by Nancy Bush
She’d rarely tried to stop him. Dissociation. The feeling of floating away. She dreamed of being an actress. Someone else. Anyone other than the pathetic shell she was. She’d told Hayley her dreams and Hayley’s expression had changed. She felt it, too.
And that’s when Denise knew. He’d been after her, too.
Hayley. Little sister. Still unformed and defenseless. Where the hell was Dinah? Dinah the good. Tough, determined, smart, and relentless.
“Don’t worry,” she’d told Hayley. “Dinah will kill him for us.”
But that night, with Thomas rutting away like the sorry pig he was, Denise thought of Hayley under his stretched belly, Hayley getting slapped and hit, Hayley feeling the rough possession of his ugly cock.
For a moment she’d lost her mind entirely and reached up and clawed at his eyes. “I’m pregnant!” She’d screamed out the truth. “I’m pregnant! And it’s yours!”
And the bastard started hitting her abdomen, great smashing punches she struggled to avoid. She screamed and felt the rock beneath her hand.
She remembered the first hit.
More time passing. And then Dinah, picking her up, soothing her, assuring her she’d take care of everything. It came pouring out then. All the abuse. All the pain. All the degradation.
“Not anymore,” Dinah assured her. “Never, never again.”
And blood everywhere. On her hands. Splattered all over her. Trickling from her mouth. And then, days later, down between her legs as Thomas Daniels’s cruel method of abortion proved effective. Worse than with Lambert Wallace . . . At least it felt that way.
Now Denise huddled into a ball, her arms around her knees, rocking softly, remembering. So this was what Stoner wanted her to feel? All this horrible, numbing pain. Well, she felt it all right. And she wasn’t totally convinced it was better for her than the years of self-deception.
Except there was no more sleepwalking. No more lost periods. Now it was just nerve-deadening depression and loony forays into the mountains at the stroke of midnight.
She half smiled to herself. But this wasn’t the result of any mental disease. This was escape.
Blackness yawned over the edge of the ledge. She recalled worrying the ground would give way when she and Jimmy attempted their rudimentary lovemaking here. She walked to the very brink, squinting in the darkness. The clearing was right down there. That’s where it happened. That’s where he killed her baby and she smashed in his brains.
She’d done it. Oh, yes. She’d done it.
“I’m glad,” she said aloud.
The Sadim Touch. She’d always possessed it. It was over now, and all too late.
Closing her eyes, she felt the emptiness of space all around her. She shouldn’t have run away from Stone. She shouldn’t have lied and said she’d wait for him to take her to the airport. She should have let him come.
But then he’d be here to stop you.
“I love you, Stoner,” she whispered into the wind. She really did. She loved him.
Suddenly, she remembered the music. Rihanna’s Umbrella. Which was funny as the day was clear and cold with a whistling wind that snatched at Rihanna’s voice. But the volume was cranked up high and Rihanna sang with glorious gusto.
And Thomas was there. Chasing her to the clearing, throwing her on the ground.
But there was someone else there, too.
Denise’s lips parted in shock, tiny lights flickering inside her brain, bright and elusive. There was someone else!
Mud slipped beneath her shoe. Her foot slid, snagged on Oregon grape, slid some more. Denise waved her arms, seeking balance. A silent cry filled her throat. Dirt gave way, dropping in chunks.
Who? Who?
And suddenly she saw her. So clearly, it was as if she stood in front of her. In wonder, Denise stared, agape.
It’s you!
Her foot slid. She grabbed with her toes but all at once there was nothing. Nothing beneath. Clutching at air, she screamed, “Stoner!”
In slow motion, she toppled over the ledge headfirst and into the dark, dark void of space.
The scream lifted the hairs on the back of Matt’s neck. Abruptly, he turned and ran, tripped over a wet, mossy log, fell into pine needles and scratchy, clawing field grass. His heart deafened him. He was in the clearing by the culvert.
“Shit!” he blubbered out.
He lay still, scared to move.
It’s the wind, moron! Scaredy-cat stupid-shit. Just the wind.
Cautiously, he lifted his head, lips quivering. Hating his own cowardice, he climbed to his feet. The sound had come from the west.
