“I don’t know why you think I’ve seen Angela,” he said in as steady a tone as he could manage, “but even if I had, I’m your father, Rachel. I don’t have to report to you.”

“Obviously not,” she said, “given the number of times I’ve heard from you since summer.”

He stared. “Is that what’s really bothering you? Rach, I thought you were just as busy as I’ve been. I didn’t think you’d miss hearing from me. I’m sorry. Really, I am.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Rachel said. “It’s not about the e-mail, Dad. It’s about all those years when you didn’t have time for me because you were so busy fawning over Angela. You think that didn’t hurt? You think kids don’t see those things, no matter how young they are?”

“Rachel, that was years ago. Why are you bringing it up now? I thought—God, all that time working with Victoria, and you’re still hurting about those things? What does it take for you to get over it?”

“Maybe not having it start all over again,” she snapped. “Maybe getting her out of our lives once and for all!”

“If you like Mary Higgins Clark, you’ll love Meg O’Brien!”

—Armchair Detective

Also available from MIRA Books and MEG O’BRIEN

GATHERING LIES

SACRED TRUST

CRASHING DOWN

Crimson Rain
Meg O’Brien

www.mirabooks.co.uk

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to…

Cathy Landrum, for her valuable research, and to Al Wilding, retired Seattle police officer, for checking my police scenes for accuracy.

Immeasurable thanks and love to my family, who generously helped me to finish this book during a period of immobility by shopping for me, cleaning for me, running to the post office, keeping my computer going and even seeing to it that my birds in the garden got fed. Bless you all…Kevin, Robin, Kaiti, Greg, Darrell, Tiffany and Scott. Thanks also to Peggy, who makes me proud, and to her mom, Amy, who recently put herself through college and deserves huge huzzahs! Finally, a very special hug and kiss to Courtney and Jonathan, whose visits add light to our lives, and to Emily, the “Little One,” who helps by just being here and keeping me laughing!

It seems I thank my MIRA editors in every book, but that’s only because I love every one I’ve ever worked with. Many thanks to Dianne Moggy and Amy Moore-Benson, and this year in particular to Miranda Stecyk, my editor through the Crimson Rain revisions. Her insight, hard work and enthusiastic support for this book made the job of revising seem easy, at a time when I wondered if I’d ever be able to finish.

Finally, I extend my utmost gratitude to my many wonderful readers who have written such beautiful letters about my books, and whose support for my writing keeps me going. Please stay in touch. I value each letter and e-mail, and even if my writing schedule keeps me from answering each one, I will always treasure your kind words. You can reach me now in two ways: by e-mail (megobrien@earthlink.net) or through my Web site (www.megobrien.com).

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Epilogue

Prologue

Seattle, Washington

Christmas Eve, sixteen years ago

Life, some say, is only an illusion—an illusion we create ourselves, in our own minds, then project onto the screen of our days. Paul Bradley would wonder, later, if he had indeed, by some strange quirk of mind, created the hellish thing that happened to his family that long-ago Christmas Eve. Until then, he and Gina had seemed to have so much going for them. How, in one devastating moment, could it all have fallen apart?

A miracle might have saved them. Miracles, some say, are another thing we create ourselves. By choice, they say, we abide in either heaven or hell.

Paul might have made different choices in the years to follow. Gina might have, too. Neither of them could possibly know, however, the evil that lay in wait for them. Nor did they know that by the simple matter of making different choices, they might have been spared.

The vicious act that brought everything to a head—though no one could say it was the “true beginning”—took place sixteen years ago on a night that was supposed to be holy, but into which crept the very soul of sin. Paul Bradley stood that night with Gina, his wife of six years, in the kitchen of their historic home on Queen Anne Hill. Larger and with more property than most on the hill, it had the kind of architectural appointments the Bradleys loved. Finding it on Queen Anne Hill, one of the oldest and most desirable areas in Seattle, had been a bonus. Though some referred to the hill these days as a queen in a faded petticoat, there was talk of future gentrification on Lower Queen Anne. New and luxurious homes, apartments and businesses were going up every day.

