Lexi was Robbie's therapy - Lexi and his beloved piano. Whenever he felt the smooth, cool ivory beneath his fingers, Robbie was transported to another time and place. Every other sense shut down and he became one with the instrument, body and soul. At those times he knew his mother was with him. He just knew it.
"Robert, darling, don't lurk. Come in."
The forced cheeriness in Peter's voice made Barney Hunt wince. He turned and saw his young godson hovering in the doorway.
"Uncle Barney's here. Come and say hello."
Robbie smiled nervously.
"Hi, Uncle Barney."
He never used to be nervous, thought Barney. Who's he afraid of? His dad?
Standing up, he clapped Robbie on the back.
"Hey, sport. How you doing?"
"Good."
Liar.
"Your dad and I were just talking about you. We were wondering how things were going at school."
Robbie looked surprised. "School?"
"Yeah, you know. Have the other kids been giving you a hard time? About the stuff in the newspapers?"
"No, not at all. School's great. I love it there."
He likes school because it's an escape from this place. An escape from grief.
"Did you want to ask me something, Robert?"
Peter's tone was tense, his speech clipped. He'd remained seated behind the desk since his son came in, rigid-backed, his whole body clenched, like a prisoner on his way to the firing squad. He wished Robbie would go away.
Peter Templeton loved his son. He was aware that he was failing him. But every time he looked at the boy, he felt overcome by a wave of anger so violent he could hardly breathe. Suddenly the bond that Robbie and Alexandra had shared in life, the love between mother and son that had once been Peter's greatest delight, left him consumed with jealous rage. It was as if Robbie had stolen those hours from him, those countless, loving moments with Alex. Now she was gone forever. And Peter wanted those moments back.
He knew it was crazy. None of this was Robbie's fault. But still the fury corroded his chest like battery acid. The irony was that Peter felt nothing but love for Lexi, the baby who had "caused" Alex's death. In his grief-addled mind, Lexi was a victim, like himself. She had never even known her mother, poor darling. But Robert? Robert was a thief. He had stolen Alexandra from Peter. Peter couldn't forgive him for that.
Even now, Peter sometimes overheard the boy talking to her.
Mommy, are you there? Mommy, it's me.
Robbie would sit at the piano, a beatific smile on his face, and Peter knew that Alex was with him, comforting him, loving him, holding him. But when Peter woke in the night, screaming Alex's name, there was nothing. Nothing but the blackness and silence of the grave.
"No, Dad." Robert's voice was barely a whisper. "I didn't want to ask anything. I...I was going to play the piano. But I can come back another time."
At the mention of the word piano, a nerve in Peter's jaw began to twitch. He'd been idly tapping a pencil on the desk. Now he gripped it so hard it snapped in his hand.
Barney Hunt frowned. "You okay?"
"I'm fine."
But Peter wasn't fine. His hand was bleeding. One by one, slow, heavy drips of blood splashed onto the polished wood of the desk.
Barney smiled reassuringly at his godson. "We won't be long. Five minutes and then I'll come and find you. We can play some catch, how's that sound?"
"Good."
Another shy smile and Robbie was gone, slipping out of the room as silently as he had arrived.
Barney took a deep breath.
"You know, Peter, the kid needs you. He's grieving, too. He - "
Peter raised his hand. "We've been through this, Barney. Robert's all right. If you want to worry about something, worry about these damn newspaper reporters. They're the damn problem, okay?"
Barney Hunt shook his head.
He felt for Robert, he really did. But there was nothing more he could do.
Eve Blackwell closed her eyes and tried to fantasize about something that would bring her to orgasm.
"Is that good, baby? Do you like that?"
Keith Webster, her husband, was drenched in sweat, pounding away at her from behind like an overexcited terrier. He'd insisted on regularly "making love," as he put it, throughout Eve's pregnancy. Now that her time was fast approaching, her belly was so vastly swollen that doggy-style sex was the only option. A small mercy for Eve, who was no longer forced to look at Keith's weak, weaselly face twisted into a mask of sexual ecstasy every time he made love to her.
If you could call it making love. Keith's dick was so small, it registered only as a mild irritant. Rather like having a badly behaved child seated behind you in a movie theater who won't stop kicking the back of your seat.
Eve faked a moan.
"That's wonderful, darling! I'm almost there!"
And suddenly she was, her mind lost in a delicious, slow-moving slide show of images from the past:
Herself as a thirteen-year-old, seducing her married English teacher, Mr. Parkinson. When she'd cried rape, she'd destroyed the pathetic little man's life. But he'd deserved it. They all did.
Fucking her way through the military academy that adjoined her and Alexandra's finishing school in Switzerland. How intoxicating sex had been back then, back when men used to throw themselves at her feet!
Stabbing George Mellis in the heart and dumping his body in the sea at Dark Harbor. Just thinking about the look of surprise on George's face as the blade tore through his flesh could sometimes bring Eve to climax.
The world knew George Mellis as Alexandra Blackwell's first husband - a footnote in the great Blackwell family history. In reality, he'd been a sadistic playboy and pathological liar who had once raped and sodomized Eve, a crime for which he ultimately paid with his life.
Of course, Alex never knew the truth about George Mellis. She never knew he was in league with her evil twin sister; never knew that Eve and George had remained lovers throughout Alex's brief marriage to him; never knew that the pair of them had intended to murder her and steal her inheritance, or that Eve had been forced to murder George instead when their plans went awry.
Alex never knew the truth. But Eve knew. Eve knew everything.
Not that Eve had minded killing George. In fact, it had been a pleasure.
Keith Webster increased the pace of his thrusts, shaking with excitement as his delicate surgeon's hands reached around for his wife's enormous, pregnancy-swollen breasts.
"Oh Christ, Eve, I love you! I'm coming, baby, I'm coming!"
He let out a sound that was half groan, half whimper. Eve pictured George Mellis at the moment of his death, then mentally substituted Keith's face for George's. She orgasmed instantly.
Keith slid off her back like a toad slipping down a wet rock. He lay back against the pillow, his eyes closed in postcoital contentment. "That was incredible. Are you okay, honey? Is the baby okay?"
Eve stroked her belly lovingly. "The baby's fine, darling. You mustn't worry."
Keith Webster had been neurotic about his wife's pregnancy from the start, but Alexandra's death a few weeks ago had heightened his anxiety tenfold. It was common knowledge that Eve and Alexandra's own mother, Marianne, had died giving birth to them. Now the same fate had befallen Alex. It was easy to imagine that Eve might be next. That some unseen genetic fault lurked in the shadows, waiting to snatch his beloved from him.
Keith Webster had loved Eve Blackwell from the moment he set eyes on her. It was true that shortly after their marriage, he had deliberately mutilated her face. Playing on Eve's innate vanity, he had persuaded her to let him perform a minor operation to erase the laughter lines around her eyes. Then, once he had her under anesthetic and utterly at his mercy, he had proceeded to destroy her beautiful features one by one.