She went to the back of the house. No matter what, she didn’t want to be seen in this neighborhood, especially not at this house.
When she reached the back, the girl popped out of the shadows.
Of course, Noreen had seen her before—and been disgusted by her. She dressed above her class, above her age. Now her thick makeup was smeared.
Noreen couldn’t conceal the sneer on her face.
“Oh, Mrs. Stewart, I knew you’d come. I knew Allie would tell you. I promise that I’ll make a good daughter-in-law. I’ve studied everything, from drinking tea to how to dress to how to run a household. All of it. And I’m going to get a job as a newscaster. That’s respectable, isn’t it? I’ve done so much to prove that I’m worthy of being a Stewart.”
Noreen’s sneer reached epic proportions. One side of her upper lip almost disappeared into her nostril. “You stupid girl. You are a Stewart.”
She shoved past her to go into the house, but Cheryl grabbed her arm. “What do you mean?”
Noreen jerked her arm away. She could see her husband in the girl. Her eyes had gone from begging to that stubbornness she so despised in him. Unlike Alastair, she couldn’t always make Hamish obey her—and she was looking at the result of that. “Your father is Hamish Stewart.”
“You’re a liar.” Cheryl’s voice was calm and steely. “My father died before I was born.”
“I wish that were true.” Noreen took a step forward but the girl blocked her.
“I won’t listen to your lies.” The girl lifted her arm as though she meant to slap the older woman.
Years and years of rage that had smoldered inside Noreen came to the surface. Her upper body was strong from a lifetime of sports. She drew back her arm and hit the girl hard on the side of the head.
Cheryl fell backward, her head hitting a sharp corner of the concrete steps. She landed in the exact place where a few hours earlier she’d sat with young Jack Wyatt and received his birthday gifts.
As Noreen looked at the unmoving body of the girl, the blood already flowing across the step, her instincts told her that the girl was dead.
Part of her mind said she should do something, call someone. But the larger part felt some deep, primal satisfaction. She’d been married off at a young age to a man with half her intelligence, a man who just wanted to laugh and drink and help out his friends. A true waste of a human being. She had been the one to run their lives and their income. He’d repaid her with an affair that had produced...this.
She glared at the girl on the steps. So very much blood was coming out of her and was now running down to a lower step.
Noreen knew no one had seen her arrive. She could leave and no one would know. The girl slipped. She—
An eerie, high-pitched scream made Noreen look up. Verna Morris practically tumbled down the steps to her daughter and lifted her limp body.
“She fell,” Noreen whispered.
“You shoved her. You hit her,” Verna yelled.
“I did no such thing.” Noreen’s mind was beginning to function again.
“Call an ambulance,” Verna ordered, her body cradling her daughter as she tried to find the spot where the blood was coming from.
Noreen went into the house as though to make the call, but she didn’t. Think! she ordered herself. How to handle this?
She went back outside. “They’ll be here in minutes.”
Verna was rocking her daughter and making a low keening sound. “She is my life. All of it. I want nothing else but my daughter.” Her voice became a whisper. “I can’t live without her. I don’t want to live without her.”
She gave Noreen a look of calculation. “I’ll see that you’re put in jail.” Carefully, Verna put her daughter on the steps and stood up. “I’ll tell the world that your worthless son impregnated his half sister.” She was advancing on Noreen. “You think you did a good job of spreading your lying gossip about me, telling people that I’m a whore, but wait until you see what I do to you. The Stewart name will be a laughingstock for the whole town. I’ll—”
Noreen knew she didn’t have much to be proud of, but the honor of her name was foremost. There was a flowerpot nearby that contained a dying plant. On the side was a plastic handle. She grabbed it and out came a weeding tool: long, thin, with a two-pronged end.
Without thinking what she was doing, she stabbed Verna in the stomach, then pulled out the blade.
With her hands over the wound, Verna staggered back to her daughter’s body. Blood was coming out between her fingers. “I will recover from this, and I will tell the world your secrets. Hamish loved me, not you. I’ll tell people what he said when we were in bed together. He wondered if the man you truly loved, your father-in-law, was Alastair’s father. He said—”
Noreen wrapped her hands around the woman’s neck and began to squeeze. Years of hatred, of being given a life she’d never wanted, were in her hands. Muscles she’d developed at tennis clenched around Verna’s thin throat. Noreen heard the gagging sounds and they pleased her. How much pain this woman had caused her! She’d dared to return to a town that was owned by the family Noreen had been sold into.