Through the Heart
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Nora’s Introduction
Nora
Timothy’s Introduction
Timothy
The Investigation
Nora
Timothy
Nora
Timothy
Nora
Timothy
Nora
Nora
Timothy
Nora
Nora
Timothy
Nora
Timothy
Nora
Timothy
Nora
Nora
Timothy
Nora
Nora
Nora
Nora
Timothy
Nora
Timothy
Timothy
Timothy
Nora
Two Months Later
Timothy
Nora
Timothy
Timothy
Nora
Timothy
Timothy
Timothy
Timothy
Timothy
Timothy
Nora
A PLUME BOOK THROUGH THE HEART
KATE MORGENROTH is the author of the bestselling Plume book They Did It with Love, two thrillers, Kill Me First and Saved, and two YA novels, Echo and the Edgar-nominated Jude.
Praise for They Did It with Love
“A delightfully perverse whodunit . . . Morgenroth’s greatest accomplishment is the ease with which she describes a certain kind of ennui and aimlessness—and the kind of fatal betrayals that can lurk beneath all that suburban gloss.”
—Washington Post
“[I]f you like a sexy mystery, Morgenroth keeps the finger of suspicion rotating faster than a game of Spin the Bottle.”
—Marie Claire
“The character development and local color are so strong that this would be a hit even without the dazzling surprise ending.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A deliciously entertaining romp through the thickets of sububan marriage and murder.”
—Carol Goodman, author of The Lake of Dead Languages
“Compulsively readable. Filled with wonderfully wicked characters and brilliant twists and turns.”
—Lisa Lutz, author of The Spellman Files
“[A]uthor Kate Morgenroth pulls out all the stops in this sophisticated tale of deceit, passion, and murder.”
—BookLoons
a cognizant original v5 release october 06 2010
Praise for Kill Me First and Saved
“Mesmerizing. I am as delighted by Kate Morgenroth’s nerve as much as by her skill.”
—Toni Morrison
“Written in full-throttle style, Morgenroth . . . delivers a penetrating character study of a woman.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“I read Kill Me First in one sitting. Kate Morgenroth has created an exciting and formidable character in Sarah Shepard.”
—Lisa See, author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
“Compulsively readable.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Nearly impossible to put down.”
—Time Out New York
“Riveting . . . Morgenroth writes with quick, razor strokes.”
—New York Post
“Intensely absorbing.”—Publishers Weekly
“One knockout story . . . Morgenroth succeeds not only in creating something different but in doing it well.”—St. Petersburg Times
“An appealing heroine supported by savvy plotting. Morgenroth’s second outing, [Kill Me First,] proves again that she knows how to weave a spell.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A must-read for those who like their women tough but vulnerable.”
—USA Today
PLUME
Published by Penguin Group
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Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, January
Copyright © Kate Morgenroth, 2010
All rights reserved
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Morgenroth, Kate.
Through the heart / Kate Morgenroth.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-15958-3
I. Title.
PS3563.O871497T48 2010
813’.54—dc22 2009028616
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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for love
One learns people through the heart, not the eyes or the intellect.
—Mark Twain
Nora’s Introduction
Nora
Kansas
It happened on a Monday morning.
It.
The thing we’re all looking for. Love. On a Monday morning.
My mother always called it heart-attack Monday because more people have heart attacks on Mondays than on any other day. (She loved to share cheerful little facts like that with me.)
So it was strangely fitting that it happened then, since love is a kind of heart attack. I’m sure it hurts as much as one sometimes—and the pain lasts for a whole lot longer.
My mother was right about the statistics on heart-attack Monday, but when I looked it up online, even though my mother was right, I discovered that the second most likely time for a heart attack was Saturday morning. That made perfect sense to me—for some people the thought of going
back to work on Monday was enough to bring on a heart attack. For others it was the thought of a whole two days at home with the family.
The second one sounded about right to me—especially when my mother told me for the bazillionth time that if I didn’t meet a man soon, I would be alone forever, because it was more likely that a woman would get murdered by terrorists than get married over the age of forty. She’d read that fact in Newsweek decades ago, and even though I told her that they’d gotten their facts wrong, she seemed to think that since it was in print it was the gospel truth.
Speaking of murders, Saturday also happens to be the day when the most murders are committed. But people tend to worry more about heart attacks than murder. The thing is, they both happen. The only difference is that one is something you can imagine, the other is beyond imagination. Murder is something that happens in the news, in horror movies, to other people—not something that might be a reality in your life. And if people do imagine getting murdered, it is usually by a serial killer or in a terrorist attack. But studies show that between 50 and 75 percent of murder victims know their killers.
In murder mysteries, to solve a murder we look to the past for clues. But if the clues are there in the past to be found, they must have been there all along—we just didn’t know how to read them.
My own personal heart attack happened on a Monday. And, right in line with all the statistics (which we often don’t like to think about—probably because we all become one at some point), it was on a Saturday that the dream ended.
What might be the strangest fact of all is that my best friend, Tammy, predicted them both. Sometimes I wonder: if I’d listened to her, would it have made a difference? And then I ask myself, would I go back and change it if I could?
Timothy’s Introduction
Timothy
New York
There is no “happily ever after” here.
Am I giving it away? I don’t think I am. I believe that all beginnings contain the end hidden within them. You can try to ignore it, but it’s there. The sadness is always tucked away within the happiness.
Maybe I’m a spoilsport. It certainly isn’t the worst thing that’s been said of me. Lots of people have called me a lot of things. They’ve called me cruel. They’ve called me unfeeling. They’ve called me dangerous. The worst thing you could throw at me? I’m sure I’ve heard it before, though I have to say that all the people who said those things were women. Does it make a difference? I don’t know. I just think it’s interesting.
