Twenty-Five

As he knew she would be, Cheryl was waiting for him beside that old rusty farm thing at the back of her house. For a moment he hid behind a big palm tree and watched her. She was a pretty girl but in a way that drew too much attention. She certainly wasn't the kind he could be seen in public with.

He'd tried to fix her. He'd tutored her, mentored her, did his best to tone her down while raising her up. He'd introduced her to silk, makeup, heels. But they hadn't helped much. He liked old movies and in his mind he compared her to Brigitte Bardot. You could put her in the most conservative clothes and she'd still ooze sex.

He leaned back against the tree. He'd leave for college soon, so he'd have to get away from her. She wasn't someone he could show to Mother. But maybe he could tell his father. Maybe this would change his father's attitude toward his son.

When Alastair turned back, he saw that she had her hand on something at her neck, and he recognized it. The local jeweler was making a mint off selling initial necklaces to the high-school males to give to their girlfriends. Alastair had been asked who he was giving one to and he'd made a remark about needing a half dozen of them.

Like he'd shell out two hundred and fifty bucks for a necklace for some girl.

He saw her move her hand. Damn if she didn't seem to be caressing the thing. So who had given her the necklace? One of the guys on the team? Hadn't he trained her better than to keep gifts from other people?

With a frown, he made his way across the street. Turning, he glanced at the house of that old hag Mary Ellerbee to see if she was spying. He'd bumped into her once and he didn't plan to do it again. But her house was dark.

Cheryl heard him approach and turned to him, her face welcoming. But he didn't miss that she slipped the necklace inside her blouse.

He allowed her to kiss him but he didn't return the gesture. Holding her at arm's length, he looked her up and down. "I saw you today and the back of your blouse was wrinkled. From now on, maybe you shouldn't lean back against the seat."

"Okay," she said, but she wasn't meeting his eyes.

He pulled himself up straight, to his tallest, and looked down at her. "What's the problem?"

"I have something to tell you." Her voice was soft, almost as though she was afraid of something.

"About the necklace?" He wanted her to think that he knew everything.

"The what? Oh." Smiling, she pulled it out of the inside of her blouse. She'd unbuttoned the top for him, something she wasn't allowed to do in school. "It's from Jack. Isn't it sweet?"

"That Wyatt kid gave you a gold necklace?"

She held it tightly in her hand. "Yes. He helps me so much. I wouldn't have accomplished all I've done if it weren't for him."

He stepped back from her. "And what exactly have you accomplished?"

"Oh, Allie, please don't do your jealousy thing now. I have something important to tell you."

"Don't call me that and what do you mean jealous?"

She put her hand on his chest and looked up at him. "We're going to have a baby."

Alastair couldn't say anything. He just froze where he was.

"It's all right." Her voice was urgent. "I've thought everything out. We've always planned to get married but we'll just do it sooner. I'll finish high school through correspondence and we—the baby and I—will make a home for you when you go to college. They have dorms for married students. I'll get a job and help with the expenses and..."

Alastair was backing away from her.

"Allie? I mean, Alastair?" She stepped closer to him. "Nothing has changed, just the date."

"Go," he murmured. "I have to go."

"I know. This is your training weekend. I won't see you again until Sunday night. We'll talk everything out then."

Alastair couldn't reply. He just walked away with as much composure as he could manage. He always parked his car far away, then made his way through side streets and backyards of people he knew weren't home. But this time, he went straight down the street and didn't slow down until he reached the good part of Lachlan.

His car was near the bookstore. He got in, shut the door and let himself breathe. What did he do now?

Motherwas the only thought in his mind. She'd be angry but she'd know how to take care of this.

He took his time, trying to let it all sink in before he went home. He needed to present the facts to her in a way that showed he had reached manhood.

She was in the little sitting area off her bedroom. His father had his own set of rooms that were smaller and less lavishly decorated, but his mother loved silk and pearls and jade.

She glanced up from her book on the history of France in the sixteenth century—she did not believe in novels. There was only the tiniest flicker of annoyance when she saw his face, then she composed herself. She knew that he had something bad to tell her.

Alastair got his height and his blondness from her. Some people said that he was so much like his mother that it was hard to believe that Hamish had anything to do with him.

Noreen put down her book, nodded toward the blue brocade chair, then waited for him to speak.