Bent low and moving like a guerrilla, Matt worked his way to the mud pit below the outcropping ledge. Damn, he needed a gun! Some kind of serious protection. Old man Daniels mighta been chock-full of Satan’s malice, but somebody’d bashed in his head pretty good.
Matt stopped short. His heart jumped and skittered.
A woman lay in the mud, her leg twisted behind her at an angle it shouldn’t be.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, more prayer than profanity.
Out of the corner of his eye—movement. He glanced back. Somebody there. In the bushes. Somebody watching.
She came out then, waddling. Her huge bulk grotesque in the black gloom. Dimly, Matt realized she was hurrying. Hurrying to the woman in the mud.
Candy-Dandy, the sheriff had called her, and here she was, right in front of him.
“You did-did it,” he stuttered through numb lips.
She looked straight at him. “Had to. He woulda killed her. He killed her baby.”
Her monotone voice scared a tickle up his spine. His teeth chattered. But this was no time to be a pussy-whipped baby. Screaming out his whoop-whoop-whoop, he rushed forward to help the lady in the mud, Candy Dandy on his heels.
Chapter Twenty
Now . . .
Primping in front of the mirror, Dinah smiled wryly at her new appreciation of cosmetics. Being in front of the cameras had forced her to change. A little. And tonight, being as special as it was, she’d even done something extra. She’d plugged in a hot curler and put some lift to her hair.
Of course, everyone else at the premiere would be decked out red carpet-style, but she, Dinah Scott, had fixed her own hair and bought her silvery silk gown off the rack.
“I love L.A.,” she murmured dryly.
Picking up the bottle of cologne, she noticed the brand and hesitated. Chanel No. 5. Her sister’s.
She was, in fact, in her sister’s bedroom at the Malibu house.
Except it was her house now.
Bobo stretched against the aquamarine and pink coverlet across Denise’s bed. Extending his claws, he opened his mouth and yawned, curling his tongue and revealing vicious teeth. Unable to resist, Dinah set down the cologne and scooped up the luxuriating feline, hugging him close. Bobo purred like a motor, used to these sudden death squeezes, Dinah’s overwhelming need for reassurance.
Back at the dresser, Dinah grabbed up the bottle of Chanel No. 5 again. The bedroom door opened and John leaned against the jamb, looking fabulous in a black tux. “When are you going to move all that into our bedroom?” He indicated the perfume and various makeup paraphernalia littering Denise’s dresser.
“It’s not mine. I promise I’ll buy my own.” She grinned. “Never thought I’d need the stuff, but tonight’s BIG.”
He grimaced. “I hate this shit.”
“It would be worse if you’d taken Rodney Walburn’s job at Titan.”
“Never.” He gave a mock shudder.
“They’re still after you,” she said, referring to Titan’s board of directors.
“Why don’t we run off to Vegas and get married?” he diverted.
Dinah laughed, but her amusement faded when her eyes zeroed in on the slim gold band he held between his thumb and forefinger. He’d asked her about her choice for a ring, and she’d told him she wanted something plain. “You’re serious?”
He slid her a look, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “I’d do about anything to get out of going to a premiere.”
“Hah.” They were planning a wedding. Marriage was foremost on both their minds, but there were a few items left to clear up. “We have to go,” she reminded. “For Hayley. And for Denise.”
John nodded, sobering. “Then let’s get a move on, my love. The sooner we’re done, the sooner we can get to new business.”
“Monkey business.” She spritzed the cologne and grabbed a silk Indian shawl she’d fashioned from a sari.
“Marriage business. You and me and some greedy Vegas marriage-maker at the Love-And-Roses Drive-Through Chapel.”
“You’re such a romantic.” Dinah grinned, sliding her arms around his lean waist.
John kissed her slowly. “I love you,” he said.
“I love you.”
They smiled at each other.
“So much for small talk.” He took her arm and led her down the gallery. “To Blackbird and the vulture paparazzi.”
“As long as they don’t ask me about Denise’s fall again.”
“You should never have left the motel to go find her,” John couldn’t help saying for about the billionth time.
