“An angel told me,” said Nell and laughed again.
Cindy shook her harder. “This isn’t a game. We have to find out who did it. The killer could strike again.”
That stopped Nell for a moment. Then she sprung up and shook herself off. “Graham’s dead. He’s dead,” she started shrieking.
Cindy held her face in her hands. “Stop this!” she yelled back.
Nell started crying. “You can’t tell me he isn’t dead. I heard it with my own ears.”
Cindy shuddered tremendously. “How?”
“A friend told me,” Nell yelped.
“What friend?” Cindy started closing in. “You have to tell me. You cared about Graham. The two of you were good friends.”
“We weren’t good friends, we loved each other. We were boyfriend and girlfriend.”
Cindy’s head started to swim. She’d thought that when she’d looked at the photos, but it was different hearing it from Nell.
“You saw that he loved me on the photos,” the words were now pouring out of Nell. “Don’t play your stupid head games with me.”
“I’m not playing any games,” Cindy’s voice got louder as she tried to absorb what Nell was saying. “I want to help you. I want to help your mother.”
“It’s too late for that,” said Nell.
“It’s never too late.”
“Go to hell,” Nell almost spit in Cindy’s face.
Cindy put her arm up to block her face, and moved in closer. “Did your mother know about you and Graham?”
“My mother didn’t know anything. She didn’t care either. She didn’t know who any of my friends were. But, my father knew!”
“Your father?” Cindy was stunned.
“One day, when Graham was here, my father came home early from a trip! He came up to my room to say hello, and he saw him.”
Cindy went on high alert.
Nell started talking faster now, unable to stop. “I didn’t think anything about it. Why should I? So I had a boyfriend, so what? But my father’s face got white the minute he saw Graham. He looked like he was in shock. Graham and I looked at each other. We had no idea what was going on. My father eye’s narrowed in a way I’d never seen before. He looked at Graham as if he’d seen a ghost. Graham and I got more and more frightened. Then my father suddenly starting shouting so loud, we started shaking. How did you find out about Nell? My father kept asking him. Graham didn’t know what he was talking about. He thought his father had come to visit. Find out what? he yelled back.”
Cindy’s heart started pounding.
“Once in a while, I’d seen my father in rages like that. But not too often,” Nell continued, the words tripping faster and faster over each other. “When my father started yelling at us, I thought it was because he was jealous.”
“It was more than that though,” Cindy urged her onwards.
“You can say that again,” Nell bit her lip so hard Cindy thought it would start to bleed. “Much more. All of a suddenly my father started yelling that we were half brother and sister. He yelled it so loud I thought a vein in his neck would bust and he’d drop dead of a stroke on the spot. Too bad he didn’t! It would have saved us a lot of misery and pain.”
“Half brother and sister,” Cindy repeated. “Did you believe him?”
“Of course not,” Nell whimpered, not in the beginning. I thought my dad hooked up with someone and imagined that Graham was his child. I thought he’d finally gone nuts. He was always nuts around the edges. “
Little beads of perspiration broke out on Cindy’s forehead. She felt a mixture of incredible pity and terror for Nell.
“What happened to Graham?” Cindy asked then straight forwardly. Nell was on a roll. Cindy felt she would answer any question was put to her now. She couldn’t stop.
“Things got too complicated,” Nell continued, a fierce pressure under her words. She seemed almost relieved to be talking. “It took Graham awhile to realize that he and I had the same father. When he did, Graham went nuts. His relationship with my father changed overnight. My father insisted Graham stop seeing me. Graham refused. He was crazy about me. He became enraged at the suggestion. His relationship with me changed too. He began calling all day long, coming over at strange times. It terrified me. He said he’d never let go, never listen to his father.”
“Did your father tell you that he had two wives, was married to both your mothers?”