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Even now, her palms were sweating. Annie pushed her fingers through her hair, still a little shocked by its shortness. She’d hacked it off only last week, with Dearie’s sewing scissors, and hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea of not having long hair. Still, she wasn’t sorry. For some reason, it had made her feel better, seeing all that dark hair clumped at her feet … as if she were shedding an old skin, and making way for a new Annie, strong, shining, brave.

Downstairs, in the sun room that opened onto the patio, the moon shone through the palmettos in their huge terra-cotta tubs by the French doors, casting stilettoshaped shadows over the Spanish-tiled floor. Stepping outside into the husk-dry September coolness, Annie could see the pool gleaming darkly, its glassy surface twinkling with sparks of orange light reflected by the electric tiki torches.

She peeled off her nightgown and dove in.

The cool water slicing along her naked body felt wonderful. She stayed under for half a length before she broke the surface, gulping in the night air, fragrant with the scent of honeysuckle and the faint smokiness of a brush fire burning way off in the canyons. She felt a breeze, and could hear the rustling of the hibiscus hedge surrounding the patio, where the lawn swelled up to meet a row of petticoat palms. Below them, the grass was matted with dry brown fronds. It had been a long time since anyone had raked them up. Hector, the gardener, had quit a while back, and Val never lifted a finger. He had some scheme cooking, and was trying to get together a group of investors so he could open his own health spa. It would fail… just like all his other schemes.

Her stomach tightened. Clinging to the edge of the pool, she pedalled water. She had to do something … and soon. Or she’d stay stuck with Val, cramped in a tiny house with no place to hide from him, and roped to a desk typing stupid letters for that troll Rudy.

She remembered, too, how Rudy always seemed to

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be staring at Laurel. His bulgy eyes fixed on her like a toad’s on an iridescent-winged dragonfly. Seldom approaching her, but those eyes-always there, watching. A shiver coursed through Annie. What did Rudy want from Laurel? The same thing Annie suspected Val wanted from her?

No, that was too gross … too unthinkable.

Even so, she had to get out.

Then, in her mind, Annie heard her mother-the clear-voiced Dearie she remembered from when she was a little girl-drawl: The good Lord is fine for praying, kiddo, but when the going gets rough you’d best be off your knees and on your feet.

Annie now felt angry. Oh yeah? she thought. Then how come you killed yourself?

Annie pushed off against the slippery tiles with her feet and began furiously stroking her way across the pool. Swimming was her best sport. It was something you could do alone, where you didn’t have to depend on a team member not to screw up. And if you sweated, nobody would notice.

Gradually, Annie felt her anger dissolve into sorrow. If only Dearie had talked to her before she took those pills. Let her say good-bye at least. Now, as Annie climbed out of the pool and pulled on her nightgown (why hadn’t she thought to bring a towel?), it hit her like a slap that she really was on her own.

If only she could get her hands on that trust money! Maybe she could talk to Mr. Melcher at Hibernia, explain how important it was. Tomorrow she would call, make an appointment to see him.

Shivering with cold and dripping her way across the sun porch, Annie caught a sudden flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. She froze, and looked up. Val stood framed in the archway leading from the living room down a short flight of steps onto the sun porch. The shadows around her went from black to gray, and for an instant she thought she might pass out. There was no sound other than the soft ticking of water as it dripped from her wet hair onto the tiled floor.

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I

Moving with oiled grace, he glided down the four steps and crossed over to where she stood. In the orange glow of the tiki torches filtering in through the wide French doors, his wide tanned face, striped with shadows, reminded her of a tiger’s. He was wearing a pair of navy satin pajamas monogrammed in white with his initials: vc.

“You oughta put something on,” he said. “You’ll catch cold.”

“I was just going in.”

The sound of her own voice in her ears had the effect of a sprung catch, somehow unlocking her. She began walking quickly toward the archway. God, let him leave me alone. She felt his eyes on her, and realized that with her wet nightgown clinging to her she might as well be naked. She felt herself grow hot with embarrassment.

