The edge of the land. The little car speeding forward.
“Christine, open the door!” someone screamed at her. “Open the door! Jump! Open the door and jump now!”
The front of the car tilted forward. She fumbled along the door panel until she found the knob. With sweating fingers she flipped it open and dived, hitting rough ground and rolling, rolling, until she smashed against a jutting rock. Just before she lost consciousness again, she heard her car splash into the deep, cold waters of the great Ohio River.
EPILOGUE
Two Months Later
A pale early-morning sun shone on the tender emerald grass of June. The mist of dawn had slowly receded, leaving the cemetery looking fresh-washed and gleaming.
Christine had discreetly stayed away from the funeral the day before, but today she’d felt compelled to come. Naturally Jeremy wanted to visit, too, but she’d been surprised when Michael had insisted on coming with them.
The results of the DNA test proving that the body retrieved from the river was Dara Prince had come back a week ago and the medical examiner’s office had finally released her for burial. No headstone marked her grave. That would come later. For now she rested beside her mother with only the large rose granite stone bearing the word PRINCE behind her. Baskets of flowers from the funeral covered the fresh grave.
“I still think she woulda been happier buried over on the island near the mound,” Jeremy commented.
“It’s against the law to bury someone on land not officially decreed a cemetery,” Michael told him. “But it’s really pretty here. And Dara is beside her mother.”
Jeremy carried a bouquet of white carnations and roses the same color as the one he’d carved of coral for the Dara Pin. “Why don’t you put your flowers at the head of the grave where her stone will be?” Christine suggested.
Jeremy laid down the bouquet and stood looking at the grave reverently. Finally he said, “Dara, I miss you lots. I’ll remember you forever and ever.”
Christine’s eyes filled with tears for the confused, unsettled girl who had finally found rest in this beautiful, peaceful cemetery awash in sunshine. Michael put his hand on her shoulder. She smiled shakily at him, happy both that her brother had finally been cleared of any suspicion concerning Dara’s fate, and for Dara, who’d had a chance at all the good things in life and lost them all because of her own childish heedlessness. Maybe if her mother, Eve, had lived, things would have been different, but now they would never know.
“I don’t think Ames Prince would have objected to you coming to the funeral,” Michael said. “After all, he did offer you your job back.”
“But there are still bad feelings between us, particularly since he learned I’m going to start my own jewelry store and that Rey and Ginger are coming with me.”
“And Jeremy, of course,” Michael said.
Jeremy beamed. “Christy said I get to name the store, even though I haven’t thought up anything good yet.”
“You will,” Michael assured him.
“I hope so.” He glanced around. “I’m goin’ over and look at the swans on the pond.”
Jeremy wandered over to the pond and began talking to the swans as they glided placidly on the still, clear water. “Well, it’s finally over,” Michael said. “Have the wounds begun to heal?”
Christine closed her eyes briefly. “I still can’t believe Sloane was capable of such destruction. I know he was a monster, but when I think of the childhood that made him that way, the childhood he was so ashamed of, I feel sorry for him in spite of everything he did.”
“Most people wouldn’t have, and he knew it. That’s why he shot himself rather than let himself be taken into custody and put on trial. He couldn’t face having that image he’d created of himself destroyed in a courtroom,” Michael said. “Every time I think that you almost married the guy, I cringe. God knows what he would have done to you.”
“Well, we know what he had in store for Jeremy. But I’ll never tell Jeremy that Sloane planned for years to kill him. And thank goodness, he doesn’t remember a lot about the abduction.”
“That’s because of the drugs. But he remembered to say your secret code word to let you know something was wrong.”
“Klingon,” Christine said with a small smile. “And he called me Christine, not Christy. I just wish I’d picked up on the clues before I went to the island.” She looked at him. “But just like in the movies, you showed up in the nick of time to save me.”
Michael grinned. “Thank God Lasky called me at home to tell me what was going on after Morris reported to headquarters that you’d gone tearing off to Crescent Creek to look for your brother. Lasky remembered I have a car small enough to cross that wreck of a bridge.”
“And you came over Lisa’s protests.”
Michael reached out and touched her hair. “Lisa and I were wrong from the start. I was taken by her looks. Smitten, if anyone still uses that word. We had nothing in common except our child. I know Lisa loved Stacy, but she couldn’t love anyone more than herself, and I could never really love anyone so self-involved, so irresponsible. I didn’t ask her to come back to me. I didn’t want her here.”
“But she might have changed since you were apart, Michael. She might have grown up, decided what was really important to her. You.”
He shook his head. “She was only here because her career was lagging in spite of her fabulous fabric softener commercial. She was bored and a little scared. But she wasn’t in love with me any more than I was in love with her. As soon as I saw her when she walked into my hospital room, I knew it was really over. I didn’t even want her sexually. Nothing happened between us those days she stayed at my house. I wish her well, but I’m glad she’s gone. Although we’ve been divorced for almost two years, I finally feel divorced.”
“I don’t know whether to feel happy for you or sad.”
“Happy, I hope.” Michael reached out and took her hand. He brought it up to his lips and delicately kissed the palm. “Happy that I’m free to start over.”
Christine felt as if her heart had stopped as she gazed into his dark brown eyes, eyes filled with tenderness. “Is that what you want? To start over?”
Jeremy walked up to them. “The swans didn’t have much to say. Hey, Deputy Michael, you’re kissing my sister!”
“Jeremy!” Christine said in embarrassment.
Michael laughed. “Hey, Jeremy, do you think you could design a really super engagement ring for me to give her?”
