Eye of the Storm - By Hannah Alexander Page 0,53

Her voice rose in outrage.

“Of course not, Lynley. You’re really losing control.”

Lynley’s eyes widened. She raised her hand and drew back.

Megan winced even as she watched the tears form in her friend’s eyes and the hand draw away. She might as well have followed through with the slap. Megan felt as if the world was cracking apart, as if the sisterhood she’d always shared with Lynley was the jealous, harsh, ugly kind of sibling rivalry and had carried into adulthood.

Megan knew better, yet she felt her own emotions subverting her logic.

How could Lynley talk to her like this? Yes, she most likely had a sociopath for a father, but her mother had overcompensated to make up for that, had at times smothered Lynley with her desire to protect and encourage. And if some of that tendency had encompassed Megan, who’d needed that warmth so badly, why did Lynley feel as if she, alone, should have received every drop? Wasn’t the abundant love of her own flesh-and-blood mother enough for her?

“I’m sorry.” Megan fought her own anger at the battle she saw taking place in Lynley’s eyes. “Sorry I ever visited you, ate at your family’s table, helped your mother clean the kitchen, do the dishes. I’m so sorry that while you sat in your room and read and talked on the phone to your other friends—all your other friends—that I stayed and helped your mother with chores you didn’t want to do. So we had a friendship. So what? Couldn’t you even allow me that?”

Lynley turned away. “I never wanted a sister. I wanted a father. Did it ever occur to you that my father went out at night because he didn’t like company around all the time?”

Megan bit her lip. Lynley’s bitterness was so contagious. “You know what? Kirstie needs us. If you want to have a slap fight, I’ll be glad to schedule a time for it later, but right now start thinking about someone besides yourself.”

“Stop it.” The voice, deep and trembling, came from Kirstie, as if forced through deep water.

Megan and Lynley turned to her. Lynley grasped her mother’s hands. “Mom?”

TWELVE

For a moment, Kirstie couldn’t move. It was as if she had to fight her way from beneath a hot tub of sand. She could almost convince herself the argument that dragged her back to reality was part of the blackout, but she knew better. Why were her girls fighting?

She blinked up at Megan and Lynley, surrounded by darkness, and then as suddenly, as if she had never gone to that other place of terror and darkness, she saw their faces clearly in the glow of the flashlight. She’d been thrust into the role of referee. How long had it been since she’d had to do that? Since they were eight?

“What are you girls fighting about?”

“Mom, where did you go?” Lynley asked. “Why were you so—”

Kirstie clasped Lynley’s hands and squeezed gently, kissed her daughter’s fingertips as she had when Megan and Lynley were little, and patted her face. “Sweetheart, nothing for you to worry about.”

“But Megan knows.”

“How can she? I don’t even know.”

Lynley pulled away from Kirstie’s touch. “That’s all I needed to hear.” She shot a look at Megan that was a few degrees colder than outer space, then pivoted away and strode down the dark hillside, her slender shoulders stiff.

Perhaps she meant for Megan and Kirstie to follow, but she would have to cool off on her own this time. “I’ve spoiled her, I’m afraid.”

Megan helped Kirstie sit back on the ground, then joined her. Immediately, they were surrounded by cats. “I don’t think that’s it. Let’s wait for Gerard. He can carry you down and save your pretty feet.”

“Thank you, my dear.” Kirstie patted Megan’s arm. “And thank the Lord I’ve at least got clothes on this time. I don’t think poor Elmer Batschelet will ever recover from that one night…” She sighed. This whole thing was so humiliating. “Anyway, my feet are killing me, and it seems my wounded child is feeling the pain.”

“She knows we’re keeping something from her.”

“I’m sure she does. In time I’ll tell her all about it, but not yet. If she knew I suspected poison it would no longer be a secret. She’d go off half-cocked, ready to shoot the first suspect—meaning her father—no questions asked. You know how she is. I’m just sorry it’s causing a rift between the two of you.”

“We’ve had plenty of rifts.”

“This one’s different, though, isn’t it?”

For a moment there was