In the cavernous living room, Annie was crossing the rug in front of the fireplace-a blackened cave big enough to roast a buffalo-when she felt Val’s hand, shockingly warm and dry against her wet shoulder. Her heart seemed to stop. She spun away, banging her knee against a massive carved chair with a tooled leather seat. A bolt of pain shot up her leg, shocking her heart into sudden jarring motion. Blood rushed into her face, making it thump.

Then she saw that he was only offering her his pajama top, which he’d slipped off when her back was turned. She felt flustered, not knowing how to react. In his own crude way, he was trying to be nice … but that only made her loathe him more. Why didn’t he just leave her alone?

Annie stood there, staring at Val’s outstretched hand until it fell away. The pajama top slid in a little heap to the rug. His black eyes narrowed. The expression on his broad, planet; face was a mixture of sullenness and fury.

She tried to step past Val, but he caught her roughly. Holding her pressed against him, he cupped the back of her head, stroking it roughly. “Give me a break, kid. It hasn’t been easy for me either.”

On his breath, she caught an all-too-familiar whiff of booze. That made her even more scared. Val wasn’t a drunk like Dearie, but he liked his double scotches …

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and when he’d had two or three he sometimes turned mean and a little crazy.

Annie’s gaze fixed on an old steamer trunk that Dearie had picked up years ago at some antiques barn. Huge and bulky, with rusty metal straps binding its leather hide, it smelled richly of age and dark cargo holds. She remembered how once, when she was little, she’d climbed inside the chest to see what it felt like, and the lid had accidentally banged down, plunging her into horrible, smelly darkness. She’d screamed and screamed, and finally Dearie had flung open the lid and scooped her up.

At this moment, Annie felt she was in that trunk again, trapped, suffocated. And she knew with a horrible lurch of her stomach that no Dearie was going to rescue

hfr now.

Then anger took hold, and she tore away. Hugging herself, shivering so hard she had to clench her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering, Annie hissed: “It’s all your fault! You never loved her! You only married her because she was famous and rich. And then when she … she couldn’t work anymore, you treated her like … she wasn’t even there.”

“She was a drunk,” he snarled, a righteous gleam in his bloodshot eyes. “Way the hell before I met her. You know the saying: Once a drunk always a drunk.”

Over Val’s shoulder, on the fireplace mantel, light winked off a shiny metal surface: Dearie’s Oscar, the Best Actress she’d won for Storm Alley. Annie remembered how proud she’d felt that long-ago night, staying up late to watch her mother on TV, seeing Gregory Peck tear open the envelope and call out Dearie’s name, then Dearie herself, floating up onto the stage, starry in sequins, thanking everyone, hoisting the glowing statuette in triumph.

Tears pricked at Annie’s eyes, but she bit them back. She wouldn’t cry in front of Val. She would not give him the satisfaction.

“If my mother drank, it was your fault.” Maybe it wasn’t entirely true, but she wasn’t a bit sorry she’d said it.

“You little bitch.” Val grabbed her, his fingers dig-

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ging into her upper arms, pinching her. “You never even gave me a chance. Spoiled brat with your nose in the air, trotting off to that fancy school learning which fork to use, and how to ride a horse like an English pansy. You had it in for me since day one, little Princess Annie looking down at me like I was nothing but dirt.”

His eyes glittered in the darkness, black prisms reflecting a whole spectrum of ancient hurts.

Annie felt shaken. She’d never seen Val this mad, not even that time he’d hit Dearie. She sensed danger, like static faintly crackling in the still, scented air. “I’m going up now,” she said, shivering, biting her lip to keep her teeth from chattering. “I’m really cold.”

His lips stretching in a cold grin, Val leaned down and with one meaty finger hooked his pa jama top from the rug. He tossed it at her. “Put it on.” It wasn’t an offer.

Annie looked at the bundle of cloth as if it were a snake. She dropped it onto the floor and quickly stepped back.

With a low moan, Val fell on her.

At first she thought he was going to hit her. It felt as if he had hit her, a bruising blow to her mouth. It was so dark, and her head was spinning. She felt a sting of pain, and tasted blood where her teeth had cut the inside of her lip. Then she realized what it was: He was kissing her.