“Could I! Wow! Are you gonna marry Christy?” “I hope so. How about it, Christine? Are you ready to take a chance?”
“So soon? You’ve only known me a little over two months and you’ve never even said you love me.”
“I haven’t? Where’s my mind these days?” Michael laughed. “Christine Ireland, I love you madly. And as for the short time we’ve known each other, when it’s right, it’s right.”
“Yeah, Christy,” Jeremy blurted. “When it’s right, it’s right! He said he loves you. And you love him. I can tell. You love him like crazy!”
“Yes, I guess I do love him like crazy,” Christine said, smiling and blushing.
Michael pulled her into his strong arms, lifted her slightly off the ground, and whirled her around. “Then let’s throw caution to the wind and take a chance on loving each other like crazy for the rest of our lives.”
READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM
ALL FALL DOWN
BY CARLENE THOMPSON
COMING SOON FROM
ST. MARTIN’S PAPERBACKS!
She forced her eyes open. At first all she saw was a blur of stars against a sky black as death. Then a face loomed over hers. “Still awake?” it asked.
She was lying in a tangle of weeds. They brushed her face, tickling, irritating. She raised her head slightly. “Please . . .”
“Please what? Please leave you alone? I can’t. Not now.”
Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. Oh, God, was s
he having a dream? No. In dreams, her heart beat faster. Now it was slowing, beating in hard thuds growing farther and farther apart. The tears overflowed her eyes and ran across her temples into her thick black hair.
Suddenly she remembered when she was five years old and had sneaked out of her room one night to visit the house under construction next door. She hadn’t been interested in it until they told her the place was dangerous and she must never go there. Immediately it assumed an unconquerable allure. After creeping down the stairs while everyone watched television in the den and then scampering out the back door, nearly tripping over the untied shoelace on her Keds that peeped out from beneath her long nightgown, she had tiptoed around the building site, heady with her own daring, not admitting that she was a little disappointed by the unexciting conglomeration of boards and wheelbarrows and some big piece of machinery they’d used just that day to dig a hole Grandpa said would be a basement. She peered down into the huge hole, trying to picture it all stuffed with old furniture and books like the basement at her house. But it didn’t look like much. Besides, it wouldn’t look like her basement even when it was done—Grandpa had said the new people were going to make it a “rec room,” with Ping-Pong tables and “a lot of other foolishness” for their teenaged kids.
Bored almost immediately with her daring night journey, she decided to liven up the event by seeing how far out over the hole she could lean without getting dizzy. She took a step, tripped on the loose shoelace, and plunged forward into the freshly dug basement. Her surprised scream emerged as a thin squeak before she hit bottom, the air knocked out of her. As she lay on her back, her right leg agonizingly twisted under her, broken, her head swimming from a concussion, she had looked up at the stars—stars just like the ones she was seeing now—and cried because of the pain and because she was afraid no one would ever know how sorry she was that she’d done something bad, so bad God might make her die for it.
But she was seventeen now, and this time she knew she was dying. Grandpa wasn’t around to come looking for her in the next hour when they discovered her bed was empty. No one would come. No one could save her.
Panic washed over her. “Can’t do this,” she slurred to the face so near hers.
“I have to. I’m going to.”
She raised her head. She was having trouble breathing, although her emotions still raged. “Goddamn you! Hate you!” she spat.
“What happened to that sweet, soft-spoken girl we all know and love? Maybe you’re just showing your true colors, eh?” Pause. “Besides, I don’t care how you feel about me, so save the little breath you have left.”
She shuddered, her legs jerking convulsively. They weren’t bound, but she’d lost muscle control. They jerked once more, then settled limply on the cold ground. They no longer felt like part of her. She groaned before her head fell backward, hitting the ground with a soft thud.
“That’s better. You don’t want to fight me right up to the last minute, do you?”
She tried to speak. She tried to say, “Please don’t do this. I don’t deserve this.” But only “please” and “this” were intelligible around a tongue suddenly too big in her dry mouth.
A sigh came before the voice filled itself with businesslike concentration. “It’s getting late. We’d better get on with it now.”
Her right wrist was raised. The serrated edge of a kitchen knife gleamed in the moonlight. “I wish you were asleep for this, I really do. But you’re so damned stubborn. You won’t even go to sleep when you’re supposed to.”
For an instant it was all there—plans for college; high school football games viewed on crisp autumn nights; Grandma’s loving face; her adored cat, Taffy, who had vanished when she was seven; her new car; his warm hands moving over her lithe body; Aunt Joan’s beautiful violet eyes.
Then it all vanished into an almost surreal vision of the knife skimming across her skin. Her wrist opened. Warm blood gushed down her arms, steaming slightly in the chilled night air. Her throat worked, but all that emerged was a whimper. She tried one last time to raise herself up on one elbow, but the effort was too much. She collapsed helplessly into the creeping vines, her chest heaving as she fought for breath.
Despite her fading heartbeat, her mind still functioned, although with dreamy sluggishness. So Grandma had been right, she thought in dull surprise. Grandma always said evil in your soul would turn on you like a vicious animal. Her intent had been evil—she knew all along it was. It violated everything she’d been taught about the sanctity of life. But she wasn’t the only one whom evil would turn on—not the only one.
A hand clasped her left arm and raised it to meet the knife. In the resignation that comes from total despair, she stopped thinking and gazed up at the beautiful whirl of spinning stars. Then she closed her eyes.
If She Should Die Page 39
