“He didn’t die that day. Neither of them did. You were lied to, about this and so many other things during that time of your life. There was a girl and a boy born to you on July twenty-fourth. And neither of them were still-born or any other such thing.” She looked at him again, this time fear overriding her caution. “The Bennetts lied to you so that you’d never come back for them. Or the babies. They had it in their head to…well, Kari thinks that once you were released from the hospital back then, you’d have been killed. And all this time, everyone has assumed that you were dead.”
“Steele Bennett?” Beth slid down the counter and crumbled on the floor when he nodded. When he reached for her, she shied away from him, but he didn’t leave her side. “I heard that he was dead too. Read about it in the paper. That and his wife, that bitch, was in prison for helping him murder all those other women. Was that a lie?”
“No. He committed suicide some years back. Even before he was brought to trial, as you know. It didn’t stop the state from convicting him, of course, but he was long dead before he could be put to death.” She nodded and felt the relief of it roll over her. “His wife, Eloise Bennett, was tried and committed to the institute for the criminally insane about twelve years ago. Your son lives on the estate and your daughter…I’m sorry to tell you this, but she died some years ago as well.”
“Aster Bennett was my daughter?” He nodded and helped her to stand. Beth felt weak, depressed all of a sudden for the loss she hadn’t known about until then. What was…? “The son, he is like his father? A bastard? Please tell me that he’s nothing like his father. Please?”
“No. He’s a good man. Honest and hardworking. I work for him and his family now. Not a better man to be found, I’d say. He has a wife now. Her name is Kari Briggs Bennett.” Beth had to get out of there, or get away from the man. He was going to trap her or take her back to them. “I have a letter for you from her. She said that she knows that you’re afraid, but she wants you to have this.”
He stood up after pulling it from his briefcase. Beth didn’t take it, so he laid it on the table and turned from her. She didn’t know what to think, what to even say to him until he turned on his way out with his hand on the doorknob. He was simply going to leave her there with all her thoughts and fears, and she wasn’t sure how to deal with it.
“If nothing else, Miss Náire, you should read the letter from her. She is probably one of the nicest women you’ll meet or have the pleasure of knowing. And she understands how you’re feeling, much more than you can realize. Kari wants to help you.” She only looked at him. “I have also included my card in there. Should you have any questions, please call me. I will be here until I hear from you either way.” He told her where he was staying.
“I won’t go there again, not to that house. Not for all the money in the world. And no one can make me.” He nodded. “Do you have any idea what happened to me? Do you know what Bennett did to me?”
“Yes. And I know how much you have suffered since then. But you have to remember one thing if nothing else. He gave you a son and daughter. One you still have the chance to meet if you choose to. And you won’t ever be harmed by either of them.” He left her with that; opened the door and stepped out as simply as she’d let him in.
Beth sat in the chair for a long while, long after her lunchtime was over and nearly into her time to eat dinner. Food was the furthest thing from her mind right now, but the meeting and the letter were not. It stared at her throughout her sitting there until she had to get up or scream.
The letter lay on her table for the rest of the day. And that evening when she’d finished her painting, she saw it again when she’d made her a cup of tea before fixing her dinner. Her name, her real name, blazed over the front of it in a bold yet very feminine hand. Beth didn’t even bother moving it when she sat down to eat her cold sandwich and salad. She was not going to touch it.
After watching some television, nothing that she could recall what it had been, she went to her room and dressed for the night. Crawling into bed, she thought of all the reasons why she was never going to that house, and thought that the house, the estate that her son lived in, was not the house she’d been raped in. The house she’d been taken to, the one that Steele Bennett had tied her to a bed in, had long since been torn down. She had always wondered who had given that order. It was nearly ten when she turned off her light and hopefully her mind. She should have known that it wouldn’t work.
“Damn it all to hell.” It was nearly four when she’d had enough of tossing and turning. The room was closing in on her and the letter, still on the table, seemed to be screaming for her to come to it. If she heard it a dozen times, it was more than enough. “Read me,” the words echoing in her head made her stomp her way to the kitchen.
“And what am I supposed to do now?” She glared at the letter and at her friend, who now sat there near it. “It has nothing in it that I want to know. And I sure as hell do not want to meet a son that could be just like his father. I should have cut his heart out, had he had one.”