by Anne Stuart
"Look, I've got a million things to do. I have to talk to... to my father's lawyer about his will. I'm executor, and I don't have the slightest idea what's in it. Probably bequests to all his boyfriends." There was a mocking note to his voice, but a light one, no longer condemning. "That'll keep me busy this morning, and I really need to talk to my mother. I've been so angry with her, for keeping his condition from me, that I haven't been able to give her any of the comfort she needs. You've done all that, and I'm grateful, but it's about time I faced up to things."
"She'd like that," Jessica said gently, still holding on to her knees.
His hands caught hers, prying them from their clinging grip and holding them, his long fingers kneading the rigid muscles. "And then we could go out for dinner. Some place quiet, and small, where we could talk. Would you do that for me?" That voice of his was seducing her all over again. With most of her New York defenses gone, she was helpless to resist him, and she found herself smiling dazedly up at him.
"Yes," she promised rashly, and meant it. "Yes."
It was a strange morning for her. For the first time in years, in decades, perhaps, Jessica allowed herself to hope. She was going to risk it tonight, she was going to open herself up to Springer MacDowell and see what happened. They needed to talk, he said, and he was right. If they could even begin to communicate as well with words as they did with their bodies, then there was more than a chance that they might... they might...
She didn't allow her fantasies to go any further. Half of her wanted to run away back to Vermont before her world could come crashing down around her, half of her wanted to push him away before he could reject her. But she stayed, keeping Elyssa company, talking with gentle fondness about Ham and his foibles, while they waited for Springer to return from the lawyer's office.
"Springer looked better this morning," Elyssa observed from her perch on the sofa. She herself looked a marvel of calm acceptance. But then, she'd had more than enough time to prepare herself for the inevitable—she'd spent the past six months grieving.
"You saw him before he went out?"
"He stopped in on his way downtown," Elyssa replied. "We talked for just a bit—I think he might find it possible to forgive me not telling him about Ham sooner. I wanted to, but it was terribly important to Ham not to play on Springer's guilt."
"And instead he added to it," Jessica said in a low voice.
Elyssa's fine dark eyes met hers for a pregnant moment. "I'm afraid he did." She sighed. "But I think Springer can handle it. He looked like holy hell this morning: bloodshot eyes, shaking hands, circles under his eyes. He looked like he'd been on a three-day drunk."
"And you think that was looking better?" Jessie questioned curiously.
"I do. Yesterday and the days before he had everything bottled up inside. Somehow he was able to release it last night, and once he starts to let it out he'll be able to deal with it. He always had trouble accepting the fact that he still loved Ham, despite everything."
"What was everything?"
Elyssa hesitated. "I suppose you may as well know. We never talked much about it, and perhaps that was wrong. Springer came home from school one day when he was fifteen and found his father on the couch with one of his friends."
"Oh, no." A sudden, horrifying flash of memory streaked through Jessica's mind like a bolt of lightning—a couch in a middle-class living room in Minnesota, rough, horrible hands pawing, pawing... "No," she said again, banishing the image.
"Yes. He knew about his friend. But he didn't know about his father."
"Did you?"
"Hamilton had always been completely honest with me. I was only seventeen when I married him, naive and very much in love. He told me about himself, and he tried very hard to change. But he simply couldn't, no matter how much he loved both me and Springer. I could accept that, Springer couldn't. But I couldn't accept how much he'd hurt Springer. I think subconsciously he knew Springer would come home that day and find them, had set it up on purpose. He just couldn't cope with living a lie anymore. But it couldn't have happened at a worse time for Springer, just when he was becoming a man."
"What happened?"
"Oh, I left Hamilton, of course. I really had no choice. In the sixties, arrangements such as Ham's and mine only worked if they were kept secret. And Springer was completely out of control. He had worshiped his father, you see, and he felt betrayed in the most elemental way." Elyssa leaned back, her eyes distant. "We tried sharing custody for a while, but that didn't work. At first Springer would refuse to go, and then every time he had to spend the weekend he'd bring a girl and make love to her on that damned sofa, making sure Ham would know what he was doing. I hated that sofa."