The Bradleys had chosen this particular house because it stood in a quiet area above the fray and had a fabulous view. On good days they could see the Sound and most of West Seattle. On foggy days, the top of the Space Needle seemed to float on the clouds, like a hovering spacecraft or a ship at sea.

Never had Paul felt so content with the way his life had turned out. He had his own business, selling antiques to millionaire software executives, and Gina was on her way to becoming a successful interior designer. The Life Plan they had put down on paper before they married was working out—albeit with a few glitches here and there.

One of those glitches was that Gina hadn’t been able to have children, something they had discovered shortly after they married. Since they both wanted a family, and the sooner the better, they saw no reason to wait before adopting. Rachel and Angela, fraternal twins, had come into their lives one warm August day when they were a year old, about the same time as Paul and Gina’s first wedding anniversary. It seemed the Bradley family was now complete.

To be honest, there had been a few rough moments in the past year with Angela, who had shown signs of anger and hostility that seemed unusual for a four-year-old. Paul and Gina had been warned by the psychiatrist at Saint Sympatica’s orphanage that the girls might have problems due to a lack of sufficient maternal bonding in their first months. They had been left on the steps of the orphanage nine months before the adoption, with nothing but a note saying that they were three months old and their names were Rachel and Angela. Nothing was known about their mother, the psychiatrist had told them.

Though the twins were not identical, they both had brown hair and clear hazel eyes that seemed to connect with Gina and Paul from the first time they held them. The Bradleys had fallen in love with them on sight, and readily agreed to provide them with all the professional care they might need.

Everything had seemed fine until, at the age of four, Angela had begun to exhibit symptoms of what Victoria Lessing—the Seattle psychiatrist they had taken her to—tentatively labeled as RAD: Reactive Attachment Disorder. Angela seemed to have no real feelings for people, and no remorse when she hurt someone, as children often did while playing. Victoria had continued to work with Angela, often including Paul, Gina and Rachel in the sessions. The therapy had seemed to be helping, and in recent months they had actually begun to relax with their child.

As for Rachel, they thanked God that she had always been quiet and shy, showing no signs of RAD.

“You might want to keep an eye on Rachel,” Victoria had cautioned. “This kind of thing can suddenly appear in the teens, and even later.”

So far, so good, Paul thought that Christmas. Angela seemed to be getting better, while Rachel still showed no signs of the kind of syndrome Angela suffered from. Gratefully he took Gina into his arms, and together they listened to the sounds of carols on the stereo in the living room, the twins making small noises as they played around the Christmas tree.

“How did we get so lucky?” Paul murmured against his wife’s hair. She smelled of apples and cinnamon, and he loved her more than life itself. He wanted to take her to bed right then and there, and thought: If we could just get the girls in bed early…

That probably wouldn’t happen, of course. They were too excited about Santa coming. Paul was looking forward to it, too. The twins were at an age where they understood the Santa Claus story, and he and Gina looked forward to getting up in the morning and seeing their delight over the toys Santa had brought them.

Paul smiled and slid his lips down to Gina’s, pulling her against him and rocking slightly back and forth. Excitement began to build in him, and he could feel her shudder and melt, her arms tightening around his neck as their lips moved. He took her tongue inside his mouth and began the gentle searching that he knew would send her over the top. Gina’s arms tightened and she pressed herself so close there was little room left to breathe.

She did that, Paul knew, when she began to feel weak with arousal, hanging on to him as if to an anchor. He loved that feeling, the one of being needed, and his own arousal became a growing force, taking him over. Neither of them heard as the noises from the twins in the living room became louder and more intense.

The crash brought them back. That, and Rachel’s earsplitting scream.

“Good God, what did they do now?” Gina half laughed as she pulled away from Paul’s arms and ran for the kitchen door. Paul was close behind her, but was caught up short as Gina stopped in her tracks, her hands going to her mouth, eyes wide.

