The Last to Know by Wendy Corsi Staub Page B

several evenings a week, to accommodate working parents.”
    “And you work evenings, too?”
    “Me? No. I don’t work. But I have an . . . appointment.”
    In the background, on Jeremiah’s end, she hears another voice asking him who’s on the phone.
    “Just a second,” Jeremiah says to her, and then there’s a muffled sound as he apparently covers the receiver with his hand. His words are still clearly audible. “It’s some lady from down the street Uncle Fletch. She says she wants me to babysit tomorrow.”
    “ Babysit? ” Rachel hears Fletch Gallagher repeat.
    “Uh, y-yeah,” Jeremiah tells him. Rachel notes the stutter. She can practically see him squirming. She can just imagine the look on his uncle’s face.
    “What lady from down the street?” Rachel hears him ask.
    “W-what did you s-say your n-name was?” Jeremiah asks, taking his hand off the receiver.
    “Leiberman,” Rachel says, squirting more lotion into her palm and swirling it in a circular motion into her skin. “Rachel Leiberman.”
    Jeremiah repeats her name for his uncle.
    “No problem,” Fletch Gallagher says.
    “M-my uncle s-says it’s fine with h-him,” Jeremiah reports to Rachel.
    “Good,” she says, her mouth curving into a small smile. “Then we have a date.”
    “I ’ll make this as easy on you as possible, Ms. Armstrong,” the burly detective says gruffly. He’s a short, round man whose face is damp with perspiration even though it’s drafty in the room. “Are you ready?”
    Margaret nods, seated across from him in the small back parlor of her sister’s house. They’ve all taken a turn in this chair: Owen, his parents, the housekeeper, and now her. The police want to question absolutely everyone who might be able to shed light on Jane’s disappearance.
    “First off, did your sister have any enemies that you are aware of?”
    Margaret shakes her head. She gazes at the white-painted molding surrounding the brick fireplace, her eyes tracing the ornately carved swirling pattern.
    “So you can’t think of anyone who might want to hurt her?”
    “No.”
    “How did she spend her time?”
    “Taking care of Schuyler,” she answers readily. “I mean, that’s what I assume.”
    “Were you close to her?”
    She considers the question. “I live about a half hour away from here.”
    “That isn’t what I mean, Ms. Armstrong. I mean your relationship—were you close?”
    “We saw each other every couple of weeks or so.” She shifts her weight in the chair and it creaks beneath her.
    It’s old—a Chippendale.
    She remembers when Jane bought it—bought all the furniture for this room, in fact, on an antiquing trip to Vermont with Owen. She was so excited to show Margaret everything they purchased, spilling over with details about their trip. She went on and on about the shops, the inn where they stayed, and the restaurants where they ate. Then she confided that while they were away, they decided it was time to try and conceive a baby. “Maybe I’m pregnant now and don’t even know it!” Jane exclaimed.
    Even now, two years later, Margaret still can’t shake the vivid images those words brought to her mind. Jane and Owen, snuggled in a four-poster bed in some quaint New England Inn, making love. . . .
    “Ms. Armstrong?”
    “Yes?” She drags her attention back to the present.
    “Do you feel all right? You look pale. Upset.”
    “I’m fine.” She sips from the glass of water the detective insisted be placed on the table near her before they started talking. As though he expected her to have a difficult time with the interview.
    Determined to prove him wrong, she sets the glass back on the table and lifts her chin. “You can go on, Detective.”
    And he does. Asking question after question about Jane.
    Then, unexpectedly, when she decides he must be finished, he says, “How would you describe your sister’s relationship with her husband?”
    Startled, Margaret is silent for a moment. Then,