Low Pressure (19 page)

“Howard . . .?”

“No, no, that’s not why we’re here,” she said, quickly alleviating his concern. “His prognosis isn’t good, but he’s still with us.”

“He’s defied the odds by living this long.”

“He doesn’t want to leave Olivia,” she said, and Steven nodded solemnly in agreement. She motioned toward Dent. “You remember Denton Carter.”

“Of course.”

With apparent reluctance on both parts, the two men shook hands. “Swanky place,” Dent said.

“Thank you.”

Bellamy tugged on Steven’s sleeve. “Can you sit with us for a while?”

He glanced over his shoulder as though searching for a valid reason to excuse himself, or perhaps for rescue, but when he came back around, he said, “I can spare a few minutes.”

He slid into the booth next to Bellamy and across from Dent, placed his clasped hands on the table, and divided a look between them. “Let me guess. You’re here because of today’s column in that gossip rag. I thought—hoped—we were old news by now.”

“I’d hoped so, too,” she said. Steven had gone straight to the heart of the matter, no chitchat, no catching up, which saddened her immeasurably, but she had to address his consternation. “I tried to hide behind the pen name, Steven. I wanted to remain anonymous and never wanted anyone to know that the book was based on Susan’s murder.”

“For days after you were exposed, I had to dodge the press. Van Durbin sent a stringer here to interview me. I refused, of course. Things calmed down when you returned to Texas. Then this morning . . .”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Well,” he said, smoothing out his frown, “all that aside, I congratulate you on your success. I’m happy for you on that score. Truly.”

“You just wish I hadn’t become successful at your expense.”

“I won’t deny it, Bellamy. I’d rather not have been a character in your story or had our connection revealed.”

She looked out over the busy dining room. “It doesn’t seem to have hurt your business.”

“No, I must say that hasn’t suffered.”

“Your success is to be congratulated, too. Three restaurants now, and all of them sweethearts of every food critic.”

“It’s a good partnership. William manages the kitchen and bar. I handle the business and service training.”

“A division of labor that’s working well.” Bellamy smiled at William as he approached the booth with a tray of drinks.

He set a glass of tea in front of each of them. “I can bring you something else if you’d like. Bloody Mary? Wine? An appetizer?”

“This is fine, thank you,” Bellamy replied. “Thank you also for loaning us Steven for a while.”

“You’re welcome.”

He placed his hand on Steven’s shoulder and spoke directly to him. “If you need anything, I’ll be at the bar.” He gave the shoulder a squeeze before moving away.

Steven watched Bellamy watch William as he withdrew and made his way back to the bar. When her enlightened gaze came back to him, he said, “Yes, in answer to the question you’re either too polite or too offended to ask. William and I are more than business partners.”

“How long have you been together?”

“Last New Year’s Eve we celebrated our tenth anniversary.”

“Ten
years
?” She was incredulous. “I’m not offended by anything except being excluded from knowing. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What would it matter?”

His harshness wounded her deeply. Had all the times they’d laughed and talked together, all the times he’d taken her side against Susan’s and vice versa—had all those shared experiences meant nothing to him?

When she was on the brink of flunking an algebra exam, it was Steven who’d convinced her that the test wouldn’t define the rest of her life, but then had coached her to a passing grade. It was he who had insisted that her braces were barely noticeable and that her pimples would eventually go away. Whenever her self-esteem was at a low ebb, he’d forecasted that one day she would be beautiful and that her future would be bright. Brighter even than Susan’s.

She had considered him more brother than stepbrother, and she had thought he felt the same about her. Yet he had shut her out of his life effectively and entirely. She had been dispensable to him, and realizing that was acutely painful.

“
You
mattered, Steven,” she said, her voice husky with emotion. “You, your life, your loves mattered to me.”

He looked somewhat chastened. “Try to understand. When I left Austin, I had to abandon everything. That was the only way I could survive. I had to make a life for myself that was free of that one. If I’d taken any aspect of it with me, even you, I would have stayed shackled to it all. I had to make a clean break. No attachments. Except for Mother, and I keep her at a distance that’s safe to my well-being.”