“No!” she screamed, running toward the twins.

Paul couldn’t say, later, if he’d fully understood what was going on. The tableau that met his eyes was too shocking, too unbelievable.

The eight-foot Christmas tree had been knocked over and lay on its side, surrounded by puddles of water. Ornaments had fallen off and broken; fragile shards were scattered everywhere. Foil icicles glittered on the carpet, and the toy train beneath the tree had jumped its tracks.

Angela, in her white Christmas dress with its bright red sash, stood over her sister, a sharp kitchen knife in her hand. Rachel lay on her back on the floor, her arms up in a feeble attempt to fend her sister off. Her screams cut into Paul, sending pain straight through him.

Angela never looked up, nor showed any sign at all that she’d heard when Gina yelled out, running toward her. Paul ran, too, but felt as if he were moving in slow motion. His legs were like lead, and his mind could barely take in what he was seeing.

Before they could reach her, Angela thrust the knife down. Paul somehow miraculously moved ahead of Gina and barreled into Angela, pushing her to the ground and wresting the knife from her hand. She fought him with the ferocity of an animal, her teeth biting into his arm, feet kicking at his groin.

Paul closed his mind to the red-hot pain and held his ground. Looking back quickly, he saw that Gina knelt beside Rachel and was holding the child in her arms. Blood seeped through Rachel’s pink Christmas dress and onto Gina’s blouse.

In the background, carols continued to play. “Joy to the world, the Lord is come…”

Paul looked down into Angela’s five-year-old hazel eyes and saw nothing but evil there. No fear, no remorse. Their color now seemed darker than her hair—huge, black orbs filled with hatred. She opened her mouth and spit into his face.

Paul’s heart plummeted to his feet. To him, it seemed as if Satan, not the Lord, had arrived that night.

1

Seattle, Washington

December 20, sixteen years later

She walked into the bedroom dressed in a gold satin gown so tight Paul could see every sinewy muscle as she moved toward him. Her hips swayed, and she touched the tip of a finger to her mouth, wetting it, then pushing it farther in, sucking on it as her eyes met his in a familiar promise. The fabric of the dress was so thin, so tight, it was little more than gold sweat outlining her breasts and the deep V between her thighs.

God, she looked good. How many hours a day did it take to stay in such great shape?

Momentarily he thought of Gina, his wife, and felt a pang of remorse. He remembered the way they had been together the first year of their marriage.

But that was more than twenty years ago, and no matter how hard they had tried to hold things together, no matter how they had honestly wanted it, nothing had been the same since that terrible Christmas when Angela…

As fast as the thought came, Paul turned it off. He had learned to do that—to compartmentalize and not dwell on the bad times. Instead he turned his attention to his groin, and the fact that he was growing hard. It was almost painful, the excitement his mistress, Lacey, could invoke in him by the merest look. It was a good pain, though, telling him he was still alive. Rational thought flew out the window as she reached the side of the bed and raised one long, slender leg, straddling him. Leaning down, she swept his cheeks with her waist-length blond hair, teasing and laughing softly as her full breasts nearly fell out of their satin shield.

Paul reached up and yanked the low-cut neckline apart, his arousal intensifying as he heard the buttons pop, the thin fabric rip. Lacey gave a soft laugh. He had bought her the gown so that he could do this, playing out a fantasy that Lacey enjoyed. He could never bring himself to actually hurt her, nor did she ask for that. This pretense at roughness had become part of their foreplay, one his mistress had suggested, and the lingerie was a one-time purchase he could well afford. She threw back her head, shaking her hair in buttery waves as her body began to move over his. Reaching for him with one hand, she slid him inside her while remaining upright and giving him access to her breasts. Rocking back and forth, she moaned.

The tightness in Paul’s throat grew as he grabbed her breasts firmly, the way she liked it. Squeezing her nipples until they were stiff, hard nubs he could fix his mouth around, he stroked the soft fullness of them, letting the feel of her overtake him until all coherent thought left his mind. Only a blank slate was left. A blank slate with nothing written on it—no unhappy past, no painful present, no pallid future.