In spite of his planning, Alastair didn't know where to start. At the beginning? Tell how he made such an effort to meet her through that dreadful Delia? No. Not there.

"She's pregnant."

Noreen seemed to be relieved. "That's easy to change. Careless of you but fixable."

"She wants us to get married."

Noreen laughed at that. "She couldn't be that stupid. Or is she? Who is it?"

"Cheryl Morris." The words almost choked him. Lowest of the low. The dregs. The type a Stewart didn't speak to, much less...

His mother's face had gone ghostly white. He'd never seen her look so upset. But how could that be? His mother was a rock. A solid, never-flustered person.

"Morris," she whispered, then stood up.

"I'm sorry. I—"

She whirled on him. "Why her? Why?"

"Dad said—" He'd never seen his mother look so angry.

"What did that father of yours say?" She was leaning over him, her face distorted with rage.

Alastair's belief that he was a man fled his mind immediately. He reverted to being a scared child, his voice full of tears. "He said she was a ‘fine girl.' He said he was proud of the way she'd overcome her life. He said—"

She stood up and turned to the window. "No more. I can guess."

"I wanted to please him," Alastair sobbed. "Just once, I wanted to do something that he liked."

When Noreen turned back, she was calmer. "Are you packed to go to camp?"

"Yes."

"Then get your bag and leave. I'll take care of this."

"But how—?"

"Don't ask questions. If I need you, I'll let you know. Now get out of here."

He obeyed his mother.

Noreen went to the safe that was hidden under an antique carpet and withdrew twenty grand in cash. She also pulled out a diamond necklace that her beloved father-in-law had given her. It was a beautiful thing and she'd hate to part with it, but women like Verna Morris tended to like flash. As for the girl, she had no worries. After what Noreen had to say, agreeing to an abortion wouldn't be a problem.

As her son did, Noreen parked some distance away and walked to the Morris house. She certainly knew where it was. Not that she'd ever visited before, but she knew.

She wasn't recognized by anyone. But then, the light was low and she had raided her husband's closet. She had on his pants and shirt, a cap hiding her blond hair.

The house was well lit and she paused for a moment to see what was going on. There was an old van in the weedy driveway, all the doors open. Inside were boxes and bags of household goods. It looked like Verna had been told of her daughter's predicament and they were at last leaving town.

Good! Noreen thought, but she wanted to make sure.

She went to the back of the house. No matter what, she didn't want to be seen in this neighborhood, especially not at this house.

When she reached the back, the girl popped out of the shadows.

Of course, Noreen had seen her before—and been disgusted by her. She dressed above her class, above her age. Now her thick makeup was smeared.

Noreen couldn't conceal the sneer on her face.

"Oh, Mrs. Stewart, I knew you'd come. I knew Allie would tell you. I promise that I'll make a good daughter-in-law. I've studied everything, from drinking tea to how to dress to how to run a household. All of it. And I'm going to get a job as a newscaster. That's respectable, isn't it? I've done so much to prove that I'm worthy of being a Stewart."

Noreen's sneer reached epic proportions. One side of her upper lip almost disappeared into her nostril. "You stupid girl. You are a Stewart."

She shoved past her to go into the house, but Cheryl grabbed her arm. "What do you mean?"

Noreen jerked her arm away. She could see her husband in the girl. Her eyes had gone from begging to that stubbornness she so despised in him. Unlike Alastair, she couldn't always make Hamish obey her—and she was looking at the result of that. "Your father is Hamish Stewart."

"You're a liar." Cheryl's voice was calm and steely. "My father died before I was born."

"I wish that were true." Noreen took a step forward but the girl blocked her.

"I won't listen to your lies." The girl lifted her arm as though she meant to slap the older woman.

Years and years of rage that had smoldered inside Noreen came to the surface. Her upper body was strong from a lifetime of sports. She drew back her arm and hit the girl hard on the side of the head.

Cheryl fell backward, her head hitting a sharp corner of the concrete steps. She landed in the exact place where a few hours earlier she'd sat with young Jack Wyatt and received his birthday gifts.

As Noreen looked at the unmoving body of the girl, the blood already flowing across the step, her instincts told her that the girl was dead.