“I had a premonition,” she rejoined, just like she always did, and then she shuddered, remembering the sound of Matt Logan’s wild cry—just like she always did.
She’d been at the edge of the field. She’d taken the rental car, frightened deep in her soul. John had been right behind her, however, having jogged the three miles from the motel after discovering her missing. He’d suspected where she’d gone and followed. They’d both heard Matt Logan’s loud whoop.
And then they’d found Denise, unconscious, her leg twisted at an ungodly angle. Matt stood by, wide-eyed. And Candy just stared.
“Get an ambulance,” John barked at Matt, who ran as if his feet had wings.
And then Hayley appeared, walking to the scene as if in a dream.
After that, pandemonium. Flashing lights and crowds of people and Denise carted away on a collapsible gurney. Candy had calmly confessed to Connor, but it was such a cut-and-dried case of self-defense, Dinah didn’t see how, like in Denise’s case with Lambert Wallace, she could ever be convicted.
Still, a rage burned inside her at all the years of torment—torment Candy Daniels Whorton could have saved them all from. But in truth, Candy didn’t seem to get it. Her serene passivity was unnerving, to say the least. She kept saying, “He had to die,” as if that explained everything, and maybe it did.
But in the end, it hadn’t helped Denise.
Now she cuddled close within John’s protective arms. “I love you,” he said again, this time a bit more emotively.
Dinah swallowed and closed her eyes, holding the moment.
Her dress was the palest peach floor-length dress with exquisite beading. Hayley brushed her hair down straight, examined her brows, decided this was as good as it was going to get, strode into the living room of Connor’s apartment, and struck a pose. “Tada!”
He was seated on the sofa wearing a white shirt without a tie, black pants, and a glower.
He’d never looked more handsome.
“If you give me grief about going tonight, I will make your life a living hell.”
“Too bad your buddy, Walburn, can’t be there. I would have loved to introduce him to ‘The Watcher.’”
“Threats.” Hayley smiled but it hurt. There were no secrets between them anymore, though sometimes, the way he looked at her made her wonder if he truly trusted her. He hadn’t forgiven her for sneaking out the night of Denise’s fall.
But time would heal that. She’d learned that much about trust. She trusted him wholeheartedly, and he was coming around to feeling the same way.
They’d even actually managed to make love a few times—more and more frequently, in fact, as she’d let the walls of resistance come crumbling down. At first she’d been so scared. She’d cried out when he’d simply brushed her flesh with his fingers.
But now . . . now . . .
Well, hell, earlier this afternoon she’d had the courage to don her tan suede vest, black vinyl skirt, and thigh-high boots.
“Wanna take a trip around the world?” she’d propositioned, and Connor had thrown her on the bed and tickled her until she was gasping for breath and shrieking for mercy.
Then he’d touched and caressed and kissed, and she’d slid into a warm pool of ecstasy, which made her feel humble with gratitude that she’d ever found this man, ever deserved this happiness.
But he wanted her to move to Bend with him. Sure, she could still have her career, if she wanted it, but he was going to be a hick, country lawman.
Well, why not? She’d played a dual role most of her life. She could do it for real. She would do it for real, for Connor.
“You know, I’ve often thought of visiting Rod’s grave and checking out the headstone,” she reflected, tugging on Connor’s hand, dragging him to his feet. “Think the F-word’s chiseled prominently on there somewhere?”
Connor wrapped his arms around her. “I can think of a better way to spend the evening,” he murmured into her hair.
“Nope!” She tugged on his hand. “We’re going right now!”
He resisted, his gaze thoughtful, and she knew he was thinking about Candy again. He’d interviewed and interrogated and spent hundreds of all-nighters trying to wring more out of Candy than merely “He had to die.” He wanted answers. Something more.
So while Candy was at home, released on bail and awaiting trial, Connor Jackley stewed about her story and wished for some kind of closure that didn’t exist.
“I’m just glad she finally came out with the truth,” Hayley said now, managing to drag him to his feet. “And Denise corroborated that she was there. What more could you want?”
“I feel sorry for Candy, that’s all.”
