To the Edge (39 page)

"It's OK, Jillie. I'm used to shedding blood. And I'm going to enjoy shedding yours. Maybe I'll make it quick after all," Diane said, reconsidering, suddenly turning generous, caring. "Because, after all, you worked hard for me. You got me great ratings."

Oh God. This was it. If she didn't do something, it would be her blood mixing with Diane's to stain the pillow.

Jillian flinched as with her bloodied hand Diane brushed Jillian's hair away from her forehead. And raised the knife.

Jillian screamed, in outrage as much as denial and fear. It caught Diane by surprise. She hesitated for a split second, her knife hand poised above her head in strike position.

Diane's hesitation was long enough for Jillian to grab the phone and swing it with all her might.

"Fuck!" Nolan roared when he realized the elevator was stalled on the penthouse floor. He sprinted for the stairs, cursed his hangover as he raced up the steps, taking them two at a time. His thighs burned. His lungs were on fire by the time he made the fourteenth floor.

The gun in his hand, however, was rock steady.

He inched the stairwell door open. The hall was clear.

He eased inside. Hugging the wall, he moved carefully toward Jillian's door. The doorknob felt cool beneath his hand. He punched in the security code and quietly opened the door.

He entered the penthouse low, in firing stance, arms extended directly ahead of him, the Berretta gripped in both hands. His labored breath and the pumping like pistons of his blood through his ears were the only sounds he heard. The strong, cloying scent of perfume was almost gagging. He was trying to gauge the significance of that detail when he heard the voice. Childlike. Almost giddy. Undoubtedly insane. And barely recognizable as Diane Kleinmeyer's.

It came from Jillian's bedroom. Other than the scent of perfume that grew stronger as he crept down the hall, only one thing registered in his brain: he didn't hear Jillian.

Breath stalled in his chest, he prayed he wasn't too late as he paused, his back pressed against the wall just outside Jillian's bedroom door. Despite the sweat trickling down his back, when he heard the voice again, then, thank you, God, Jillian's cautious reply, relief combined with fear to feed the icy chill shivering down his spine.

"Maybe I'll make it quick after all. Because, after all, you worked hard for me. You got me great ratings."

The silence that followed stopped his heart. The scream that rent the air in its wake curdled his blood.

Fuck caution.

He shot into the room like an RPG. Sized up the situation on the run and dived for the bed.

He caught Diane around the waist and jerked her away from Jillian just as she slashed the knife downward.

Grabbing a handful of comforter, he rolled, taking Diane with him. She fought like a wild animal as they thrashed across the bed, then spilled together in a tangled heap on the floor.

"It's over!" he said, rising to his knees above her. Straddling her hips, he pinned her wrists above her head on the floor. "It's over," he repeated while she kicked and sobbed and wrenched her head around.

"Nolan. Ease up, man. We've got her."

Breathing hard, Nolan glanced over his shoulder to see Laurens. The detective and two of his officers had moved in to restrain the crazed woman.

Nolan rose slowly, only then aware that the butcher knife Diane wielded had nicked him in the forearm. And even then barely aware of anything but Jillian.

Her gaze darted from him to Diane, who, even now, handcuffed and flanked by two burly officers, screamed at Jillian.

"No. She needs to die!" Diane screamed, fighting to break free. "She needs to die. Don't you see? I have to kill her. To pay him back for what he did to me. To my mother. To my baby sister. I promised. I promised." She broke down with heavy sobs.

"Get her out of here." Nolan cut his gaze from the pain washing across Jillian's face to Laurens. "Just... get her out of here."

Even after the officers had bodily removed Diane and shut the penthouse door behind them, her maniacal screams echoed, then finally faded away.

Nolan dragged a shaking hand through his hair. Looked toward the bed.

Jillian. He was damn tired of seeing her bathed in blood. Damn tired of feeling his heart ripped to shreds at the thought of losing her.

He wanted to ram his fist through the closest wall and just keep hammering until he felt more pain than she did. He walked to her side instead. Sat down. Gently wiped the blood from her face with the corner of the sheet. 'Tell me none of this is yours."

She met his eyes. Lost. So lost.

She shook her head. Steady to the end.

Except she couldn't quite pull it off this time.

She fought it, but her face finally crumbled; hot tears leaked down her cheeks. And hard as she tried to swallow back the haunting, keening cry, it pushed its way out from the very depths of her soul and rose to a heartbreaking moan.

Something very nearly like tears filled his own eyes as he carefully wrapped his arms around her and let her grieve.

Something very nearly like life filled his chest to bursting as her fragile, trembling warmth melted into him.

Then he simply held her... to keep himself from falling apart.

He smoothed the hair from her eyes, murmured assurances. Promised her it was going to be OK. Whispered that she should cry it out. Rocked her until the sobs subsided. Held her until she finally slept.

And as he leaned back against the headboard with this strong woman spent but not broken in his arms, he tried not to think about tomorrow and where they went from here, even though he knew what had to be done.

26

Jillian searched the faces of her
mother and father as sunlight slanted in through her penthouse windows. They sat beside her on the sofa while she clutched a toss pillow on her lap. The penthouse was eerily quiet, the gurgle of yet another pot of coffee brewing in the background the only ordinary sound in an otherwise extraordinary situation.

After she'd awakened from her meltdown late yesterday afternoon, Nolan had fed her, then helped her clean up. Then he'd put her to bed again. In the guest bedroom. Away from the blood. Away from the memory of what had almost happened to her.

Unlikely as the possibility had seemed at the time, she'd fallen into a dead sleep. And there she'd stayed until almost ten o'clock this morning.

