A Killing Kind of Love: A Dark, Standalone Romantic Suspense (9 page)

If Sebastian knew, he’d be livid, she thought, taking a glass from the lower cupboard. Not that she was going to tell him. It would only upset things. Delores had her deceptions, and Gina had hers. So what? For now the days went by well enough.

She cleared the top step and opened the door to her mother’s room. As usual, the door was ajar, allowing Delores to hear what was going on in the house.

The older woman was sitting in her wheelchair listening to Brahms. She gave Gina the barest of glances. “About bloody time,” she said, as Gina set the bottle down on the walnut table beside her chair. The table was littered with pill bottles, soft-drink cans, papers and pens, and an overflowing ashtray that dribbled ash and cigarette butts onto the coffee-stained doily it sat on. The room smelled of stale cigarettes, soiled laundry, and gardenia, the scent Delores sprayed on herself liberally and often.

Gina poured her mother a shot of brandy, without thanks, and looked around the large bedroom, then up at the cobwebs festooning the high corners, hanging from the antler chandelier in the ceiling. It must be getting close to the time when Delores would demand that Gina come and clean up, which she would do while her mother railed at her for ignoring her, for letting her live in a pigsty. She also knew that until Delores did issue the instruction, she wasn’t to touch anything or she’d be screamed at for “poking her skinny nose” in where it wasn’t wanted.

Thinking about Delores, her irrational demands, Gina worked to suppress the rage and confusion that threatened her life here. The grayness inside her deepened and her breathing turned choppy. Unbidden, ugly thoughts rose from the murky pool that had become her mind—monster thoughts that terrified her with their urgings and gravelly voices.

“What are you doing down there, anyway?” Delores asked, taking a good swig of the brandy.

“Nothing.” She gestured at the filthy ashtray. “Can I?”

Delores frowned, then gave a curt nod. Gina picked up the ashtray, walked to the chrome trash can in the bathroom, and emptied it. She didn’t risk washing it, because she didn’t want to push her luck. What she wanted to do was get out of this room, go to bed, and sink into a mind-deadening sleep.

“Nobody does ‘nothing.’ Not even your crippled mother. So, I’ll ask you again. What the hell are you doing down there?”

Dear God, the woman wanted to talk.
“Dishes, reading the newspaper,” Gina lied, not about to tell her mother she’d been sitting on the back porch, staring at the lake, thinking about Holly’s death, imagining her slide into 2,000 degrees of crematory heat, seeing her skin bubbling and peeling, lifting off to float like dust motes in the oven, tossed and buffeted by boiling air and licking flames.

Holly would be ugly, her flesh heat-warped and black, before she sank, finally and forever, into the anonymity of the flame, nothing but ash and bone fragments. Her urn would be beautiful, of course. Paul would have nothing but the best for Holly. Probably gold and jewel-encrusted, garish even. She’d nearly smiled at the thought, knowing how little that would mean to Holly, but the smile felt more like pain feeding on envy. Holly always had the best.

Holly always had Adam.

“The Grantman girl’s service was today, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” She headed for the door. Trust Delores to pick up her thoughts. Camryn did that, too. It was like they were tuned in on some special frequency. It scared her, angered her. No one should be allowed in someone else’s head, especially hers. Especially now.

“Sit, for God’s sake. I could use the company . . . such as it is.” Delores turned off the stereo, and the messy room sank into old-house silence.

Gina sat, her hands limply in her lap, and waited for her mother to speak.

“Paul Grantman still with that brainless slut he married a few years ago? What’s her name?”

“Erin. And, yes, they’re still together.”

Delores shook her head. “Never would have thought it. What’s she? Twenty-five, thirty years younger than him?”

“Something like that.”

Delores went silent then, and Gina hoped she wasn’t remembering her own short-lived affair with Paul. It had cost him his second wife and created a delicious scandal that everyone in her school heard about. Not only did Delores become an institutionalized joke for the remainder of high school, Holly didn’t speak to her for a year—as if it were her fault. As a mother-embarrassing-her-teenage-daughter event, it had no peer. Back then she’d thought Holly a friend, cared what she thought.

“That man always was an easy mark. A gold-digger’s wet dream.” Delores shook her head again. “I slept with him a couple of times . . . I ever tell you that?”

“Yes.” She stood. The list of men Delores
didn’t
sleep with would be more interesting—and much shorter. “Is there anything else I can get you? I’m tired. I think I’ll go to my room, read for a while.” She picked up the bottle of brandy.