“That’s why you made an excuse anytime I tried to get together with you in New York.”

“You were a reminder of the worst years of my life. You still are.”

“And you’re still a shit.”

Steven looked sharply at Dent, who’d spoken for the first time since their lukewarm handshake.

“You were a sniveling, selfish kid, and so far I’ve seen no improvement.”

“Dent!” Bellamy exclaimed in a whisper.

But he wasn’t finished. “She went to a lot of trouble to come here. You could at least
pretend
to be glad to see her.”

When she was about to speak again, Steven held up his hand. “It’s okay, Bellamy. He’s right. I am a shit. It’s a survival tactic. Not meant to hurt you.” He smiled ruefully as he reached out and stroked her smooth cheek, and, as though reading her thoughts of several moments earlier, murmured, “Just as I predicted. The duckling has turned into a swan.”

Then he lowered his hand, and the glimmer of affection she’d seen in his eyes flickered out. “It took time, therapy, and diligence, but I reinvented myself. I was content with the life I’d made. But now your book and the ballyhoo it’s created has brought back everything I ran from. Once again, I’m that skinny, frightened kid being grilled by the police.”

“Dale Moody?” she asked.

“Big guy. Barrel chest. Gravelly voice. He questioned me several times. The interrogations didn’t come to anything, but being a suspect, even for a short time, scarred me for life.”

“Dent said as much.”

Steven looked over at him, taking him in fully. “Pardon my curiosity. There was no love lost between you and our family, but here you are in Atlanta with Bellamy. Why?”

Bellamy spoke before he could. “I chartered a flight with Dent in the hope of mending fences.”

“It didn’t work. In fact, Mother was terribly upset over seeing him.”

“Yes, I know.”

“So why is he here with you now?”

After a lengthy hesitation, she said, “Someone has been menacing me for weeks. I need to know who and why.”

She recapped for Steven everything that had happened and ended by saying, “I haven’t told Olivia or Daddy. Please don’t mention it, because they don’t need another worry. But we—Dent and I—don’t think the acts of vandalism done to my house and his airplane were random or coincidental. Whoever committed them is somehow connected to that Memorial Day.”

He frowned skeptically. “That’s an awfully broad leap, isn’t it?”

“Dent and I have nothing else in common.”

Steven gave each of them a long look. “I’m connected to that day. Did you come to accuse me of painting a threat on your bedroom wall?”

“Of course not.” She reached for his hand. “I’m hoping you’ll share some of your recollections and impressions of that day.”

“To what end? You’ve already written the book on it.”

Dent snickered at the wry remark. She didn’t acknowledge it. She had decided that, for the time being, she would tell no one else about her lost frames of time. But it was important that Steven fill in some of the gaps. “Will you answer a few questions?”

He looked annoyed. “What purpose will be served by talking about it?”

“Humor me. Please.”

He considered it for a moment, then gave her a brusque nod.

She wasted no time. “Shortly before the tornado, you left the pavilion and went down to the boathouse.”

Another curt nod.

“Why? Why were you going to the boathouse?”

“For beer.”

“Beer? You hated beer. You told me that you had tried it at a party and hated the taste.”

He shrugged. “I wanted to give it another try. Word had got around that some guys had smuggled beer to the boathouse. I went to check it out, but no one was there. Only a bunch of cans. I was on my way back to the pavilion when somebody spotted the funnel and everybody started screaming. I was nearer the boathouse, so I ran back and took cover there.”

She nodded absently. “When I came after you—”

“When you came after me?”

“To warn you of the approaching storm.”

“You did?”

His reaction mystified her. “Why does that surprise you? It was in the book. If you read it—”

“I did. But I thought you were only capsulizing for narrative clarity.”

“That’s not the way you remember it?”

“After I left the pavilion, I didn’t see you again until you were rescued from the wreckage of the boathouse.”

“You didn’t see me there earlier?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea how you got there.”

Bellamy glanced over at Dent. He was looking at her, his eyebrow eloquently arched. Turning back to Steven, she said, “After the tornado, you managed to get out from under the debris.”

