Shadows At Sunset - Anne Stuart [100]
She ran after them, mindless of the branches that pulled at her long hair, scratched at her arms. The others were behind her, she could hear them, but she didn’t care. They were heading toward the abandoned pool, and she didn’t even hesitate, crashing after them.
She reached the clearing only a moment after they did. Meyer was teetering on the edge of the pool, his eyes wide and staring, and Roofus was stalking him, growling deep in his throat.
“Roofus!” she called him again, her voice urgent.
The dog turned, whipping his huge head around. And Meyer stumbled, backward, into the dank pool.
She heard the sound as his head smacked against the cement. The sickening splat of bone and blood, the splash as his body tumbled into the few feet of murky water. And then all was silent.
She hadn’t moved when the others reached the clearing; she was simply standing there, holding Roofus’s collar. Coltrane got to her first.
“Don’t let them see him,” she said with quiet urgency.
He glanced into the pool, then turned to look at her. Keeping his distance. “Still protecting them?” he asked in his cool voice, as if they’d never shared a bed, their mouths, their bodies.
“Yes.”
“And who’s going to protect you?”
“No one,” she said. “No one at all.”
23
Brenda buried her head against Ted’s shoulder, shivering. He held her tightly, comforting, until they were left alone at the poolside. Alone with the body still floating facedown in the shallow waters.
“We couldn’t stop him then, honeybunch,” he murmured. “We can’t help him now.”
“Good,” she said, her voice muffled. She didn’t want to look. Too much death in this old house. Too much evil and hatred, when all she’d ever wanted was love.
“Look at me, Brenda,” Ted said, putting a hand under her chin to lift her face to his. “At least it’s over now.”
“Is it? Who’s to say he won’t join us here. Forever? I don’t think I could stand it, Ted, I just couldn’t—”
“Hush, love. The woman he murdered didn’t come back. I don’t think he will, either. If he does, we’ll get rid of him.”
“How? We’re stuck here, helpless….”
“Are we, love?”
The sound of his voice, tender and understanding, broke the last remnants of her formidable will. “No,” she said finally. “You aren’t. You could go.”
“Go where?”
“Toward the light. If you wanted it would come to you. It wasn’t your fault. You were just a victim, and you could move on if you wanted. To heaven, to paradise, whatever it is. You’d just have to go without me.”
“Then I wouldn’t want to go,” he said simply.
Now that it was out in the open she couldn’t stop. “But I lied to you, Ted. I never told you what really happened, and you didn’t remember. You thought we had a suicide pact, and we were trapped on earth as punishment. But that wasn’t what happened.”
“I know.”
“You see, I—You know?” She stared at him in astonishment.
“For all your efforts at trying to distract me, there have been enough people over the years talking about it for me to figure it out, honeybunch. You killed me, and then yourself. I don’t know why you did it, but you must have had a good reason….”
“No,” she said.
“You didn’t have a good reason?” He smiled wryly. “It was a whim?”
“How can you joke about this?” she demanded tearfully. “We’re talking about murder. Death.”
“It was a long time ago, sweetness. But if confessing will make you feel better, go right ahead. I’ll love you no matter what.”
“I didn’t kill you.”
She’d managed to startle him. “You didn’t? Who did?”
“You were sound asleep, and it was a hot night,” she said, remembering that night so long ago. “I went for a swim. To this same, goddamn pool.”
“You used to like midnight swims,” he said gently. “Did you wear a bathing suit?”
She smacked him in the chest. “Of course not. But I had my robe. When I came back to the house my robe was trailing in something, and I thought I’d dipped it into the pool. But it wasn’t water, it was blood. Your