Part of her mind said she should do something, call someone. But the larger part felt some deep, primal satisfaction. She'd been married off at a young age to a man with half her intelligence, a man who just wanted to laugh and drink and help out his friends. A true waste of a human being. She had been the one to run their lives and their income. He'd repaid her with an affair that had produced...this.

She glared at the girl on the steps. So very much blood was coming out of her and was now running down to a lower step.

Noreen knew no one had seen her arrive. She could leave and no one would know. The girl slipped. She—

An eerie, high-pitched scream made Noreen look up. Verna Morris practically tumbled down the steps to her daughter and lifted her limp body.

"She fell," Noreen whispered.

"You shoved her. You hit her," Verna yelled.

"I did no such thing." Noreen's mind was beginning to function again.

"Call an ambulance," Verna ordered, her body cradling her daughter as she tried to find the spot where the blood was coming from.

Noreen went into the house as though to make the call, but she didn't. Think! she ordered herself. How to handle this?

She went back outside. "They'll be here in minutes."

Verna was rocking her daughter and making a low keening sound. "She is my life. All of it. I want nothing else but my daughter." Her voice became a whisper. "I can't live without her. I don't want to live without her."

She gave Noreen a look of calculation. "I'll see that you're put in jail." Carefully, Verna put her daughter on the steps and stood up. "I'll tell the world that your worthless son impregnated his half sister." She was advancing on Noreen. "You think you did a good job of spreading your lying gossip about me, telling people that I'm a whore, but wait until you see what I do to you. The Stewart name will be a laughingstock for the whole town. I'll—"

Noreen knew she didn't have much to be proud of, but the honor of her name was foremost. There was a flowerpot nearby that contained a dying plant. On the side was a plastic handle. She grabbed it and out came a weeding tool: long, thin, with a two-pronged end.

Without thinking what she was doing, she stabbed Verna in the stomach, then pulled out the blade.

With her hands over the wound, Verna staggered back to her daughter's body. Blood was coming out between her fingers. "I will recover from this, and I will tell the world your secrets. Hamish loved me, not you. I'll tell people what he said when we were in bed together. He wondered if the man you truly loved, your father-in-law, was Alastair's father. He said—"

Noreen wrapped her hands around the woman's neck and began to squeeze. Years of hatred, of being given a life she'd never wanted, were in her hands. Muscles she'd developed at tennis clenched around Verna's thin throat. Noreen heard the gagging sounds and they pleased her. How much pain this woman had caused her! She'd dared to return to a town that was owned by the family Noreen had been sold into.

When Verna's body went limp, she dropped the corpse on top of her daughter's body.

For a moment she enjoyed the silence. The lights from the house showed the two bodies piled together. "She wanted to die," Noreen whispered.

Her calm was coming back to her—and with it came relief. She remembered the divorce papers her husband had presented to her. He was such a fool that he'd told her the truth, all about the "love of my life" and the "darling daughter" she'd given him. Noreen had given Hamish a perfect son but he had never spent much time with the boy. "He's just like you" had been Hamish's excuse.

Noreen looked about her. It had all taken a very short time. No one had seen or heard. No one knew anything.

She looked back at the bodies. They were small females and Noreen had little trouble dragging them to the back and dropping them into some disgusting pit. Enough dirt fell down that she didn't bother trying to cover them. That the hole was there, that the dirt fell down, seemed to be an omen. She'd done what was supposed to happen.

When the bodies were hidden, she used the nearby garden hose to spray the blood off the concrete steps. If anyone came by, she didn't want them to see the obvious.

She thought about how to more completely conceal the bodies, but that would involve manual labor, work that was beyond her inclinations.

When she got back to her car, she called her son at his basketball training camp. They had finished dinner and were doing whatever it was that teenage boys did when together.

"You have to do something for me," she said, then told him everything. He would leave as soon as his roommate was asleep, return to Lachlan and do what needed doing. He'd be back at camp before the boy woke up.

The next morning, Noreen was smiling. She felt better than she had in years. So much of the bad of her life was gone. Forever out of her life. Only her husband remained.

When Hamish came to breakfast, she smiled at him. "Don't you think aconites would be beautiful in the garden?"

"Whatever you want," he muttered, "I'm sure you'll get it."

Aconite. Also known as monkshood. Deadly poison. She called the gardener and made the order.