But the women who said those things were right. All I can say is—you try growing up having everything. See how you turn out.
When I say I had everything, money is always the first thing people think of. Why do we make such a big deal about it? It’s just pieces of paper—even less real than pieces of paper. For most of us, dollars and cents are just numbers in a computer somewhere. But I grew up with a lot, and when I got old enough, I made more. Easily. Effortlessly. The money doubled and tripled.
It’s never just the money though. Since my father had money, he married a beautiful woman. I got her looks. Just a mistake of the genes, an accidental arrangement of features: this chin, that nose, those eyes. But the difference it makes—I think it might have more of an impact than money. It’s amazing the effect that a little bit of beauty has on people.
And just to complete the package, I had brains, too, and all the trappings that come with them: the Ivy League degree, Wharton MBA. I can even pull out the SAT scores, if you want to go that far back.
I know you’re probably thinking, “Oh poor little rich boy.” Believe me, I would dislike me too. But all these things we call blessings, I promise you, we have misnamed them, but we keep chasing after them, thinking they will give us what we want.
For me, there was only one thing I wanted—the only thing I didn’t have, couldn’t buy, and didn’t know how to get. Love. Real love. But how do you find that? How can you test it for genuine-ness? Is there a glass to test that diamond on?
A lot of people might think I wasn’t worthy of it, and I definitely had days when I would have had to agree with them. I wasn’t. But I found it. Or rather, it found me. And it found me in the last place I would ever have thought to look. It’s a miracle I even recognized it when I found it. But when I did recognize it, guess what I did? Everything I could to shake it. That’s what. You try finding real love and see if it doesn’t scare the hell out of you. You might even find that you would choose the same path I did. Judge at your own risk.
The Investigation
THE INVESTIGATION
POLICE REPORT, THE HAMPTONS, NEW YORK
Case number: 3462
Incident: homicide
Report: April 5
The call reporting the crime was logged at 10:27 a.m. It was placed from the location of the crime: a bed-and-breakfast. The dispatcher took the call and notified the nearest patrol car.
The patrol car arrived, and the two officers were directed to a room on the third floor. The body was lying in the four-poster bed, with a knife in its chest.
As soon as the officers established the death of the victim, they secured the scene, cordoning off the entire third floor. They also notified the precinct desk officer, who alerted the detective squad. All witnesses were identified and detained at the scene by the officers.
The crime scene unit arrived and started gathering the evidence. The medical examiner looked at the body and made an assessment.
Death was surmised to have been caused by a single blow that penetrated the heart.
Nora
Tammy’s Prediction
The day Tammy made her prediction was a normal day—normal for me anyway.
When she came by the house, I was in the kitchen, about to make a grilled cheese sandwich for myself.
My mother was upstairs, locked in her bedroom. We’d had another fight.
That morning we had made the long drive up to Kansas City for her fifth chemo session. Second round.
I think my mother actually enjoyed our fights. I wish I could say I did. The problem was, they got in the way of what Tammy called my Florence Nightingale delusion. I thought I’d move home and even though the cancer would be awful, it would also be a sort of miraculous thing that would bring us together. I would take care of my mother, and we would become close in a way we never had been when I was growing up.
It hadn’t quite worked out that way—not by a long shot.
I was in the kitchen, heating the skillet, when I heard the front door slam and then the familiar holler, “Nora? Hellooo? Anybody home?”
Tammy had been coming in this way since we became best friends in second grade, and Tammy was not one to give up habits easily.
I went to the kitchen door and motioned her inside with a finger to my lips. As if that would do any good.
“Oh, is it puke-your-guts-up day?” Tammy asked.
That was Tammy. She liked to say shocking things. I never did find the thing that Tammy wasn’t willing to laugh about. Other people might say they laughed about the bad things, but you always reached the one thing that sobered them up, the thing that made them say, “No, that’s just not funny.”
That wasn’t Tammy. She laughed.
“You know she can hear you,” I said, as Tammy crossed the li ving room.
“You think she’d be surprised?” Tammy shot back, a little louder than necessary, so I knew it wasn’t just for me. It was a small house. You could hear everything, especially if you had my mother’s ears.
“You’ve got a point,” I said.
That was part of Tammy’s magic—my mother had heard the kinds of things Tammy said, and though she always pretended to be outraged, strangely she never gave me a hard time about our friendship. I think it might have been the one and only thing that was important to me that my mother hadn’t tried to take away or ruin. I didn’t understand it, but I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“You want a grilled cheese?” I
asked, closing the door firmly behind Tammy.
Tammy flopped down on one of the rickety wooden chairs with caning so old it squeaked every time you moved.
“God, yes. I’m starving. Robbie had absolutely nothing at his place.”
“Robbie?” I asked, starting to butter the bread. “Do I know about this one?”
“Put a lot of butter on mine,” Tammy instructed. “I told you about Robbie last week.”
“Wait a second. Don’t tell me,” I said, turning around, my hand still poised in the air as if the bread was in front of me. “You didn’t! Not the boy who bags your groceries at the Price Chopper?”
“That’s the one,” Tammy said.
“Is he even legal?”
“You’re asking me that with a knife in your hand?”
I looked at my hand holding the knife, then at Tammy. “Tammy, it’s a butter knife. Don’t get dramatic.”
“Anyway, he’s nineteen,” Tammy said. “Oh, to be nineteen again.”
“You have no shame,” I said, turning back to the sandwiches.