want them to say, ‘A lady named Angie took care of us,’ and one more good reason for that name is because you’re always moaning,” the man called Bert had snapped.
“Quiet them down,” he ordered now. “They’re making too much noise.”
“Relax, Bert. No one can hear them,” Harry reassured him.
He’s right, thought Lucas Wohl, the real name of the one called “Bert.” One of the reasons, after careful deliberation, that he had invited Clint Downes—“Harry’s” actual name—to join him on the job was because nine months of the year Clint lived as caretaker in the cottage on the grounds of the Danbury Country Club. From Labor Day to May 31st the club was closed and the gates locked. The cottage was not even visible from the service road by which Clint entered and exited the grounds, and he had to use a code to open the service gate.
It was an ideal spot to hide the twins, and the fact that Clint’s girlfriend, Angie, often worked as a babysitter completed the picture.
“They’ll stop crying,” Angie said. “I know babies. They’ll go back to sleep.” She began to rub their backs and sing off-key, “Two little girls in blue, lad, two little girls in blue . . .”
Lucas cursed under his breath, made his way through the narrow space between the crib and the double bed, and walked out of the bedroom, through the sitting room, and into the kitchen of the cottage. Only then did he and Clint pull off their hooded jackets and gloves. The full bottle of scotch and the two empty glasses they had left out as a reward for success in their mission were in front of them.
The men sat at opposite ends of the table, silently eyeing each other. Staring with disdain at his fellow kidnapper, Lucas was reminded once more that they could not have been more different in both appearance and temperament. Unsentimental about his appearance, he sometimes played eyewitness and described himself to himself: about fifty years old, scrawny build, average height, receding hairline, narrow face, close-s
et eyes. A self-employed limousine driver, he knew he had perfected the outward appearance of a servile and anxious-to-please employee, a persona he inhabited whenever he dressed in his black chauffeur’s uniform.
He had met Clint when they were in prison together and over the years had worked with him on a series of burglaries. They had never been caught because Lucas was careful. They had never committed a crime in Connecticut because Lucas did not believe in soiling his own nest. This job, though terribly risky, had been too big to pass up, and he had broken that rule.
Now he watched as Clint opened the scotch and filled their glasses to the brim. “To next week on a boat in St. Kitts with our pockets bulging,” he said, his eyes searching Lucas’s face with a hopeful smile.
Lucas stared back, once again assessing his partner in crime. In his early forties, Clint was desperately out of shape. Fifty extra pounds on his already short frame made him perspire easily, even on a March night like this, that had suddenly turned cold. His barrel chest and thick arms looked incongruous with his cherubic face and long ponytail, which he had grown because Angie, his longtime girlfriend, had one.
Angie. Skinny as a twig on a dead branch, Lucas thought contemptuously. Terrible complexion. Like Clint, she always looked slovenly, dressed in a tired T-shirt and ragged jeans. Her only virtue in Lucas’s eyes was that she was an experienced babysitter. Nothing must happen to either one of those kids before the ransom was paid and they could be dropped off. Now Lucas reminded himself that Angie had something else going for her. She’s greedy. She wants the money. She wants to live on a boat in the Caribbean.
Lucas lifted the glass to his lips. The Chivas Regal felt smooth on his tongue, and its warmth was soothing as it slid down his throat. “So far, so good,” he said flatly. “I’m going home. You got the cell phone I gave you handy?”
“Yeah.”
“If you hear from the boss, tell him I have a five A.M. pickup. I’m turning off my cell phone. I need some sleep.”
“When do I get to meet him, Lucas?”
“You don’t.” Lucas downed the rest of the scotch in his glass and pushed back his chair. From the bedroom they could hear Angie continue to sing.
“They were sisters, we were brothers, and learned to love the two . . .”
2