But Dr. Benallie shook her head. “I didn’t do it. But I can’t say I wouldn’t shake the hand of whoever did. In this case, murder is only justice for an evil man.”
She looked at Rebecca and I found it difficult to understand the relationship between one woman who had loved Stephen and the other, who had hated him. Rebecca didn’t defend Stephen, at least not now.
“And now we’re all free,” Dr. Benallie said, walking out of the room.
“Some of us more than others,” Rebecca said, with a hint of bitterness I had never heard from her before. She sounded so much like Sarah in that moment.
I followed the two women into the hallway. Rebecca carefully closed and locked the door behind us. In silence, the three of us went down the stairs. Dr. Benallie left without another word. In a few minutes, I heard her driving away on the gravel road.
Chapter 20
I had just begun to wonder where Kenneth and Naomi were when the back door slammed and Sarah came in, looking wild and flushed. She smelled of paint. “Did you do it?” she shouted at Rebecca.
At first I thought she was accusing Rebecca of murdering Stephen.
“Do what?” Rebecca asked.
“My paintings,” Sarah rasped, then burst into tears.
“Something happened to your paintings? Sarah, I’m so sorry.” Rebecca’s whole body had changed, had become attuned to her sister’s distress. There could be no doubt that Rebecca loved her younger sister, even if the feeling was not entirely returned.
Sarah bit her lower lip. “It must have happened in the night. They were fine yesterday, but just now I went in and saw they’d been torn to shreds. Stephen must have done it himself before he died. Bastard,” she swore.
If Stephen had done it, was it punishment for some misdeed of Sarah’s? Could the paintings have something to do with Stephen’s death? Or was it a coincidence that the two events had happened on the same day?
“I don’t think Stephen would have done that,” said Rebecca. “He—”
“It’s exactly what he would have done and you know it!” Sarah declared, shaking her fist. “He knew exactly how much my paintings meant to me and how to hurt me through them.”
“How many were destroyed? Were they torn or—” I stopped myself from asking if they’d been cut with a knife.
I was trying to think of a timeline. Joanna had been here at the main house that night around midnight. She had seemed to go back to her own house, but she could have gone to the shed. And Joanna hadn’t prophesied about a dark shadow over Stephen only. Joanna’s prophecy about Sarah and black and red—was that supposed to be paint? Could Joanna have been the vandal? Sarah hadn’t leaped to the conclusion, though, so I kept quiet.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Sarah spat. “The only thing that matters now is getting out of here. I’m taking the paintings that he didn’t destroy with me. And Talitha, since I brought her here with me. She doesn’t belong to him, either—she belongs to me.”
Talitha, bright and sensitive girl that she was, with Sarah, the bitter, callous mother? I shuddered at the thought.
“Sarah, please,” said Rebecca, looking at me.
Did she think I could help?
It only turned Sarah’s attention to me. “Do you know that Stephen took each of the other children away from me, nearly from the moment of their birth? He gave them to Rebecca because he said I was unfit to be their mother. He said I was too emotional.”
I’d been so curious about this lifestyle and now I began to wish that I didn’t know any of this, that I’d never become involved at all. It was too horrible.
“It wasn’t like that. He wanted me to help you, to watch over you,” said Rebecca. She had one hand outstretched to her sister, but she had not moved close enough to touch her. She feared being rebuffed, clearly.
“He told me over and over again that I was a terrible mother. And maybe I was. Maybe I still am. So you can have them. All the others. I’m only taking Talitha,” Sarah said furiously.
I wanted to say something, to do something, to end this terrible quarrel, but I couldn’t help but think about the possibility of Sarah’s guilt. She hadn’t known about the paintings, but she could have killed Stephen for other reasons, couldn’t she?
“I’m going to have my own life at last. And you can’t stop me!” Sarah declared, then stormed off upstairs in the direction of Talitha’s room.
Rebecca gave me a pleading look before she also disappeared upstairs, and I was left standing alone in the living room, my mind turning, unsure of any next step I should take.
Eventually I heard raised voices, including Naomi’s. Kenneth came downstairs. “Mom, do you know what’s going on? Talitha’s distraught. Her mother says she is taking her away. Naomi is refusing to let her go. She told Sarah she would take Talitha over her dead body.”
“There was an argument between Sarah and Rebecca,” I summed up for Kenneth.