“I don’t know what they think, but it’s my guess, Zach. You haven’t exactly been easy to live with since you got out of the hospital and that stunt with the reporters—”
He grinned, rubbing the swollen knuckles of his fist with his other hand.
“—you’re not winning friends.”
“The guy deserved it.” Zach could still hear questions, see the cameras pointed at him as he’d tried to get out of Witt’s Lincoln and away from the reporter who had appeared from behind the hedge.
“Can you explain why you were attacked on the night your half-sister—”
He’d reacted and his fist had slammed into the guy’s jaw with a bone-jarring crunch. Blood had spurted. Pain had ricocheted up Zach’s arm and the man had fallen, groaning to the ground. There was already talk of a lawsuit.
Now, as if reading her brother’s thoughts, Trisha sighed and gathered up her easel.
“You think I kidnapped London?” he asked, telling himself he didn’t care one way or the other.
Shaking hear head and staring pointedly at the scar that still edged his face, she said, “I don’t know what you did that night, but you’re not telling the truth…not all of it, and you’re going to end up taking the blame for this one unless you come clean.”
The muscles in the back of his neck tightened because he’d thought the same thing. “Since when are you the goddess of virtue?” He took another gulp of beer, drained the Coke can and crumpled it in his fist.
Trisha pinned him with eyes that had seen too much pain for so short a life. “You don’t know anything about me, Zach. You’ve never even tried to get to know me, have you? Look, I was just trying to do you a favor, but forget it.” She headed back to the house. “I made a mistake. It’s your funeral.”
Katherine’s eyelids stuck together. Her mouth tasted like she’d been licking an ashtray and her head pounded above her temples. She forced one eye open and sunlight streaming through a partially open window, nearly blinded her. Groaning, she rolled over and wondered about the sadness that was a horrible weight on her heart.
She was in her own bedroom and…Oh, God…the reality came crashing back to her fragile brain. London was gone, abducted nearly two—or was it three?—weeks before. Desperation, like the horrid beast it was, clawed at her from the inside. She needed a cigarette. With numb fingers she reached to the bed table and found an empty pack of Virginia Slims, which she flung onto the floor. Tears flooded her eyes. She couldn’t take this, day after day. The bumbling policemen, the useless FBI, and the media. Damn the media. The few reporters who had gotten past the guards had asked questions that made her heart bleed and the fire in their eyes, all looking for a story, and insensitive to her pain…No wonder Zach had punched out a reporter and broken a photographer’s camera as he’d returned to the house from the hospital.
She stood on unsteady legs, then drew the drapes open a little farther. Two squad cars and a plain, stripped-down Chevrolet were scattered on the circular drive. Farther away, past the sloping front lawns and tended rose gardens, she caught a glimpse of the front gates where the vultures gathered. Two or three cars were parked in the shade of an ancient oak that spread its branches over the brick wall which kept the scavengers at bay.
“I hope you all rot in hell,” she muttered, letting the drapes fall back into place.
What time was it? Bleary eyes focused on the clock. Two in the afternoon. She’d slept seventeen hours, drugged by Doc McHenry’s sleeping pills and God-only-knew what else. Somehow, some way, she’d have to pull herself together. With or without London.
That thought caused her knees to buckle and she grasped the edge of the bureau to steady herself. She’d find her baby. She had to. She couldn’t trust the federal government or the police, and Witt, well, he hadn’t been much help. The fact that he would no longer sleep with her, insisting that she needed her rest, bothered her. She knew the real reason. He was afraid that she would require more than a pat on the head, that she might need a kiss, a hug, even her husband to make love to her to comfort her.
God, she needed a cigarette.
Running her tongue over filmy teeth, she forced herself into the bathroom, where she stripped off the nightgown that she’d worn for days and turned on the shower. Before stepping under the hot spray, she got a glimpse of her reflection and cringed. No makeup, hair lank, her once-curvy body beginning to look gaunt from lack of food. Hazily she remembered Maria, the cook, coming into her room, trying to force soup of some kind down her throat.
In all her life, Katherine had never once let herself go; she believed that her greatest commodity was her body and she spent hours in the gym, with a masseuse, at the hairdresser, having her nails manicured. Her clothes were always flattering—a little sexy, but classy and pressed.
But now she looked like hell.
She stepped into the warm spray and let the hot water run over her hair and skin. Closing her eyes against the dark depression that settled over her whenever she thought of London, she leaned against the slick tiles. She couldn’t let this get her down because she was London’s only chance. If she gave up on her daughter, everyone else would as well.
Sobs burned deep in her throat and, telling herself that she could allow herself the freedom to cry, to grieve a little by herself, she let the tears drizzle down her cheeks, their salty tracks mingling with the rivulets from the shower as the steam billowed around her.
As long as she was alone, she could wail and scream and gnash her teeth in frustration, but when she was with the others, then she had to pretend to be strong.
An hour later she’d made it downstairs. Her hair was washed, blown dry and brushed until it shined, her teeth were polished, her makeup impeccable, her shorts and top a blue that matched her eyes. She grabbed some orange juice from the refrigerator, ignored Maria’s pleas that she eat breakfast, and found out that Witt and the police were holed up in the den with strict orders not to be disturbed. Fine. Turning her back to Maria, she splashed a couple of shots of vodka into her juice, swallowed two double-strength Excedrin, reached for a new pack of cigarettes, and tucked the Wall Street Journal under her arm.
She was ready, or so she thought, but the intensity of the daylight made her reach for the sunglasses she kept in a drawer near the French doors. Outside, there wasn’t a breath of breeze and the sun beat mercilessly against the cement and brick that skirted the pool.
She heard a noise, glanced up, and realized, as she passed by the ferns and rhododendrons flanking the path, that Zachary was swimming laps. He knifed through the water like an athlete and his wounds, still visible against his tanned skin, had healed enough to allow him easy, even strokes.
A knot of something akin to desire unwound in Katherine’s stomach. Of all of Witt’s children, Zachary held the most appeal. He didn’t look like the rest of the Danvers brood—his skin was a darker shade, he was more muscular in build, and his eyes were a stormy gray rather than the clear blue that seemed to be a Danvers trademark.