“Leave it.” Delores wrapped her fingers around Gina’s wrist, to stop her hand. One of her long nails scraped the underside of her wrist.

“Fine.”
Let her drink herself to death—who cares.
She released her hold on the bottle, but Delores didn’t let go.

“You in hurry?” she said. “You don’t want to talk to your dear old mother? The mother you put in a wheelchair?”

Anger curled low in Gina’s belly. “I did not put you in that wheelchair. I saved your life. Franco would have killed you.”

“Bullshit!”

“I aimed at . . . his thigh. You know that.” She pulled her wrist from her mother’s grasp, massaged it.

“You’re a liar, Gina. You wanted to pay me back. You wanted to get even. I know you’ve never forgiven me. And that night? I saw your eyes when you pointed that gun. It was the same look you had when you walked in on me and your precious Adam. You aimed that gun at me. You wanted me dead, daughter dearest.”

“What happened that night between you and Franco had nothing to do with Adam.” Her neck stiffened, and her head started to ache. She refused to think about Delores and Adam. She’d put that away. Hadn’t she? Her vision blurred.

“Yeah, right.” Delores scoffed. “As if every night of your life hasn’t been about that scummy bastard in one way or another since the day you met him. Miracle he didn’t knock you up.” She stopped, seemed to look past Gina. “He was a hot lay, though, I grant you that.” Her eyes came back to Gina. “But me and him? Nothing but a test run. A couple of times. That was it. Did you ever think that maybe I did it for you—to prove what a greedy low-life he really was.”

Gina stood over her mother. She would not talk about Adam, not with Delores. Never with Delores. It would be like having her bones removed without anesthetic. “You’re welcome to your opinion,” she said, sounding as stiff as a gun stock.

“That I am.” Her mother settled back in her chair, glass in one hand, brandy bottle in the other, her expression smug. “And my opinion is my loving daughter wanted revenge because I had sex with her boyfriend, and decided to get it by putting a bullet in me.”

Gina fisted her hands. “Get this straight, once and for all—for both our sakes, because we can’t go on living with this . . . elephant in the room. Read my lips. That night had nothing to do with Adam. You and Franco were drunk. He was hitting you over and over—with a closed fist. He would have beaten you to death.”

Delores lifted her glass and took a drink. “As if I couldn’t have handled him. Instead you arrive at the door like some kind of back-country militia reject. Jesus, girl, do you think I’m a fool? You think I don’t know you saw an opportunity for revenge—and took it?”

“I aimed for his leg,” Gina repeated, defending the indefensible. “But you stepped in front of him, threw your arms around him . . .” She stopped, bile rising at the thought of that night, when her life, already in a miserable place, sank to a lower one. “It was an accident. You either start believing that or I can’t go on living here.” Her stomach churned at the thought of moving. Where would she go? What would she do? She had no job, no money, no energy . . .

The room went quiet. Delores drained her brandy glass in one swallow and set it on the messy table beside her. “I loved Franco, you know,” she said. “Maybe he was too young for me. Maybe he did only want my money, but he made me feel good again. Like I was a real woman—not just an
old
woman.”

“Don’t—”

“The way he looked at me, touched me . . . He set me on fire. I felt alive.” She raised her eyes to Gina’s, and for the first time in a year, there was softness in them. “It’s hell, Gina, to think I’m never going to feel those things again—that no one cares. I might as well be dead.”

The moment bound them, deepened the silence in the room and the cold stillness in the reaches of Gina’s heart. She knew this loss, felt the emptiness of it, and the terrifying certainty that she, like her mother, would never feel truly alive again.

Delores poured herself another glass of brandy, took a drink. “Now get out of here, will you? Go back to the kitchen or wherever the hell you were, and leave me alone.” She shifted her chair, showed Gina her back. “Or better yet, get yourself laid. It’ll take that pinched look away from your mouth.” She shot her a cold look from over her shoulder. “It’s what I’d do—if my daughter hadn’t turned me into a cripple. Hey, here’s a better idea.” She narrowed her eyes, watched Gina closely. “Why not call that Adam character, ask him to come by and make us both happy? Hell, I’ll bet he’d do it—if the price was right. Just like you’ll stay here and look after me for as long as it suits me.” She paused. “You shouldn’t have missed, sweetheart, because it’s going to take a lifetime for you to make up for this.” She gripped the handrails on her wheelchair, shook them violently, and glared at Gina.