When it was over, it was as if a job had been done, a commitment met, if only to himself. He had managed to hold the memories at bay.

Spent, Paul stared at the ceiling. For three months, holding the bad memories at bay had been Lacey Allison’s only job. He had rescued her from a string of temporary positions as an assistant to various Seattle CEOs and had put her up in this luxury apartment. For the past three months she had waited for him every evening, whether he was able to come here or not. Even during the day, when she went out to shop, she would take a cell phone with her so that he could reach her at any time. This, too, was her suggestion. She wanted to be with him every possible moment.

As for Paul, from the day he’d made the decision to be with her—unthinkable up until then—he couldn’t get enough of her. He wanted to drink her down, make her a part of him that would never leave, never go.

He reached for her, and this time an aeon passed that he wouldn’t remember later. He had gone into another world, a world where nothing mattered, not even the sex. Lacey did that for him. She took him to that blank slate where, for a few moments, at least, nothing existed—not even Lacey herself.

Gina Bradley opened her front door and stood for a moment, listening for signs of movement. Shifting the bags of groceries in her arms, she shook her head and sighed. For heaven’s sake, who did she listen for?

Certainly not Paul. It was only five, and he had been coming home later and later these past few months. In the beginning, she would hold dinner for him, warming it in the oven at seven, eight, nine. In recent weeks she hadn’t bothered, taking a sandwich for herself up to their room and watching television or reading until he came home. Often it was after midnight when she would hear his car pull into the driveway. The Infiniti’s headlights would sweep the room quickly, leaving as faint an impression as Paul’s presence when at last he would tiptoe quietly into the bedroom with a mumbled apology.

His excuse, always, was that he’d been working late, and Gina had no reason not to believe it. Paul became moody and withdrawn every year before the Christmas holiday. Losing little Angela sixteen years ago had changed her husband in ways even she couldn’t comprehend.

Not that she herself didn’t still miss the child. But it was a long time ago, and Gina had tried to move on, to build a career she could exist inside, like a hermit crab. If her work as an interior designer didn’t always satisfy, she accepted that as natural, given the circumstances. Losing a child—even a child one had adopted and lived with for only four years—had left a hole in her heart. Not just a break, the kind country-western songs were written about, but an actual hole as seen in medical journals, the kind that led to death, or at the very least, drastic surgery.

For a while, Gina and Paul thought that, because of their grief, they might actually die. However, they had somehow pulled themselves together and had been saved—if saved was the right word—by the surgical removal of memories. Clean, antiseptic cuts were called for, as in the giving away of clothes and toys, the burning of photographs, the removal of everything that might remind them of Angela.

Everything, that is, but Rachel, her twin.

They had wished for identical twins at first, little girls they could dress in the same outfits, a cutesy look that would have people stopping in the street to coo over two-seater strollers and rhapsodize, “Oh, how precious.” They came to be grateful, however, that Rachel and Angela had been fraternal twins instead. The fact that they didn’t look alike helped after Angela was gone. And as Rachel grew, she took on more of Gina’s and Paul’s traits, so that eventually the reminders of Angela were diluted in that way, as well.

Except at Christmastime. If they lived to be a thousand, they would never be able to wipe away the memory of Angela in her new white dress with the wide scarlet sash, the knife in her hand as she stood over Rachel, a look of pure evil on her face. Then, as Paul and Gina had screamed in unison, there was that awful, unbelievable moment as Angela had thrust the knife down, slicing at Rachel’s tiny five-year-old chest, while tree lights twinkled and carols played.

As Paul had said later, it was as if the devil himself, not the Lord, had arrived that night. The devil in the form of a five-year-old girl, a girl they had raised in almost exactly the same way as her twin, whom they had adopted, too, thinking that keeping the girls together would be a blessing for all concerned.

