Melanie grinned. Taking one more step, she gripped the muzzle with her left hand and pressed it to her chest. 'Go ahead, sister. Try again.'
'Mel… for godsake!'
Glancing past Melanie's shoulder, she saw Bodie on his hands and knees, trying to get up.
The barrel flew upward, thrust high by Melanie. In disbelief, Pen saw her sister duck beneath it and drive the knife at her chest. She lurched sideways. A hot streak burned across the skin under her left breast. She rammed out with an elbow. It caught Melanie in the armpit, knocking her out of the way. But she still held the shotgun. She wrenched it from Pen and hurled it to the floor.
Pen shoved herself off the wall. She tried to dodge past Melanie, hoping to regain the gun, but Melanie rushed ahead to block her way. And slashed. Pen dropped back as the blade whipped across her belly. It snagged and ripped her loose sweatshirt, but missed her skin. Whirling around, she ran for the bedroom door.
Melanie's feet pounded the carpet close behind her. They stayed behind her as she raced along the corridor.
'You've had it!' Melanie yelled. 'You've had it!'
At the top of the stairs, Pen grabbed the newel post and swung herself around it.
She was three steps down when she was hit. She cried out, more in alarm than pain, as the blade went in. The impact threw her forward. Her feet left the stairs and she flew headlong toward the bottom.
Bodie staggered across the bedroom, each step wracking him with pain as if pliers were squeezing his testicles. He bent over, groaning, and picked up the shotgun. His ears still rang from the blast.
Lurching through the doorway, he swung to the left. The corridor was empty. He heard footsteps on the stairs, but saw no one. The wall blocked his view for a few yards. Then it ended, and he threw himself against the railing of the balcony over the living room.
Melanie, knife raised overhead like a madwoman, was charging down the stairs. Pen was at the bottom, scrambling away on her knees and one hand. Her right forearm, bent at an odd angle, looked broken. The back of her sweatshirt had a slick oval of blood.
'Mel!' Bodie yelled.
She didn't stop. She was halfway down the stairs.
Pen, now on her feet, stumbled toward the foyer, her broken arm flapping.
Bodie jacked a shell into the shotgun chamber.
Melanie, hearing the noise, looked over her shoulder.
'Stop!' he cried out.
He peered down the sighting ramp. The bead at the muzzle's end wavered back and forth across Melanie's neck. He noticed her choker. A memory flashed through his mind of the time in bed when she was naked except for one of those chokers and he started to take it off and she clutched her ears to hold her head on.
His finger eased its pressure on the trigger.
'Just stay put!' he ordered. 'Don't move! Drop the knife!'
Her head turned away.
Bodie shifted his eyes to the right. Pen was at the front door, pulling it open.
Melanie looked back at him, then at the door again.
'Don't!' he shouted.
She raced down the stairs.
Bodie tracked her with the shotgun, knowing that a hit would probably kill her, hating to kill her, wondering if Pen had enough headstart, then swinging the muzzle well ahead of Melanie and firing. The shotgun leapt and kicked his shoulder as the blast slapped his eardrums. The front door, left ajar by Pen, crashed shut as the pellets punched through its bottom.
He ran for the stairway, grimacing each time a foot landed and sent a new shockwave of pain from his testicles.
Melanie reached the front door at the same moment as he started down the stairs.
Running had hurt, but pounding his way down the steps was glaring white agony.
Melanie threw open the door and dashed out.
Bodie worked the pump-action. The spent shell tumbled away.
He leaped down the final three stairs, crying out as his feet struck the floor and pain exploded through his body. He hobbled across the foyer and out the front door.
Melanie, her white blouse a pale bobbing target, was halfway across the dark yard. The dim, running shape of Pen was not far ahead of her.
When Pen reached the closed gate, Melanie would get her.
No question.
'Stop!' Bodie shrieked, shouldering the gun.
What if some of the pellets go past her and get Pen?
He aimed at the center of Melanie's back. His finger tightened on the trigger.
Pen was one stride from the gate.