"You aren't sitting on it, are you?" Jessica couldn't help but ask, and Elyssa managed a wry smile.
"Thank goodness, no. I talked Ham into throwing it out years ago. I have no idea whether this one has seen any illicit sex, and I don't really care. Nor, do I think, does Springer anymore." She sighed. "Maybe now he'll finally learn to let go of the pain and grief his father caused him. If he can admit he loved him, even as he hated him, then there's hope for him. If he can't, I don't know if he'll ever be able to make any kind of commitment to anybody. And that's such a lonely, wasted life."
"Yes, it can be," Jessica said noncommittally.
Elyssa looked up sharply. "Did you love your father, Jessie? How did you deal with your parents' deaths?"
"Of course I loved my father," she said instinctively. "And I don't remember much about their deaths—it was so long ago."
"How long?" Elyssa persisted.
"Many years ago. I don't really want to talk about it, Elyssa. I've dealt with it, it's over."
"How long did it take you to come to terms with it?"
Jessica closed her eyes as the tension washed over her. Slowly she unclenched her hands, opening her blue eyes to meet Elyssa's troubled dark ones. "I'd say about thirty-two years," she said roughly.
Elyssa was very still. "I'm sorry, Jessie."
Jessica was proud of herself; she managed a shaky smile. "I'm sorry, too. Don't worry about Springer, Elyssa. He'll make it. He's tough, and he doesn't hide from things the way I do. He's going to be fine."
"So are you, you know," Elyssa said gently.
"I know," she said. She stretched, barely swallowing the exhausted yawn that convulsed her body. "I'm tired."
"You look it. You don't look as if you got any more sleep than Springer did." Elyssa watched with complete fascination as Jessica turned a deep crimson. "That's the curse of pale skin," she observed. "You blush so easily."
"I wasn't blushing, Lyss, I was just..."
Her words trailed off as they heard the slam of the front door. He didn't bother with the myriad of locks and double locks, didn't pause as he headed unerringly for the living room. Jessica sat motionless in her chair, watching him out of stricken eyes.
She had hoped he'd never look like that again. His eyes were black with rage, his face pale, his entire body vibrating in barely controlled fury. He threw down the blue-backed sheaves of paper that had to be Hamilton's will, ignoring his mother's shocked witness.
"Who the hell," he demanded thickly, "is Matthew Decker Hansen?"
Chapter Twenty-three
The Slaughterer, vol. 90: The Death of Rocco
Matt Decker surveyed the carnage around him. The great Rocco had finally been brought down in a spray of bullets from his trusty Lambretta. Decker had stitched a row of blood around the room, impartial in his justice-dealing. The two lovers were entwined in the corner, rigid in death, and Decker casually slipped the still smoking Lambretta into his sharkskin pants, flinching as the hot metal touched his skin. His job was done for the day. Rocco dead, the two lovers following him to the hell where Decker decided he belonged.
It felt good to have the job finished, he thought, picking his way over the corpse-littered Brasilia street. He wondered where he'd be called next.
Jessica could nev
er think back to that moment without a shudder of pure horror. She had sat there, motionless, dumb, staring up at Springer out of stricken eyes, unable to say a word.
It had been Elyssa who'd saved the situation, if sav-ing it was. "That's Jessie's son," she'd said calmly. "And I'd like to know what's put you in such a temper? Sit down and have some tea and tell us about the will. And how did you happen to hear about Matthew?"
Springer didn't move from his stance by the door, and Jessica couldn't bring herself to look anywhere but just beyond his left shoulder. "I came across Matthew in the will, of course," he snapped, "Who's his father?"
Still Jessica said nothing. Elyssa cast her a sympathetic look before answering for her. "Peter Kinsey, of course. Though what right do you have, cross-examining Jessie about her life?"
"Why didn't you marry him, then?" The words came out like Matt Decker's bullets, and Jessica flinched.