That one of those girls would turn out to be a killer, they could not have foreseen. A “bad seed,” to coin a term. But one didn’t coin terms when one loved a child. One simply stood by in horror and disbelief as signs of evil began to show themselves, growing in intensity until that evil reached a crescendo on a holiday night that was supposed to be a warm, loving, family occasion.

It was all Gina and Paul could do to survive the shock—and then to remove all traces of Angela from their home.

Unpacking groceries, Gina wiped away tears. Often, when she allowed herself to remember Angela, tears sprang to her eyes and her collarbones ached from the emptiness in her heart. The last sight of that child as they turned her back over to the people at the orphanage was frozen in memory for all time.

That was the hell of it. Angela could be so sweet, so affectionate, convincing everyone who knew her that it wasn’t possible she could have done something so terrible. Then there would be an incident, like Rachel falling down the stairs, or rat poison from the garden shed ending up mysteriously in Rachel’s milk.

More than once, they’d had a scare like that with Rachel. And more than once, Angela had been nearby. They’d had no proof that she’d caused these “accidents” in any way, and Rachel herself said she had tripped over stuffed animals on the stairs. But the question remained, who had put those stuffed animals there, in a corner of the stairs that was so dark they were unlikely to be seen? And though it was hard to believe a five-year-old would think to take rat poison from a high shelf in a garden shed and put it in her sister’s milk, who had placed the step stool by that shelf and forgotten to put it back? Who, but someone short enough to need it?

On the other hand, to suspect Angela of such monstrous deeds was, at first, unthinkable.

It wasn’t until that terrible Christmas Eve that Gina and Paul were forced to admit they had a killer on their hands. That Rachel hadn’t died that night was a miracle. Paul had gotten to her in time, saving her from more than a shallow wound. It was enough, though, to convince them that Angela could never be trusted alone with her sister again.

They’d had to make a decision, and it was the most difficult one they’d ever faced. On the advice of Victoria Lessing, the psychiatrist they’d been consulting for months, they took Angela back to the orphanage.

Though on the surface it seemed cold to do that, Saint Sympatica’s was known for its private funding by wealthy patrons, and for having psychiatric care for its children. It was because of the high quality of care that it had been recommended to Gina and Paul when they first announced to friends their intention to adopt a child. The long flight to Minnesota to apply, then the following investigation and paperwork, were well worth it when they finally got to hold the twins in their arms.

Gina could remember the first time she realized that Angela was Paul’s favorite. They both did their best not to choose favorites, but there was some link, some bond between Paul and Angela that drew them together. Angela was outgoing and could make Paul laugh with her antics, while Rachel was timid and reserved, standing back and watching while her sister danced like a windup bear and made funny faces that stole the show.

This, of course, had the effect of making Gina show more attention to Rachel so that she wouldn’t feel left out. When Angela was old enough to notice this, she became angry over Gina’s preference for her twin, as she perceived it. At first she threw tantrums, stamping her feet or kicking things. Around the age of four, however, she began to hit Rachel. When she blackened one of her sister’s eyes, Gina and Paul began consulting Victoria Lessing. Victoria at first told them that, though a black eye seemed a bit extreme, fighting amongst siblings was normal. Perhaps Angela hadn’t realized what the consequences of her actions would be? Now that she did, her love for her sister might temper her actions in the future.

The problem, as Gina saw it, was that Angela did not seem to have the usual twin’s love for her sister. There were times, in fact, when Gina was sure that Angela hated Rachel.

She tried to talk to Paul about this but, blinded by love, he couldn’t see it. Angela was too good at hiding her darker side when he was around, and consequently he would defend her hotly, arguing that she simply had a stronger, more assertive personality than Rachel. Paul felt this would serve her well in the future.

In all fairness, not even Gina could have foreseen the kind of terror that future would bring.

The phone rang, and Gina came back to the present with a start. Rolling her eyes, she sighed, sensing who was on the other end of that ring.

“Hi, Mom,” she said, picking up the kitchen phone.

