The Burying Place

blood became fire. She twitched in the snow, in agony, her brain scrambled into floating fragments.

He loomed above her, out of focus, doing cartwheels in her eyes. She wanted to resist, but she felt like a helpless rag doll, with useless arms and legs stuffed with sawdust. She was his toy. He owned her now. He had owned her since that night in the fog.

She was aware of being turned over. Felt snow and dirt pushing into her mouth. Felt her hands being taped. Felt him stroke her hair and whisper in her ear: 'Bad girl.'

He stood up, lifted her limp body into his arms, and carried her across the snowy ground.

PART FOUR IN RUINS

Chapter Forty-three

Valerie heard the front door open. She hadn't moved from where she sat near the fire. Her tears had dried on her cheeks. She heard the footsteps of her husband on the floor of the foyer, and the pounding of his leather heels felt like nails driven into her palms. He didn't call her name. He walked around the house the way a ghost would, ominous and unseen. She dreaded seeing him in the flesh. It was as if, all these years, he had hidden behind a disguise, and now she had finally seen his real face.

The footsteps stopped. When she looked up, she flinched, watching his tall frame fill the doorway. He brought a smell of cold and sweat. His suit was wrinkled, his tie loose. His angular jaw was dark with a long day's growth of beard.

'I need a drink,' he said.

He went to the wet bar and dropped ice into a lowball glass. He poured an inch of whiskey, drank it down in a single swallow, and gritted his teeth as the burn hit his chest. He poured more, draining the rest of the bottle.

'You heard?' he asked. When she didn't answer, he added, 'I'm sorry.'

He made no move to come to her or comfort her. Thank God. She couldn't bear for him to touch her. He sipped his drink and ignored the hostile silence. Her head swirled with words to say, but none of them felt right. It was like being caught outside in the rain, only to realize it was really the deluge.

'Is that all you have to say?' she murmured. 'You're sorry?'

'What else do you want from me? I don't have anything to give you right now.'

That was true. He had never had anything to give. Not from the very beginning.

'I want you to tell me what you did,' she said. 'I want to hear it from your mouth.'

He put down his drink and shook his head. 'Ah, fuck, not you, too.'

Valerie pushed herself off the floor. 'I always wondered how a father could hate his daughter,' she told him. 'Secretly. Deep in my heart. I never admitted it to anyone, even when I saw how you were with her. Denise used to tell me that she was scared, that I shouldn't leave Callie alone with you. I told her she was crazy, but somewhere inside, I wondered.'

'This is crap. I never felt that way. You've been brainwashed.'

'You're right, I have. By you. I've worn blinders for years. I wouldn't allow the thought into my brain. I willed it away. Even when Callie disappeared, I convinced myself that the rest of the world was wrong about you. Blair Rowe was wrong. Your lovers were wrong. You didn't really say what you said to them, about wishing Callie had never been born. Not you. You couldn't think that. No man could think that.'

'Valerie, I didn't mean it like that.'

'How did you mean it?'

'I was angry. I was blowing off steam. That's all it was.'

'Angry? At a little baby girl?'

'Angry at you.'

She tensed. 'OK. I deserve that. I cheated on you.'

'Oh, Christ, it's not that. I'm no saint, and I never pretended to be. Hell, if Tom Sheridan could make you happy, good luck to him, because I sure as hell could never figure out how to do it. I gave you all the money you could ever want. You had a life that every woman in this town envied. But that wasn't enough. You walked around this house like you were an empty shell. Once a week, you spread your legs and let me inside like you were doing me some kind of favor. Get it over with, Marcus, so I can get back to feeling sorry for myself. Yeah, I was angry. I'm still angry.'

'You could have divorced me,' she said. 'You could have found someone else. Why did you have to take your anger out on Callie?'

'I did not do that. And I don't want a divorce.'

'Were you waiting for me to go away?' she asked. 'Did you need a night when I wasn't in the house?'

'You're out of control. Let me get you a sedative.'

'Absolutely. Drug me up. That's the answer.'

He didn't reply.

'At least tell me it was an accident,' she whispered. 'Tell me you're not really that cold-blooded.'

'I'm tired of accusations,' he told her bitterly as he turned for the door. 'I'm going to bed.'

'You stand there and listen to me!' Valerie screamed.

He froze and slowly turned back. Valerie stalked across the room. Her face was twisted in fury.

'Did you ever love me, Marcus? God, look who I'm asking. You can't love anyone but yourself. I knew you were selfish, but I had no idea how far you'd go to keep me focused solely on you. Was that the problem? Were you jealous that Callie made me happy and you didn't?'

'Yes, a little,' he admitted. 'But that doesn’t mean anything.'

'Poor Marcus. His beautiful wife wasn't paying enough attention to him. She was too busy with another man's child.'

He opened his mouth to say something and then shut it. He rubbed his chin with the tips of his fingers. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. 'Are you telling me Callie's not mine?'

'Don't you lie to me and pretend you didn't know,' Valerie hissed. 'Don't you even dare.'

He shrugged. 'Having doubts isn't the same as knowing. It was three years, Valerie. You were having an affair. You must have wondered too.'

Three years.

Valerie heard the words and felt them cut her open. He was so casual about it. Three years. As if it were a moment in time, not the hell she had suffered month by month, falling into the blackness of a hole that never ended. The hole he had dug for her. Knowingly. Deliberately. With malice aforethought.

'Three years,' she told him, her voice raspy with grief. 'Three years, Marcus. You saw what I went through.'

It was in his eyes. They became nervous and feral. For the first time, the thought must have entered his brain that she knew.

'You agreed to have a child to make me happy,' she continued. 'To shut me up. To throw a bone to your poor, suffering, suicidal wife.'

'I told you from the beginning that I didn't want children,' he said. 'You said you were OK with that.'

Valerie shook her head. 'I really believed it back then. That was when I thought I would have a husband to live with, not a robot. But you. You sat there and agreed that we could have a baby. Did you see what it did to me? Did you see I was happy for the first time in my entire life? Was it really asking so much to make that a part of our lives?'