The gate crashed open, smashing her, hurling her aside.
A man charged into the yard, hunched over as if he had just thrown a body-block against the gate. He straightened up abruptly as Melanie, not changing course to fall upon Pen, flew at him.
Harrison.
Harrison had raped Pen.
Bodie held fire.
The man put out both hands to stop Melanie. He yelled, 'Hey!' Then she hit him, driving the knife into his chest as the force of her impact carried him backward to the walkway. Melanie dropped on top of him.
Even from the porch, Bodie heard the thunk of his head striking the concrete.
He ran toward the sprawled shapes.
Harrison, on the bottom, didn't move.
Melanie, on top of him, moved a lot.
Her arm did.
Punching the knife into his body, yanking it out, stabbing him again and again until Bodie stopped her with a quick stroke of the shotgun butt.
He dragged the shotgun beside him as he staggered over to Pen. Letting it fall to the grass, he knelt down next to her. She lay on her back, panting, clutching the wound beneath her breast.
'How bad are you?'
As if it didn't matter, she shook her head. 'What happened?' she gasped.
'Mel… I think she killed Harrison. I knocked her out.'
Groaning, Pen struggled to sit up. Bodie pressed her shoulders gently to the ground. 'I think your arm's broken.'
'Tell me about it.'
'Just rest. I'll call the police.'
'No. Help me up.'
'Pen…'
'Please.'
He pulled her by the shoulders. When she was sitting, she hooked her left arm around his neck. He clutched her sides, just beneath the armpits, and lifted her. She was very heavy at first, then weightless as her legs took over. 'Okay,' she muttered. Bodie held onto her arm, but found that she needed no support as she led him back to the motionless bodies. 'Would you get her off him?'
Crouching, Bodie pulled gently at Melanie until she rolled away from Harrison. As one of her hands flopped to the ground, she moaned. Her eyes stayed shut.
Pen sank to her knees beside Harrison and stared at him.
Bodie, stepping around Melanie, squatted near his head. The man's eyes were closed, his mouth hanging open. The knife hilt protruded from his chest.
Pen put a hand to his throat.
'She must've stabbed him five or six times,' Bodie said.
'I can't find a pulse.'
'I could've stopped her. I was ready to shoot her, but when she went for him instead of you… The man raped you. And he ran down your father.'
'Where's his gun?' Pen asked.
'I didn't see one.'
Leaning over the body, Pen pulled a revolver from the pocket of his jacket. 'I figured he had to have it. I don't know if this'll help much, but…' She swung the revolver toward the front of the house and fired twice.
Straddling the body, she put the gun into Harrison 's hand and slipped his forefinger through the trigger guard. She pressed his fingertip against the trigger. With the bottom edge of her sweatshirt, she wiped her prints off the rest of the gun.
'What about Joyce?' Bodie asked.
'I don't know.'
'There's no way to make that look like self-defense.'
'If we could get rid of the body…'
Bodie heard a siren, its distant alarm blaring through the night. 'Too late for anything like that,' he said.
>
Melanie, sprawled on the grass beside her victim, looked as if she were sleeping.
'Can you think of a story?' Bodie asked Pen.
'Nothing to cover all this. The truth, I guess. It'll have to do.'
'Except for the revolver.'
The siren swelled to a high scream.
Pen stood up.
Bodie, rising, put a hand low on her back. Together, they stepped through the open gate. Pen leaned her head against his shoulder. 'I wish we could go back in time,' she said, 'and change it all.'
'I guess Harrison and Joyce got what they had coming,' Bodie said.
'But Melanie.'
'Yeah.'
'What did we do to her?'
He put his arms around Pen and gently drew her against him. Holding her, he turned slowly until he could see the open gate beyond her head. Melanie was on her hands and knees. Her face lifted. It was a dim patch in the darkness with black pits for eyes.
Staring at us, Bodie knew.
Hating us.
He felt a shiver climb his back.
Would she go for the shotgun?
The siren was a deafening shriek.
She went for the knife.
She tugged it out of Harrison 's chest.