This was one Elyssa couldn't answer. "I didn't want to," Jessica said finally. "And he didn't want to marry me.
"Does he support his son?"
"None of your damned business." She did look at him then, anger banishing the last of her panic. "It doesn't have a thing to do with you."
"No? I was just curious why my father would leave the Vermont house and a trust fund of a hundred thousand dollars to Peter Kinsey's son when the Kinseys have more money than The Slaughterer ever brought in."
Jessica just looked at him, speechless with shock.
"I wouldn't be so sure— The Slaughterer has been very profitable," Elyssa murmured. "But how marvelous for you, Jessica. I'm so glad Hamilton did that. He mentioned he was going to do something, but I hadn't realized—
"Why the Vermont house?" Springer intruded.
"Because that's where Jessica and Matthew have been living during the past year. Surely you don't begrudge them the Vermont house—you haven't been back since you were in your early twenties."
"I had my reasons," Springer snapped, still staring at Jessica as if she were a slimy thing just crawled out from under a rock, she thought. "Would you leave us alone, Mother? I think Jessie and I need to talk."
Elyssa caught the small, imperceptible shake of Jessica's head. "I don't think so, darling. Jessie doesn't need to be subjected to your temper without some protection. Anything you have to say to her you can say in front of me."
He cast his mother an exasperated look before turning the full force of that black glare on the unflinching Jessica. "Are you sure it's Peter Kinsey's child?" he demanded harshly. "And not mine?"
Elyssa sucked in her breath sharply but said nothing, waiting for Jessica's reply. She took her time, opening her blue eyes wide, staring up at him in complete earnestness. "It's not your child, Springer," she said. "It's Peter's." And the wonder of it was, she had even managed to half-convince herself. Enough so that she could look at him quite fearlessly.
He stared at her for a long, searching moment. "All right," he said finally, the rage draining away from him, leaving only a cool, exhausted calm as he crossed the room and sank into a chair, as far away from Jessica as possible. "I believe you."
So easy, she thought distantly. And so quickly did everything come tumbling down. She was so caught up in trying to assimilate those two facts that she didn't hear what he said next.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I said I want you to sell me the Vermont house. You can name your price, as long as it's reasonably close to fair market value."
"I don't want to sell it. And if it's left to Matthew I don't know if I could, legally."
"You're his mother, aren't you? His parents have legal ownership in trust for him—they can do what they please." His attractive mouth curled in an unattractive sneer. "I don't fancy Peter Kinsey having half ownership of the Vermont house, even in trust for his son."
"Listen, Springer, Jessie's in no shape to argue about that, nor am I, for that matter. Your father's scarcely been dead twenty-four hours, and even if you don't give a damn, the two of us are having a difficult time adjusting." Elyssa's voice was low and very angry.
Slowly Springer turned to her, all that naked pain in his dark face terrible to look at. "I gave a damn," he said, and without another word he rose and left the room.
"Dear God in heaven," said Elyssa, stricken. "Why did I say that? How could I have thought that?"
Jessica moved then, putting a comforting arm around her slender shoulders. "He won't hold it against you, Lyss. He's hurting just as much as you are; maybe more. You'll both just have to give it time."
"I know." Elyssa sighed, leaning her silver head against Jessica. "Jessie, Matthew isn't Springer's, is he? You would tell him, wouldn't you?"
"Of course," Jessica said, meaning every word of it. "He'd have the right to know."
"But Peter's never said anything—"
"You didn't ask him, did you?" The slight edge of panic in her voice was indiscernible.
"Of course not. But we've talked about you several times, and he's mentioned how he and his wife hope to start a family right away. I'm just surprised he's never mentioned Matthew."
"It's part...part of our arrangement, Elyssa." She stumbled over the lie, part of her self-imposed fantasy shredding beneath the weight of her falsehoods. "Elyssa, I've got to go."
"Back to Vermont?" At Jessica's urgent nod she sighed. "I understand, darling. Springer hasn't been at his most charming, I'm afraid. I've been so glad to have you with me, but I realize you have to get back to Matthew. I'll miss you, though."
