Christmas at Timberwoods - Fern Michaels [16]
“I’d like a reservation for Hawaii as soon as possible.”
“I’m sorry.” The voice returned after a moment’s silence. “There are no seats available until December twenty-eighth. I can put you on standby if that will help.”
“You don’t understand! This is an emergency! I have to leave as soon as possible,” Angela shouted, tears choking her voice.
“Let me try some of the discount carriers. You never know, right?”
“No. You never do.”
The voice returned. “There’s one cancellation on the morning of the twenty-sixth. If you care to leave your number, I’ll call you back . . .”
“No. Too late. Thanks for checking.” Angela ended the call with a push of a button. Flinging herself on the bed, she let the tears flow.
She was still trapped—in the all-too-real nightmare of her parents’ house, unable to escape her mother’s icy moods and meanness.
Damn everybody and everything, she raged. Just this once, why couldn’t you help me, Mother? I tried so hard to be what you wanted. Why can’t you accept me the way I am? I know I’m not pretty like you, and I don’t dress well, but I’m your daughter and that should count for something. If you’d only look at me, really look at me. Touch me, tell me that you love me. Just once. Is that too much to want?
It hadn’t always been this way, she reminded herself. There had been a time—a long time ago—when she had led a normal life. She and her mother had been comparatively close and she’d felt loved. As a family they had shared meals, gone on trips together, and talked to each other. When had it all changed?
When she was twelve, Angela realized. Right after she’d had her first vision. Her mother had shrugged it off as a bad dream. But as the visions had become more frequent, she and her mother had become more distanced from one another. Angela’s bad dreams had become her mother’s nightmares, even if Sylvia would never admit to that.
From that day on, she had never been good enough. Suddenly Angela jerked upright. She still wasn’t.
When was the last time you had a bath? Why don’t you put on a little perfume? Her mother never went for the jugular. She favored little cuts that were calculated not to leave visible scars.
But there were scars.
“All right, Mummy darling, a bath it is,” Angela shouted to the empty hallway as she darted into her mother’s dressing room. She scooped up several little bottles of Givaudan 50 from the top of the dresser and raced into the bathroom. Pouring the costly fragrance into the tub, she turned on the hot tap. Two hundred bucks an ounce dissolved into gallons of rushing water. She’d leave the empty bottles where her dear mother would notice them.
She watched with clinical interest as the water gushed into the bathtub. The strong, almost suffocating scent of Givaudan wafted into the bedroom in a cloud of steam. Angela swiftly calculated how long it would take to flood the upstairs and ruin the downstairs ceiling, then stuffed a washcloth into the overflow drain and turned the water on full force, then did the same thing with the sink. Next she moved to the sinks and showers in the other two upstairs bathrooms and blocked them. Before she could regret her actions, she turned back to her room and collected her purse and jacket.
Shortly after noon, Heather Andrews tapped on Felex Lassiter’s office door before storming in. “Lex, I guess you know I’m going to hang for this.”
Lex lifted his blond head. He had been reading through the file folders on his desk and quickly closed the one on top. “What?”
“For this,” Heather said in exasperation. “This was my morning off. When I came in, I learned about this new bomb scare. Lex, I never wrote out that report on Angela Steinhart for Harold. She was so damned cagey. But now I think she was trying to warn me—about herself!”
“You think. You don’t know that.” Lex rose and walked over to her.
“Look, I didn’t take the time to draw her out. Now how am I going to tell him about it? I’m gonna swing for this one. Did you know the whole mall is crawling with security? And