Bodie tensed for the attack.
Melanie pushed the knife slowly into Harrison 's throat. Clutching it with both hands, she worked its blade back and forth. Her long black hair swayed in front of her face as she rocked above him, putting her weight into the cutting.
'What's wrong?' Pen asked.
'Nothing.' Bodie stroked her head. 'Everything's fine.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
'No funny business,' Pen said. She was in bed, naked except for her white shorts, a white bandage beneath her left breast, and a white cast on her arm. The discarded sling lay rumpled on the sheet beside her. 'I am, after all, an invalid.'
'You look valid.' Bodie cupped her breasts and gently thumbed the nipples. Pen squirmed.
'You can validate me later,' she said. 'This is serious business.'
'Of course.'
Bodie's hands went away. Pen raised her head off the pillow. With an open hand, she lifted and flattened her breast and peered over it to see what he was doing. 'Be gentle,' she warned, smiling.
Bodie picked at a corner of the tape with his fingernail. 'Difficult to concentrate,' he said, 'when beholding such a vision of loveliness.'
'Yep. No doubt.'
He pulled the tape slowly, watching the adhesive lift her skin and peel away from it.
'Owooo.'
'Maybe one quick yank.'
'Don't you dare.'
'We should really change this bandage more often than the one on your back. Such scenic surroundings.' The bandage came off, revealing a four-inch laceration cross-hatched with stitches.
'Yuck,' Pen said.
'Coming along nicely.'
'Easy for you to say. I'm the one looks like the bride of Frankenstein.'
'You look terrific. It gives you character.'
'Sure.'
Bodie unrolled a pad of cotton and gauze, snipped off a section slightly longer than the wound, and taped it into place.
'Good job.' She released her breast and lowered her head to the pillow.
Her fingers had left faint red prints on her creamy skin. Bodie watched them fade.
I'm gonna cut off your tits!
'What's wrong?' Pen asked.
'Melanie. She keeps coming back.'
'Yeah.'
'I wonder how she's doing.'
'I don't know,' Pen muttered. 'At least she probably won't have to stand trial. That would've been tough, nothing going for her except Joyce's confession.'
Bodie put a hand on Pen's belly. He lightly stroked the smooth skin. 'Do you suppose they're treating her okay?'
'It isn't the Hilton. Later on, maybe we can get her moved to a better facility.'
'At least she nailed those two.'
'I wonder if it was worth it.'
The telephone rang. 'I'll get it,' Bodie said. He patted her belly, then stood and hurried toward the kitchen. Suddenly scared. Pen had changed her number. Only the police, the people at Melanie's psychiatric ward, and the hospital had the new one. The call had to mean trouble. He picked up the phone. 'Hello?'
'Is this Penelope Conway's residence?' asked the male voice.
'Yes, it is.'
'May I speak to Miss Conway?'
'Who may I say is calling?'
'This is Dr Herman Gray of the Beverlywood Medical Center. I'm calling about Miss Conway's father.'
Bodie's stomach clenched. 'Just a moment, please.' He let the phone's handset dangle by its cord, and hurried back to the bedroom. Pen was sitting up.
When she saw Bodie, the color left her face.
'It's Dr Gray,' he said.
She clamped her lower lip between her teeth.
Bodie followed her to the kitchen. He stood behind her while she picked up the phone. He put a hand on her bare back. He stared at the bandage over her right shoulder blade.
'This is Pen Conway,' she said.
She listened.
'Oh my God,' she said, and began to cry.
***
'What the hell happened to you?'
'What the hell happened to you?' Pen retorted. Then she fell to her knees beside the bed and, weeping, kissed her father.
When her mouth left his, he said, 'Hey, you're getting me wet, babe. Turn off the fountain.'
'God, Dad.' She kissed him again.
His hand came out from beneath the sheets and stroked her hair. 'Sure is good to see you again,' he said. 'Good to see anything, for that matter.'
'How do you feel?'
'Like I was hit by a locomotive.'
'It was a car.'
'So I hear.'
Pen wiped her eyes with her left hand.