“How’d you know it was me?” Roberta Evans asked. “Oh, you’ve got that caller ID now, right?”

“Right, Mom,” Gina lied. It was easier than explaining that she’d developed a sixth sense for trouble. “What’s up?”

“Rachel’s coming home tomorrow, isn’t she? I forgot when her plane comes in.”

“Five-oh-five in the afternoon, Mom. You want to come with us?”

“Sea-Tac at that hour, the week before Christmas?” Her mother’s tone was one of exaggerated horror. “I’d rather wrestle a polar bear! How come you didn’t make it at a better time?”

Gina could hear the puff-puff of her mother’s cigarette, and saw in her mind the dyed red hair, the dark-lined lips. She loved her mother like crazy, even with all her eccentricities. Truth be told, she loved the eccentricities too—even more than she let on.

“That was the only flight we could get her on, Mom. She’s having tests at school today.”

“Well, that’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of! Tests, with Christmas only five days away? What are they trying to do to young people these days?”

“It’s something special, Mom. The term ended officially on the fourteenth, but she had to take some test for a special class.”

Gina sighed and changed the subject, taking a box of cereal from a bag and putting it in the cupboard. “We’re taking her to dinner on the way home,” she said. “We probably won’t get back here till late.”

“You keep saying ‘we,’” her mother commented blandly. “Does this mean Paul will be with you?”

“Of course. We always pick Rachel up together, you know that.”

“On the contrary, I don’t know a thing about Paul these days. Seems to me he’s never home when I call you at night.”

“Well, maybe you don’t call on the right nights,” Gina said, defending her husband out of habit.

“He’s not there now, I’ll bet.”

“No, but—”

“And he wasn’t home last night when I called, either.”

Gina took down a heavy cut-crystal tumbler and pulled a spicy Chardonnay from the fridge, pouring it to the tumbler’s halfway mark, then shrugging and filling it clear to the rim. What the hell.

“Mother,” she said patiently, taking a sip, “you know Paul always works late during the holidays. It’s his way of coping.”

“Well, it may be none of my business, but if you ask me, it’s not his only way of coping.”

Gina frowned. “You’re right, Mother. It’s none of your business.”

“Don’t Mother me, Gina Evans Bradley. He wouldn’t be the first man to stray.”

“No, but as I’ve told you before, Paul isn’t the type.”

“Ha! All men are the type.”

This was not a discussion Gina wanted to have. But to simply let it go would only add more fuel to her mother’s fire.

“Paul is too tired these days,” she said quietly, “to have an affair. He’s worn-out, Mom. I’m worried about him.”

“Are you saying he’s worn-out when he’s with you? You don’t have sex anymore?”

Setting the tumbler of wine on the counter with a thud, Gina snapped, “Mom, that’s enough! I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Because if he is, that might very well prove my point, you know.”

Gina clicked the flash button on the phone. “Mom, there’s another call coming in. It could be Rachel. I’ll talk to you in the morning, okay?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! You can just stop clicking that thing. I know there’s not a call coming in.”

“Bye, Mom.” Gina smiled as she hung up the phone. Her mother was still sharp at sixty, and at times almost psychic.

About Paul, however, she was completely off base. Paul would never have an affair. Gina knew him too well, and the one thing she knew for certain was that he simply wasn’t the type.

Paul watched Lacey as he dressed, who lay on the bed and followed his every move, a mock lewd grin turning up the corners of her mouth. Her lips were swollen now from lovemaking, and with her bright red lipstick rubbed off, she looked like a little girl—an innocent child, though he knew she was neither a child nor innocent, but a woman who knew things that other women never even thought about.

Pulling his pants on, he shoved in the tail of the white dress shirt he’d worn to Soleil Antiques that day. His hands fumbled. He was depleted from their lovemaking, and she was beginning to get to him again. Lacey played with a nipple, her eyes smoldering. Incredibly, she was ready for more.

