Head to Head (32 page)

Nicholas Black insisted that I recuperate at his villa in Bermuda. I objected, of course, telling him that Harve was going to need me after what had happened with Dottie. He said Harve could go, too. Could have his own private guesthouse and his own private nurse who wasn’t a goddamn eunuch in disguise.

So away we went on Black’s Lear jet and found Bermuda was a beautiful, lush paradise with turquoise waters and balmy winds and pastel villas. Black’s villa was pale pink stucco, with a pool overlooking the ocean and three guesthouses strung amid the verdant flowers and glades of trees above the beach.

Thomas Landers, aka Dottie Harper, didn’t die and was locked up in a hospital for the criminally insane. Poor Thomas had killed his last victim, and I still remembered very little about him when we were childhood playmates. Black had a whole team of colleagues treating him, mainly because Black wanted to know why he’d chosen poor Sylvie Border as a victim, but also because Black would probably kill him with his bare hands if he ever laid eyes on him again.

So far Thomas had been quite forthcoming about his murderous past and said he had wanted the publicity Sylvie’s death would bring down on me, wanted me to be exposed and to suffer through a public revival of my son’s death. Sylvie had died as a means to an end. It was a tragedy, all of it, and I didn’t like thinking about it, so I didn’t, except when I awoke in the dead of night in a cold sweat and looked to see if decapitated heads on Blue Willow plates were in bed with me. But it was always Black in bed with me, and he came in very handy at nightmare time.

I was reclining in a chaise in the shade, feeling a bit like Madonna or Barbra Streisand, or any other rich, pampered woman. Except my lower leg was in a cast, and I had about fifty stitches in my upper chest and arm. We’d been in our little Garden of Eden for over a week now, and Black had canceled all his appointments and rarely left my side. He had gotten over his own encounter with the stun gun and was angry he’d let a she-male get the jump on him. I told him he should’ve used the old duck-and-weave boxing technique he liked to tell me about. He told me that we both needed practice in that regard, and that he was enjoying my company now that I couldn’t kick his legs out and frisk him. I said I thought he liked that, but what I really thought was that he wanted me around to make sure I hadn’t gone completely bonkers after spending the night with my old friend Thomas.

Truth was, I probably did need some intense psychological care, and one good thing about Black was, he didn’t mind doing it in bed with lots of other pleasurable things going on at the same time, too. It didn’t hurt, either, that he was a doctor and could prescribe all the painkillers I’d ever want or need. I think he probably thought it a good way to keep me quiet, too.

“Time for a painkiller.”

Black sat down beside my legs. He was wearing black swim trunks and had his shirt off, and despite his dark tan, I could still see all the little snakebite bruises where the stun gun had gotten him. He handed me a pill and a glass of iced tea, then laid a cool hand on my naked thigh. The cast stretched from below my knee to my toes. I was wearing a yellow string bikini because Black thought it was easier for me to get it on and off around all my casts and bandages. Off, mainly. But I was okay with it. I was okay with everything now, especially with Black.

“I’m feeling pretty good.”

“Maybe I should check your bandage.”

“Maybe you should quit worrying so much and relax. I’m not used to being pampered and taken care of.”

“Get used to it,” he said, his mouth finding mine in a kiss as slow and thorough as the rest of his lovemaking. I put my good arm around his neck and drew him down beside me on the wide chaise.

Yeah, okay, so I had been wrong about him. He wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, he was pretty damn good.

Brat liked the big hospital pretty much but was angry that they took his mother and her friends away and buried them, just as if they owned them. The mother didn’t like the dark, and she hated bugs. She must have been so angry. Sometimes the smell in the wide, shiny corridors reminded Brat of his father’s embalming room down in the cellar. Brat spent his days talking to the doctors, who were nice and hung on his every word, even the big lies he told them. They said Brat would probably never get out and be free again, but Brat knew better. Brat went to the hospital library every day and read all about psychiatry and mental illness and disassociative disorders and psychopaths and personality disorders and listened to everything the doctors said about Brat’s own case.

When the time came, Brat would know what to say to get out of this place, even if it was sort of pleasant here, and then Brat would go looking for Annie again. Brat loved her so, and right before the man named Black kicked Brat in the head and ruined everything, she’d said she’d come live with Brat and travel in the trailer with them and meet all the friends he brought home. Why, there was one special nurse that gave Brat medicine who had long blond hair twisted into a crown of braids. She would be a perfect friend. Brat had been watching her ever since they locked him up. And he could find more Blue Willow plates at any flea market around.

Oh yes, Brat couldn’t wait for that day to come. It would be so perfect, just Brat and Annie in the trailer together, driving all around the country and finding friends for their mommas. Heaven couldn’t be any better than that; he was sure of it. He got all excited just thinking about it! He hoped that his mother knew he was coming to rescue her…very, very soon.