The Lost Years (41 page)

As much as she dreaded seeing him again, she intended to go to both courtrooms and to speak about the wonderful human being that her father had been and the devastation that had been inflicted on her mother and her. After she was finished, she would know that she had done all she could for the two loving parents she had been so blessed to have. And Richard would be standing next to her.

He had been with her in the hospital that night as the doctors had cleaned and stitched the painful gash on her head, and he had barely left her side in the weeks thereafter. “And I’m never leaving again,” he had told her.

Wally Gruber had received five-year sentences in New York and New Jersey, which he would serve concurrently. Peter Jones, the new county prosecutor, had sat down with Mariah and Lloyd and Lisa Scott, and they had given their approval to this reduction in his sentence, which otherwise would have been three times longer. “He didn’t do anything out of the goodness of his heart, but he did save
my mother from spending the rest of her life in a mental hospital,” Mariah said.

“I’m glad he took my jewels and I’m glad he got them back,” Lisa Scott declared.

After his sentencing in Hackensack, a cheerful Wally had left the courtroom beaming. “Piece of cake,” he’d said loudly to his long-suffering lawyer, who knew that the judge had heard the comment and was not pleased.

In a plea agreement, also with Mariah’s approval, Lillian had been sentenced to community service for trying to sell the rare stolen parchment. The judge had agreed that after her horrible ordeal, there was no real need for further punishment. The irony was that when Greg had planted the rumor that Charles was shopping the parchment, he had not been wrong.

Jonathan had showed it to Charles and told him that Lillian was holding it for safekeeping. Jonathan was horrified when Charles offered to sell it for him. After Jonathan’s death, Charles called Lillian, offered to find a black market buyer for it, and split the profits.

After Mariah and Richard stepped out of the house for the last time, they walked to the curb where his car was parked and got inside. “It will be nice to be with your mom and dad tonight,” she said. “I feel like they’re already my family.”

“They are, Mariah,” Richard whispered. Smiling, he said, “And never forget: As proud as they were when I was in the seminary, I know they can’t wait for us to give them grandchildren. And we will.”

Alvirah and Willy were getting ready to go to Richard’s parents’ home for dinner. “Willy, it’s been over six weeks since we’ve seen Mariah and Richard,” Alvirah said as she reached into the closet for her coat and scarf.

“Not since we met them and Father Aiden and the Scotts for dinner at Neary’s Restaurant,” Willy agreed. “I’ve missed them.”

“It has to be hard for her.” Alvirah sighed. “Today was the last day she’ll ever spend in her childhood home. That’s got to be so tough. But I’m so glad that they’re moving into that lovely apartment after the wedding. They can’t help but be happy there.”

When they arrived at the dinner they tightly embraced Richard and Mariah. In the few minutes that they allowed themselves to discuss the awful events they’d experienced, Alvirah told Mariah that, despite all of the tragedy, she had known when she touched the sacred parchment that she was holding something very special and wonderful.

“That’s right, Alvirah,” Mariah said, her voice barely above a whisper. “And what is also very special is that it is back in the Vatican Library where it belongs. And my dad can rest in peace.”

Read About the Inspiration Behind Other Classic Novels by Mary Higgins Clark

Stillwatch

When I was about twelve years old, there was a murder in the rectory of our local parish. The priests were lingering over coffee. The housekeeper, a young woman of twenty-eight, lived in the basement with her husband and five-year-old daughter.

Suddenly shots were heard. The priests rushed downstairs. The housekeeper’s husband had murdered her and killed himself. The next day the newspaper read, “Their five-year-old daughter, bathed in the blood of her mother, was screaming and screaming.”

That was the basis for
Stillwatch.
I wondered how much the little girl remembered of the terrible scene after she grew up. I decided to set the book in Washington because it is obviously the center of the political world in America and I wanted to use that background as well.

Weep No More My Lady

At the time I wrote that book I had just gone to a famous spa, Maine Chance in Arizona. It was the ultimate in luxury and something I could never have afforded if I hadn’t by then become a successful writer. I asked myself, wouldn’t it be interesting if in a place like this, where everyone is waited on and pampered, that a killer is stalking his victims and waiting in a wet suit at the bottom of the pool to drown them? The prospect gave me the shivers, and I was on my way. Incidentally, that was the first book that Alvirah Meehan appeared in, and she’s been my good friend ever since.

While My Pretty One Sleeps

When I was eighteen, I worked on Saturdays in a Fifth Avenue department store because I have always loved clothes. At that time, Dior had just changed the fashion landscape when he came out with his new look. I thought, suppose a talented young woman is murdered for the fashion look she has created and twenty years later her daughter uses fashion to find her mother’s killer. Just for the record, when I wrote that book I was a widow. Many people have asked if my husband was the inspiration for it because of my description of the man who is the father of the main character. My
answer was no. I dreamed up the man I wanted and twenty years later I found him.

The Anastasia Syndrome

I took a course years ago in which the instructor hypnotized people and brought them back to previous lifetimes. I took it out of curiosity, not because I believe in reincarnation. When I heard startlingly vivid descriptions of former lifetimes from people under hypnosis, it didn’t make me a believer, but it did make me realize that I was going to write a book on that subject. Since I’m a history buff, I loved setting the back story in the time of Charles the First and Charles the Second of England.

Let Me Call You Sweetheart

I love jewelry and have a few pieces that once belonged to my mother-in-law. One pin especially is unique. I thought it would be interesting if that pin could get someone on a path to murder. As a secondary theme, the idea of a plastic surgeon giving a number of women the same face, I thought offered a meaty plot because why would any doctor do that? A third plot element was the idea of a young man in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. I threw these together — the jewelry, the plastic surgeon, and the innocent prisoner.
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
was the result.

Silent Night

A friend of mine was nineteen years old when he was in the Battle of the Bulge. A bullet hit the Saint Christopher Medal he was wearing, and the medal saved his life. I always knew that there was a story within that story, and when I was asked to write a Christmas novel, I knew the Saint Christopher Medal had to be part of it. The other plot element involved a young woman who had been in prison, sees a wallet, picks it up and may be accused of having stolen it. I thought that is the kind of predicament that people can sometimes get into. Afraid to tell and afraid not to tell is a desperate situation for a lone young woman with a dependent child. That situation tied to the Saint Christopher Medal produced
Silent Night.

Moonlight Becomes You

My mother-in-law had a recurring nightmare perhaps twice a year. It was that she was in a funeral home in a casket. She was alive, and all the
other people in the other caskets were dead. It is easy to trace the origin of that dream. Her mother was a young girl in England when the flu epidemic killed thousands of people. People were buried immediately, and later it was found that some of them were still alive. The coffins had scratch marks as they frantically tried to lift the lid and escape. In those days the rich people would have a string around the supposedly dead person’s finger and would have a bell on the ground at the end of the string. They paid watchers to sit by the grave for a week just in case the person was not yet dead and tried to signal them. I thought that is a darn good basis for a suspense novel.

Pretend You Don’t See Her

So often an article I have read triggers a book. For this one I read a long article about a family in the Federal Witness Protection Plan and the excruciating loneliness that they were experiencing living in a strange place, unable to discuss their backgrounds and only contacting the rest of the family through a Federal Marshal. I ask myself why a young woman would be forced into that position and what it would be like if an assassin breaks through the code of secrecy and learns where she is.

All titles by Mary Higgins Clark are also available as ebooks.

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