'So what's your excuse?' Whit asked, glancing at her cast.
'I fell down some stairs.'
'Klutziness must run in the family, huh?' Bodie saw a glint in the old man's eyes. 'Any negligence involved?'
'Just my own.'
'Awwww. We'd have some great personal injury suits, both of us, if only…'
'Those are the breaks,' Pen said.
'No pun intended, huh?' Then he said, 'Owooo,' an echo of Pen when Bodie had pulled the tape from her chest.
'Dad, I want you to meet Bodie.' She smiled over her shoulder at him. Tears were shimmering in her eyes.
'I thought Bodie was a town in Wyoming. You don't look much like a town.'
'Welcome back, Mr Conway.'
'You banging my daughter?'
'Dad!'
'Hell, I know you are. I can tell by the look of you. You look okay to me.'
'Thanks, sir.'
'Make it Whit.'
'Whit.'
'You drink?'
'I polished off most of the beer in your refrigerator.'
'Make sure you restock it before I come home. Recuperation is thirsty work.'
'Right.'
'Speaking of home, how come you're both here and Joyce isn't?'
'She doesn't know you came out of it,' Pen said. 'Not yet. We'll tell her as soon as we see her.'
'You do that. Tell her to get her sweet buns over here.'
'I will.'
'What about number two daughter?'
'She was here for a few days right after the accident. It looked like you might be the same for a while, so she went back to school. She has her classes…'
'Well, that's all right. I'm glad she thought enough to come over.'
'She was awfully upset, Dad.'
A smile drifted over his lips. 'That's good to hear. Melanie… we've had our share of troubles since your mother passed away.' He shook his head. 'She doesn't care much for Joyce, I'm afraid.'
'She loves you a lot.'
'Hell, I think I'll go out and pay her a visit once I'm on my feet again.'
***
Bodie held Pen's hand as
they left the hospital. The morning sun was bright and warm, and he watched the way Pen's gleaming hair stirred in the breeze.
There was sorrow in her eyes.
'Are you all right?' he asked.
'I hated lying to him.'
'He doesn't need the truth. Not right now.'
She shook her head. 'It'll really knock the wind out of his sails.'
'Wait a few days.'
'That won't make it any easier.'
'I know.'
'He's in for a world of hurt.'
'When he finds out what his wife and Harrison did to him, he might not be all that upset they're dead.'
'Just a different kind of pain.'
'He wouldn't have had to go through it if he'd stayed in his coma. Better this way, isn't it?'
'Yeah.' A smile tilted her lips. She looked at Bodie. 'A lot better this way.' Her hand tightened in his. 'I'll have to stick around for a while, though. He'll need me.'
'I know.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Summer break is coming up. In the meantime, I'll come every weekend. If you want.'
'Of course I want.'
'Don't let anyone else change those bandages. They're mine.'
'Whatever you say, sir.'
'It'll be a fine summer.'
'We'll go to the beach.'
'Let's go to the beach, now,' Bodie said.
They stopped at a corner and waited for the traffic light to change.
Bodie felt a little sad. He knew he would be leaving Pen in a few days and he knew there would be some hard times ahead for both of them - pain and sorrow and loneliness.
But they were together for the moment. She was with him, a missing part of him that had been found and must never be lost.
The light changed.
The traffic stopped.
Bodie waited on the curb, holding Pen's hand, and looked both ways to be absolutely sure it was safe. Then he stepped off the curb with Pen at his side and they started across.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
At the intersection of Crescent Heights and Sunset Boulevard, Phil Danson stopped for the red traffic signal. He looked both ways. Not a car was in sight, so he gunned the Jaguar XKE and sped across Sunset.
It gave him a little rush.
A small risk, a small rush.
Keeping the gas pedal to the floor, he shifted and picked up speed. The road up Laurel Canyon was steep and twisting. He took the curves fast, grinning at the way the low car hugged the road. The quick turns pushed him from side to side. If he'd had the safety harness on, he wouldn't have felt the force so much. That's why he had it off.