“You would have preferred it was Jimmy Fargo. I’m just glad it wasn’t one of us.”
“Me, too,” Connor agreed heartily. Then a sly grin stole over his face and he attempted to lead her to the bedroom.
“Later,” she promised with a smile of her own. “Come on, or we’ll be late.”
Limping slightly, Denise sucked in her gut and examined the white satin gown in the cheval mirror of her new Bel-Air home. The rock on her left finger was too enormous to be real, but it was. Denise Scott Callahan Stoner. Nice moniker. Jeezus. Life was good.
Of course, she was a gimp. Her left leg a twisted ruin. After all the abuse she’d taken, this, then, was the injury that had basically ended her career.
“So much for playing sexy young sirens,” she muttered aloud, examining the indented lines of surgery that circled her knee and cut across her shin.
But she was lucky to be alive, to quote a cliché. Thanks to that screaming kid and Dinah’s telepathy and Stoner’s miraculous appearance at that Podunk hospital.
She’d awakened to learn she’d gone facedown in muck three feet thick. It had nearly suffocated her, but hey, it had also saved her life, and apart from her shattered leg and a minor head injury, she was relatively unscathed.
But the press had been everywhere. Wagon Wheel, Oregon was on the map and the Wheel Treat You Right Motel was now a national landmark of travel “must stays.”
The story came out in a deluge. Denise was in the news again; only this time she was Wagon Wheel’s tragic heroine while her stepsister, Candy, was cast as the villain/victim. A great story. Truth stranger than fiction. But most of the attention was focused on Denise, and yes, she could admit it, a part of her had reveled in it.
In the middle of the craziness, Jimmy Fargo had managed to wheedle his way past the barrage of nurses and doctors to bring her a single rose. The slimy creep. Did he seriously expect her to forgive and forget and jump back eight years to high school?
She hadn’t seen anything of Candy. The poor girl had been grilled mercilessly by Connor Jackley and had become, f
rom all accounts, a broken record. Denise had been left to fill in the details, which were sketchy at best, thank you very much.
She’d told them it was Candy who’d bludgeoned Daniels, and she’d remembered that Candy had asked to walk home with her that fateful day. She could now recall the wild music and the enveloping fear for her baby.
The rest was still kind of a twilight blur, but who really cared? She’d remembered the most important parts while she’d been recovering in the hospital. It had all been so overwhelming. When she thought of the medical staff, and press, and just everything coming down on her, it really ticked her off.
But she’d had a savior. A shrink in-shining armor. Dr. Hayden Stone had appeared in Wagon Wheel and rescued her from the worst of the trauma.
Denise grinned. Thank God for Stoner. Her husband. Her lover.
Of course, the gossip-mongers had clucked their tongues that Denise Scott’s psychiatrist was now her husband, but that story was only a dead end, side alley to the main street headline: STEPSISTER MURDERS FATHER TO SAVE DENISE SCOTT CALLAHAN STONE!
Soon to be a Lifetime Movie. Ha!
Luckily, she’d been able to finish Blackbird. They’d even fashioned her accident into the script, a beating from an overzealous pimp. It added another dimension to the story and made great promotion copy as well. One of those yarns to reveal on talk shows; the studio hungered for her to keep the publicity machine humming.
Throwing open her antique wardrobe—a companion to her walk-in closet—her series of canes beckoned her. Should she take the handcrafted mallard head, a gift from an adoring fan? Or go really tacky and bring along the solid, rhinestone-studded monstrosity Dinah and John had commissioned for her?
Dinah and John . . . Denise shook her head in wonder, but hey—things happen. It was strange that she felt so little about their union, she supposed. She had been jealous, but then she had been a sicko. Past tense, if you please.
Well.
Snatching up the rhinestone cane, she studied her appearance. Her hair had been artfully designed by Ola, her newest hairdresser. Ola never cracked a smile, spoke in grunts, wore prison gray, and looked like an English bulldog, but she didn’t bug Denise and she could do hair. Boy, could she do hair. Tiny rhinestones winked out of layers of pinned tresses, a windblown effect that had taken three hours to achieve.
