Low Pressure

“Why, for godsake?”

“She dreaded having to tell her. Despite the time Bellamy has had to prepare herself, she’ll be grief-stricken.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, his shoulders slumping. Since receiving the news, he’d been busily attending to business matters, making travel arrangements, readjusting his schedule, packing mourning clothes.

Now the gravity of the situation seeped into him, and, along with it, profound weariness.

William came over to him. “What about you? What are you feeling?”

“I’m worried about Mother. She sounded as good as could be expected, but I’m sure she’s keeping up appearances and holding herself together, being the strong, stalwart widow of an important man.” He exhaled heavily. “But Howard was the center of her universe. Her life revolved around him. She’s lost the love of her life as well as the purpose for it.”

William acknowledged that the transition for her would be difficult. “Selfishly, however, I’m more concerned about your state of mind.”

“I’m not leveled by grief, if that’s what you mean. Whatever my relationship with Howard was or wasn’t, it’s too late now to change it, and in any case I wouldn’t. Couldn’t.”

He took a moment to sort through his shifting emotions. “I think he would have been more of a father to me if I had let him. When they married he embraced me as his son, adopted me, made it legal. And it wasn’t just for show or to please Mother. I believe he actually wanted to become my dad. But I couldn’t have that kind of relationship with him. I kept him at arm’s length.”

“Because you blamed him for Susan’s abuse.”

“By extension, I suppose,” Steven admitted. “Unfairly.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Steven looked at him sharply.

“Howard may have known what she was doing,” he said softly.

Steven adamantly shook his head. “He would have stopped it.”

“He would have had to acknowledge it first. For a man as principled, as devoted to family values as Howard was, accepting that his teenaged daughter was a conniving, malicious, unconscionable whore would have been out of the question. Rather than confront it, it’s possible that he denied it, even to himself, and looked the other way while she continued her reign of terror over you.”

It was only a theory, but upsetting nevertheless. Steven placed his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. “Jesus. I fool myself into believing I’m over it, but I’m not.”

“You should have had counseling.”

“I would have had to tell first. And I couldn’t tell.”

William sat down beside him and placed his hand on Steven’s bowed head. “Susan is dead.”

“I wish,” he said in a voice made raspy

by anguish. “But I wake up in the middle of the night, feeling her breath on my face.”

“I know. And the haunting has gotten worse since Low Pressure was published.” William clicked his tongue with irritation. “For the love of God, why did Bellamy ever start this insanity? Why won’t she stop?”

“Because she’s haunted, too. She wants an end to it just as I do, and her approach is to dig for answers to questions that were buried with Susan.” He raised his head and saw in William’s eyes a foreboding that matched his own. “Until she has them, I’m afraid she won’t stop digging.” He added in a whisper, “But I’m equally afraid she will.”

Ray figured he must be cursed or something.

Maybe some unknown enemy had a voodoo doll that looked like him, a thousand pins stuck in it. Maybe the stars that charted his fate were out of whack or had collapsed upon themselves.

It was certain that something was fucked up. Or else why couldn’t he catch a break?

Bellamy Price had been seconds away from walking straight into his well-laid ambush.

When a cell phone rang.

Ray had heard it from inside the closet. Even as his jaw dropped with disbelief over his rotten luck, he’d heard her running footsteps going back the way she’d come. He’d heard her say, “Don’t hang up!” as she raced down the stairs.

The phone stopped ringing. Breathlessly, she said, “I’m here, Olivia.”