Paul was tempted, but he had to get home. Gina could never know what he was doing; it would hurt her to the core, and he didn’t want that. Keeping a mistress was something entirely apart from his marriage to Gina. It was like—well, like living two different lives, each of them necessary and valid but for entirely different reasons.

Lacey sat up and reached for him. He dodged her, laughing.

“Enough! What are you trying to do, put me in cardiac arrest?”

She slid from under the satin sheets and pulled bikini briefs over legs so long, they seemed two-thirds of her height. Bending over, she let her full breasts hang as she placed them in a more comfortable position inside her bra. Paul’s mouth went dry.

“Cardiac arrest?” Lacey chuckled, straightening. “Not you! You’re a bear. A big, strong bear.” Then, squinting, she studied him through the most beautiful green eyes he had ever seen. “No…you’re too tall and thin to be a bear. More like a handsome black panther. An aging panther, of course, with that gray hair popping out along your temples—”

He couldn’t help himself. Reaching over, he slid a hand inside the bra and cupped one of her breasts. Stepping closer, he pulled her to him, closing his eyes and resting his chin on her head. “Oh, God, you feel so good.”

Despite himself, he began to grow hard again. He glanced at the little clock decorated with hand-painted cherubs on the night table, one of the few things Lacey had brought with her from her own apartment. She hadn’t owned much, having just moved to Seattle in the summer. When he’d offered to help her pack to come here, she had said, “I don’t have enough to bother with. I think I’ll just put most of it in storage.” It had made him feel good to be able to give her a better life than she’d had in Atlanta, growing up in a home where her hardworking parents could never quite make ends meet.

It was ten forty-five, according to the clock. He calculated quickly. It would take him twenty minutes at the most to drive home, and if he left here by eleven-thirty he could be there before midnight. That gave him another forty-five minutes.

He pulled Lacey down on the bed, his tongue seeking hers, his body working quickly against her, the bra and bikini panties slipping off easily as he molded himself to her skin.

When the phone rang again, Gina thought it was Paul. Gina muted the sound of the television and picked up the cordless phone by the bed.

“Hi, Mom.” Rachel’s high, young voice came over the wires.

“Honey?” Gina sat straighter as alarm bells went off. “Why are you calling so late? Is something wrong?”

“No…just nervous, I guess. Flying, you know.”

Gina went into automatic mother mode. “Well, but think how many times you’ve done it, and you’ve always arrived safe and sound! I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

She couldn’t let Rachel know how anxious she herself always felt when her daughter was in the air.

“I made reservations for dinner at the Space Needle,” she said. “You can look forward to that, at least.”

Rachel’s smile seemed to carry through the phone. “Great! I’ll get my first solid meal in days and a view of Seattle, too. Is, uh—is Dad coming?”

“Of course he is. He wouldn’t miss picking you up with me. He never has, has he?”

“No. I just thought…he’s pretty busy lately, isn’t he? I haven’t had many e-mails from him in the past few weeks.”

“Well, you know how busy your father always is at this time of year.”

“Sure, I guess that’s it. Hey, Mom? I really need to shop for some clothes. Do you mind?”

“Of course not. We’ll go on Saturday.”

“There’ll be Christmas crowds, though.”

“I’ll fend them off the same way I did last year,” Gina said, smiling. “They won’t stand a chance.”

She had expected Rachel to laugh, but all she said was, “Mom, really,” in a tone that sounded like disgust.

Last year, while cleaning off the front steps, Gina had slipped on a patch of ice, spraining her ankle. When she and Rachel had gone shopping, she was recovering but still used a cane. Much to her delight, she discovered that the crowds in the stores had parted for her as if she were Moses parting the Red Sea. She had thought Rachel had enjoyed that, too, but now she wondered if her daughter had been embarrassed by her.

“I, uh…I could wrap an Ace bandage around my ankle, if that would make you feel better,” she tried with a hint of humor. “No one would ever guess there was nothing wrong with me.”