She tried to scream, to pull away, but he held her tightly. The sweet smell of his aftershave, mingled with the stale scotch on his breath, was suddenly overpowering, gagging her. Into her head popped that jingle, There’s something about an Aqua Velva man… .

Hysterical laughter bubbled up her throat.

This isn’t happening. God, please, make this not be happening. *

“I wanted you to like me,” he said in a little boy’s petulant voice. “I tried, but you … you wouldn’t let me. I would have been a good father. I … would have loved you.”

Annie, terrified, struggled to free herself. “Please

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… let me go.” She thought of something else. “Laurey might wake up.”

“She used me.” He went on as if he hadn’t heard. “She wanted me because I was her sister’s … Christ, I should have married Dolly. Do you think / wanted it to end like this? You don’t know what it was like for me …”

“Val,” Annie pleaded, truly scared.

With one arm, he held her tight, while with the other he began touching her. Cupping a breast, stroking her with a strange, unbearable tenderness. Annie felt as if she were dying.

“I only wanted you to like me,” he repeated sadly.

Summoning all her strength and twisting violently, Annie somehow managed to rip herself free of him. Ducking past Val, she felt strangely light, a comet spinning across a galaxy, her arms seeming to stretch on and on forever, until finally her fingers closed about something cold and hard-Dearie’s Oscar. For a crazy second, she saw her mother once again, up on the stage at the Pantages.

… and most of all I want to thank my little girl, who stayed up past her bedtime to watch me …

Blindly, as she whirled about, Annie swung the heavy gold-plated statuette like a club. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Val feint to one side. Annie realized later that if he hadn’t moved, she would have missed him, he was so agile and her swing so lousy. But she connected. The impact slammed through her arm like an electric jolt, and she felt as shocked as Val looked.

Blood streamed from a cut over his right eyebrow. He froze, his face the color of cottage cheese. Slowly, as if in a dream, he touched his fingertips gingerly to his forehead. “Oh,” he said in soft surprise, seeing his hand come away red. He sank down abruptly on the wide leather sofa. His arms and legs seemed to jerk at queer angles like a marionette whose strings have suddenly become tangled. A moment later he toppled onto his side and grew still. Frighteningly still.

I’ve killed him, Annie thought.

Terror was waiting for her somewhere in the back

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of her mind. But right now the only thing she felt was numb, as if she’d been shot full of Novocain. Staring down at Val’s bloody, crumpled form, she thought, calmly, sensibly, / won’t pack much. A change of clothes, underwear, toothbrush. And Dearie’s jewelry. I’ll take the small overnight bag, it won’t be so heavy. She couldn’t take the car; that had been a dumb idea in the first place. If Val wasn’t dead, only hurt, he would have the highway patrol after them like a shot.

Packing was easy. It was waking Laurel that was the hard part. She slept like the dead. And when Annie finally got her up, she wore a glassy look, as if she wasn’t quite sure whether she was awake or dreaming. She stared uncomprehendingly at Annie’s face, then at the jeans and sweatshirt Annie had thrown on.

“Come on,” Annie told her. “We don’t have much time.”

Laurel blinked, looking at that moment exactly like a doll, the kind you tilt back to make its eyes close. A pinkcheeked, blue-eyed baby doll who didn’t have the slightest idea what Annie was talking about.

“I have to go away,” she told her sister, more gently. “I won’t be coming back. Do you want to come with me?”

The glassy expression was gone; Laurel’s face crumpled in dismay.

“Where are we going?”

Annie was encouraged by the “we.”

She tried to think, but couldn’t come up with an answer. Maybe that had been her trouble before, trying to plan it out so carefully, when the best way might be just to make it up as they went along.

“On a bus,” was the best she could come up with. “You’d better hurry and get dressed before … before he wakes up.” |

Then, because Laurel looked so worried and scared, Annie hugged her.

“It’s going to be all right,” she said. “In fact, it’ll be fun. A real adventure.” To her own ears, it sounded about as much fun as going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

But first, they’d have to get to the bus depot. She

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wasn’t even sure where that was, or which bus they should take. Well, she’d figure it out somehow.

“Won’t we need money?” Laurel was on her feet, pulling her nightgown over her head. “I mean, for the tickets.”