“It was sheer luck that I wasn’t crushed by the collapsing walls. But that section of the boathouse fell outward instead of in. I was scratched up and dazed, but nothing serious. I managed to wiggle my way out of the rubble and wandered back toward the pavilion. Howard and Mom practically smothered me with hugs. But of course they were frantic to find Susan and you.”

Steven’s recollections of the storm’s aftermath coincided with Dent’s, so Bellamy didn’t linger on them. “Why did Detective Moody question you?”

“Because of the sexual overtones of the crime. He interrogated every man past puberty, especially those close to her. The boyfriend,” he said, tipping his head toward Dent. “I was her stepbrother, but that didn’t exclude me. Even Howard was questioned.”

Bellamy was stunned. “Daddy was questioned? You can’t be serious.”

“I’m sure that Mother and Howard protected you from knowing about it because of the disturbing implication.”

“It’s not disturbing, it’s disgusting.”

Steven looked down and traced the white tablecloth’s weave pattern with the tip of his finger. “Moody wasn’t so far off base.”

His softly spoken words had the effect of falling bricks. Bellamy was shocked dumb. Dent said nothing, either, but placed his elbow on the table and cupped his mouth and chin with his hand. Steven must have felt the pressure of his solemn stare, because when he gave up his study of the tablecloth, it was Dent he addressed.

“I don’t need to tell you what she was like, do I? You know firsthand that Susan was sexually supercharged. Which must have been great for you. But for her younger stepbrother who was grappling with his sexual identity, she was a nightmare with a malicious streak.”

Bellamy swallowed with difficulty and said gruffly, “Are you telling us that you and Susan . . .”

“No,” he said with a firm shake of his head. “Never the grand finale. But not for her lack of trying. As it was, she got off by torturing me.”

“Doing what?”

“Are you sure you want to hear this, Bellamy? It’s ugly.”

“I think I have to hear it.”

“All right.” He took a breath. “Susan made a practice of sneaking into my room at night. Two, three times a week. Sometimes more often.”

“When did it start?”

“On Mother and Howard’s wedding day.”

Bellamy gasped in disbelief.

“She would lie down beside me, rub up against me, talk dirty, describe to me all the things we could be doing if only I wasn’t so afraid of getting caught. She would take off her clothes and dare me to touch her.”

He snorted a sound of self-deprecation. “God knows, sometimes I wanted to, because I was struggling with the realization that I was gay. At that point in my life, I was desperate to disprove it. But, in truth, the harder she tried to lure me, the more repulsed I became.”

“Did she know you were gay?”

“Maybe. Probably. Which would have made the torment even more delightful to her. It got to where I couldn’t stand the sight or smell of her and made no secret of it. She only became more aggressive and daring.

“Once, she got into the shower with me and told me that Mother was just across the hall. She said that if I made a sound, and Mother caught us, she would tell her and Howard that I was forcing her to go down on me every night. I knew that she could cry on demand and was capable of convincing them of anything.”

He looked hard at Bellamy. “I’m sorry to be the one to destroy your delusions of our perfect family, but perhaps it’s time you knew the truth about our dearly departed sister.”

“You should have told me.”

“So you could have put it in your book, made it more salacious?”

She flinched as though he’d slapped her. “I don’t deserve that, Steven.”

He seemed to agree, because he exhaled deeply. “I’m sorry. Uncalled for.”

“Why didn’t you tell me at the time? I would have stood by you during the fallout.”

“I didn’t want there to be any fallout. I didn’t want anyone to know, but especially not you. You were so different from her. Innocent. Sweet. The peacemaker. And you were my pal. I was afraid that would change if you knew about me and Susan.”

“It wouldn’t have.”

“Maybe,” he said, still doubtful. “But in any case, I was ashamed.”

“You weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“There were times when my body responded to her in spite of myself, when I couldn’t control getting an erection. I didn’t desire her in the least, but I was an adolescent boy with raging hormones and no other outlet for them. She’d touch me, and I would explode, and she would mock my humiliation. Actually,” he added thoughtfully, “I’m surprised that she never gloated to you about what was going on. She was jealous of you. Did you know that?”