"You will be all right?"
"Of course. I've been dealing with this for a long time—it's nothing new or unexpected. It will take time. As soon as Springer calms down I'll let you know what's going on with the will."
"Are you certain you don't mind about the house?"
"Not a bit. I couldn't be happier. I just hope Springer can be more reasonable—you don't need any added unpleasantness. I'd forgotten how attached he was to thai old place." She shook her head. "And you've got a Slaughterer to finish, haven't you?"
"But-"
"Don't worry about it, darling—the public won't know whether it was completed before or after Ham's death. At some point we need to have a talk with Ham's publisher about the future. He's suggested The Slaughterer might continue anyway. But that would depend on you, I think. I wouldn't want Johnson to take it over." She gave a little shudder of dislike.
"We'll see. Why don't you come back with me, Elyssa? Vermont is so beautiful in July—no mud, no black flies, no snow. It would do you a world of good, and you could meet your godchild."
"Not yet, Jessica. But soon. Very soon."
"I'll hold you to it," she said firmly, ignoring her son's silky black hair and dark brown eyes that bore no resemblance at all to Peter Kinsey's blue-eyed, brown-haired charm.
"I'll be there."
Newark Airport was old and seedy and depressing, almost as bad as the Port Authority Bus Terminal, Jessica thought as she slumped back in the curved orange plastic chair. Having the plane be an hour and ten minutes late didn't help matters, nor did the sticky seat of the chair. Some enterprising munchkin must have spilled soda all over it. She could always stand, but there were too many shifty-eyed weirdos ready to accost her. Paranoia came back instantly the moment she left Vermont, she thought ruefully, and compounded with interest each day she was away.
There'd been no sign of Springer when she'd left the town house. She hated leaving Elyssa alone in the house so soon after Ham's death, but her sanity depended on it. One more dark, accusing look from Springer and her determination would sink. One more touch and she'd be lost. She had to get as far away from him, as fast as she could. She knew that full well. So why was it so damned hard?
Things would have been so much easier if it hadn't been for last night. Springer had been distant, removed, a perfect stranger, and Jessica could easily forget the slender, steellike strands that bound them. But he had touched her, and she had emerged from the dark steamy night changed in some imperce
ptible but life-shaking way. And there was nothing she could do about it but sit here and wait for her plane and mourn for what should have been.
"Where's Jessie?" Springer was standing in the hallway, dressed in a jacket that had seen better days, his overnight bag at his feet.
"You're leaving?" Elyssa's pale face crumpled in sudden vulnerability, and some of his anger faded. After all, he wasn't really angry at her, he reasoned. She couldn't help it if Ham had decreed he wasn't to be told about his condition, she couldn't help it if Jessie was a cold, lying, scheming bitch.
Moving across the hall, he put his arms around his mother's slender figure, holding her carefully, as if she might break. "I'm just flying out to get Katherine," he said gently. "I'll be back tomorrow morning at the latest. I've already called Maureen and told her to have her ready."
"Springer, are you sure?" Elyssa questioned against the warm comfort of his ancient tweed sport jacket. "There's nothing that would make me happier—it's been so long since I've seen her. But this isn't a happy time—"
"I think she should be at her grandfather's funeral," he said somberly, his tone of voice not leaving it open for discussion.
"If you really think so," she murmured. "I would dearly love to see her, you know that. Springer, you weren't angry about Matthew because Ham didn't provide for his own grandchild, were you?"
Slowly he detached himself, giving her a reassuring little squeeze. "Ham's provided very handsomely for Katherine, Mother. Everything in the will is as you expected, with the exception of Jessie's son." Why did it cause him so much trouble to say that? Why did he resent some poor, distant child with an almost white-hot hatred? He shook himself. "I left a copy of the will in your bedroom. You and Jessie can go over it tonight while I'm gone, and if you have any questions we can ask Dad's—" his voice cracked slightly "—lawyer about it."