Rachel’s voice took on an edge. “For heaven’s sake, who are you, my mom’s evil twin? Watch out, or we might have to cart you away—”

She bit the words off, as if suddenly realizing what she’d said. Not before her remark had shocked Gina, however. Rachel was always so careful not to talk about her twin, or say anything that might even remind Gina of her.

“Sorry, Mom,” Rachel said softly.

“Oh, honey, it’s all right. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

But was that true? she wondered. They had never really known how much Rachel had suffered over the loss of her sister. She was too silent, keeping too much inside. Not even Victoria had been able to bring much out. The best Gina and Paul could do was provide Rachel with all the love they had to give. And, of course, reassure her that what had happened to Angela would never happen to her.

Gina talked with her daughter a few minutes more, and then said goodbye. As she turned off her reading light, she pulled the down comforter up over her shoulders, feeling a chill. It was bad enough that Paul withdrew every year at this time. What if Rachel began to do that, too?

As Paul drove home, he automatically began the mental transition from Lacey’s chrome-and-glass apartment to the elegant house on Queen Anne Hill. Often he would relax by listening to classical music on a CD, but tonight, as he drove past homes decorated to the hilt with Christmas lights, the usual holiday depression set in. He couldn’t keep himself from wondering how things had turned out this way, after such great hopes for the future. Hadn’t he started out life with all the usual excitement of a college graduate with an MBA? And hadn’t he thought, like most, that he had the world by the tail?

Even meeting Gina had required little effort. They’d run into each other in a campus café during their last year at the University of Washington, begun dating and were married shortly after graduation. They wrote down their goals for themselves and their marriage on crisp white paper, and mapped out their lives in the way of young couples in the eighties: Gina would work for a while until Paul became established and they had a nice nest egg. Then she would quit to stay home and raise children. They would have two children—a good number in an age where having too many was frowned upon as not being politic, in a world where populations had exploded and having big families was an environmental no-no.

They wouldn’t get bogged down in work for work’s sake, they agreed, the way their parents had. Having been born in the sixties, they remembered fathers who wore business suits and ties, fathers with gray faces who trudged back and forth to the office every day and kept their noses to the grindstone to buy a house with a mortgage that wouldn’t be paid off until long after they were dead. They remembered mothers who from the age of eighteen had stayed home and been housewives, who had so many children to raise they’d become more and more worn-out as the years went by, their dreams turned to so much dust.

Paul and Gina swore they would never end up like that. Life in the eighties was going to be different. These were the Reagan years, the years of renewal, a good economy, the years when he who had the most toys won. Paul and Gina would have well-paid jobs that would give them time off to travel through Europe, take vacations, go skiing at Aspen. When Gina finally did leave her job, it would be only after they had a solid nest egg. And she wouldn’t take off forever, the way her mother had. She’d get the children to a certain age and then reenter the work force while she was still employable and could command an excellent salary.

As the first months of their marriage passed, however, Paul and Gina’s Life Plan had taken sharp, unexpected turns. Gina learned she was infertile—a congenital defect, the doctors said. As for Paul, though his antique business brought in the kind of money they’d dreamed about—enough, along with Gina’s work as an interior designer, to enable them to buy the house on Queen Anne Hill—their work took up so much time that he and his wife barely knew each other six months after the honeymoon. They had the house of their dreams but rarely lived in it, except to sleep after the long commute home each night. They had the prerequisite two cars, but traveled in them only to work and back on bogged-down freeways.

After eight months of this, Gina began to have an itch. She wanted a baby. She didn’t want to wait. They had enough money to take care of a child, and she needed more in her life than just work.

So they adopted the girls, a move that was supposed to change their lives. And it did. The hell of it was, it had changed a dream into a deadly nightmare—one from which, Paul knew, he would never awaken, as long as he lived. Was it any wonder he couldn’t fully live in that world—couldn’t participate in a place of so many dark memories, without some kind of light shining through?

Every day he thanked God for Lacey, who had brought him light, as well as laughter. Without her, he would never have survived. In fact, there were moments when he felt she was all that kept him alive.

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