Nolan was gone.

Her mother and father were there, had been, it seemed, since late yesterday.

Concern dulled their eyes. Weight pressed down on their shoulders in the aftermath of her near-death experience.

It was over. She was alive.

She was alive, but lives, it seemed, had changed. Her father's. Her mother's. Diane's. And her own.

Now more than ever, she needed Nolan by her side. The problem was, she didn't even know where he was. She shut out the pain that knowledge fostered, traded it for another kind of sorrow. Her father was suffering.

"It appears that Diane Kleinmeyer's real name really is Mary Gates," he said, and for the first time in Jillian's memory he looked toward her mother for support.

Clare covered his hand with hers, squeezed.

"And a long time ago I did have an affair with her mother."

Even more painful than his admission was the impact of seeing her father this way. Jillian had never seen him like this... off-balance, subdued. He was always a powerhouse of purpose and energy. Today, however, her mother appeared to be shoring him up. The role reversal was a little much to absorb.

It was even more of a stretch when it was Jillian's mother who picked up the threads of the conversation when her father seemed incapable of going on.

"We never discussed this, darling, but you were never intended to be an only child." Clare smiled sadly. "But you were our gift. Our one to a customer, it seems. I... I miscarried several times over the years after you were born. It... well, I'm afraid I struggled with the whys and the anger and the pain of it all for a long time. So much that I went into a very deep depression for several years. I still struggle with it." Again she stopped, smiled. "But then I don't have to tell you that, do I?'

"Mom, you don't—"

Clare shook her head. "It's all right. Let me finish." She glanced between Jillian and Darin, apology in her eyes. "I wasn't much of a mother to you during that period of time. Wasn't much of a wife to your father, either, I'm afraid."

"It still doesn't excuse what I did." Jillian's father's words came out slow and heavy. Like his breath. He averted his gaze from his wife to his daughter.

"I regretted the affair immediately," he said abruptly, and then, in something more typical of her father, he summed it up in abbreviated, concise words. "I never meant for it to happen. God. One night I had to get out of the house. I just drove. Finally stopped for coffee at this ... hell. I don't even remember where it was."

He paused, shook his head. "Anyway. Mary's mother was there."

"And you were lonely," Clare supplied, tears welling in her eyes.

Darin swallowed, looked at his hands. "Her name was Ruth Gates. I remember her telling me about her daughter. Mary was her name. She was just a little girl then."

He rose, shoved his hands deep into his pockets, and stared out the bank of windows. "I never saw her again. But it seems there was a child conceived as a result of my indiscretion."

"The baby sister." Jillian remembered Diane's words out loud, her mind struggling to wrap itself around these revelations. "You didn't know about the baby?"

Her father shook his head. "If I had I'd like to think I would have done right by the child."

Weary. He looked so weary. She was aware of the fact that her father was not a young man. Another first.

The silence seemed to stretch out to an unbearable length by the time her father spoke again. "The police have managed to put a sketch of a story together on Diane—Mary," he corrected, then, with a nod of encouragement from Jillian's mother, continued.

"Diane—I'm sorry—Mary, well, it goes without saying that she's a very troubled young woman. It appears that her mother—" He stopped. Tears filled his voice.

"It's all right, dear." Clare picked up the thread of thought when Darin choked on the words. "Her mother was apparently prone to psychotic episodes. The police have tracked Mary to a suburb in Miami where she and her mother and sister lived. Records indicate that Family Services had been called in many times due to various reports from Mary's school, from concerned neighbors."

"She was abused?"

Her father nodded. "It was never proved, but yes, every indication is that she was. Mary's been very vocal since she's been transferred to a psychiatric facility. She ... well, she's related in graphic detail some of the terror her mother inflicted on her and the other child."

And again Clare came to his aid. "Mary tells stories of being burned with cigarettes, cut with knives, being shut in dark closets for days. And all the while, it seems her mother told her stories about Darin and how he had fathered Mary's sister and how much pain that child had caused her. Eventually, she killed the child and herself. With a knife," Clare added after a sickening moment. "Mary found them."

Jillian felt physically ill. "Oh God."

"Apparently, it was years ago when Mary was still a child herself. She ended up in foster home after foster home, a very disturbed child. The system lost track of her after she turned eighteen and the rest is conjecture at this point, but the psychiatric staff is proceeding with her treatment on the assumption that Mary suffered her own psychotic episodes. No matter how unstable her mother was, she still represented Mary's only constant. Her only anchor. When she died, Mary took it upon herself to avenge her mother's and her baby sister's deaths."

"By killing my daughter to get to me," Darin added numbly.

Heartsick over her father's torment, Jillian added her hand to her mother's where it covered Darin's. "It's not your fault. You didn't know about the child. You couldn't have. And I don't have to think about it. I
know
you would have done the right thing by her."

"I don't know if the two of you can understand this," he said, conviction returning to his voice as a bid for understanding filled his eyes, "but since I couldn't help that little girl, I feel compelled to help Mary now. She'll need psychiatric treatment, legal assistance. And she's alone."

"Of course we'll help her," Clare said gently, astounding Jillian yet again with her generosity of spirit and support. When the full story hit the news, the scandal would rock the Palm Beach social scene to its well-heeled roots. It would not go well for Clare.

Jillian had never felt more love or more pride for her. And never had Jillian felt more empathy for her father. His suffering made her realize there was even more than she'd thought to this strong man who could anger her to the point of seeing red, frustrate her into speechlessness, and yet love her unconditionally.

"I love you, Daddy. I love you both," she whispered as tears misted her eyes. "We'll all help her."