Gina, her hands shaking, her mind red-hot with rage, ran from the room. She went back to the porch, sat staring at the lake, barely blinking, until the night was dark enough to take a long walk along the lakeshore. She walked until the night grew blacker, the trees denser, her mind heavier, collapsing under the weight of her anger and resentment, her murderous thoughts.

Her life was hell, hopeless.

Delores deserved to die.

And it would be so easy . . .

The moon disappeared behind a cloud, leaving the path ink-black and treacherous. She stumbled, scraped her knee on a stone, and then sat cold-eyed in the middle of the path, her bitterness acid-sharp in her dry mouth, her heart a stone in her chest.

When the pale moon reappeared, Gina looked up at it, stared herself into an eerie calm. “She was right, you know. I did aim the gun at her. I hadn’t planned to. I . . . just did.” She blinked, then added, “But I was afraid.”

By the time she got back to the house, her cut knee was bleeding steadily, and slender streams of blood trickled down the front of her leg.

Gina didn’t like blood. It made her remember that day— the day she’d lost Adam’s baby. The blood had coursed down her thighs, thick and dark. Unstoppable. She’d called Adam in terror, expecting him to be upset. Expecting him to care.

Instead she found silence, then, “I have to be honest, Gina, in a way it’s kind of a relief,” he’d said. “Better for you and better for me. I’ve been meaning to call you.” He’d hesitated, but barely, adding, “Holly and I have hooked up again, and we’ve made some plans, and the truth is you having my kid right now would be damned awkward for both of us. But I’m sorry, babe. Really.”

Sorry, babe. Sorry babe. Sorry, babe . . .

She covered her ears with her palms, pressed hard. It was the last time she’d heard his voice.

She’d given him all her money, and when her own cash ran out, she’d stolen from the firm’s trust account. If the senior partners hadn’t quietly covered the loss to avoid publicity, she’d be in prison. She’d given him her body in a hundred different ways—and, oh God, how she’d hungered for his. She’d carried his child. Lost his child . . . alone.

Sorry, babe. Sorry babe. Sorry, babe . . .

She closed her eyes, never wanted to open them again, not on a world without Adam. He was a fever in her blood, and he’d taken everything. He’d taken her
goddamn life!
Used her until she was dark and empty.

And now Delores was going to use her, because she’d been too stupid to properly aim a gun.

She touched her gashed knee, raised a bloodied finger to her mouth and licked it; she savored the saltiness of it, tasted the death in it.

She licked some more, smeared it over her lips, and looked out at the vaporous, ghostly moon, vowing never, never to be stupid again.

Camryn looked up to see Dan Lambert standing in the hall outside Holly’s bedroom door.

Damn it, he must have heard her crying, or laughing, depending on what memory of Holly came to mind. She brushed at her damp cheeks, oddly embarrassed, as if she’d been caught playing in her mother’s jewel box.

“You’re not here to talk about what Sebastian said, are you?” She hoped her expression told him that if that were his plan, he’d be wasting his time. “Sebastian was upset. We all are.” She lifted her chin. “Besides, there’s nothing I can tell you.”

“And very little I can’t find out for myself. But, no, I’m not here to talk about your friend. I’ll wait on that.” He stepped into the open doorway and gestured with his chin to the two dolls that Camryn, who sat cross-legged in the middle of Holly’s old room, held in her hands. “That’s what she wanted you to have?”

“Yes.” Camryn, relieved at not having to deal with Sebastian’s strange and grossly ill-timed outburst, turned back to memory lane—a more comfortable place than the one Sebastian had created with his insane accusations. The idea of Holly and Adam together again, after everything that had happened between them, was inconceivable. Just as the thought that Sebastian’s obsession with Holly had him following her to Boston was nothing short of tragic.

She gave a little rub to her chest, wondering at its tightness.

“Dolls?” His words were low, his gaze curious. He stood tall and still, his hands in his pockets, his head cocked.

“Not just any dolls. Barbie dolls.”

“I bought Kylie one of those, but hers has the legs off.” The smile he gave her was brief, but it warmed his austere face. She guessed austere made sense, given he’d just buried his wife, then had to withstand—as she had—the tedious gathering in Paul and Erin’s living room immediately after the service. Not to mention Sebastian’s rant.