Faces of Fear

“You really mean that?” Michael asked. “I mean, the way I hope you mean it?”

“I would have meant it the day we met if I’d had the guts to say it, but I was sure if I did, it would only scare you off. So, yes — I really mean it now. We’re going to end up together anyway.” The words seemed to hang in the air for a moment, and then something in Michael’s eyes changed.

The love Scott had been certain he saw there only a moment ago had shifted into a look of uncertainty. “Oh, God,” he whispered, the happiness draining out of him. “I’m an idiot. What am I pushing you for? Just forget what I said. Do whatever feels right to you. If you don’t want to live here, that’s fine. We’ll find you somewhere else —”

Michael shook his head. “It’s not that. It’s Alison—” He fell silent. How could he tell Scott what he was thinking as he imagined Risa telling Alison that her father was gay and now living with another man? Would he lose Alison, too? He couldn’t! Suddenly he wanted things to be the way they’d been only a few hours ago, when he’d had a family. He liked having a daughter, and he liked having a wife. Alison had been the center of his world since the day she was born, and Risa his best friend for more than twenty years.

Except, he realized, that wasn’t quite true. If she’d truly been his best friend, wouldn’t he have told her the truth about himself years ago? And if she was truly his wife, why hadn’t they acted like more than roommates for more than half of those twenty years?

Now he looked at Scott, at the face of a man whom he loved more than he could ever have imagined loving another human being even three months ago. A man who was not Alison, but who had become every bit as important to him as his daughter.

And he knew he couldn’t go back to being Risa’s husband. He’d gone way past that a long time ago, and there was no turning back, even if he wanted to.

Scott let the silence hold. He knew exactly what Michael was going through, and it was a process Michael had to go through himself. Though he was already certain that, in the long run, Alison would love her father just as much as she ever had, he also knew how hard that idea might be for Michael to accept right now. Scott knew that all he could do was let Michael know that whatever he was going through, he was not alone. “I love you,” he finally whispered.

Michael’s tortured eyes fixed on him. “It seems like I hurt everyone who loves me.”

Scott smiled. “I’m willing to take that risk.” He reached over and took Michael’s hand. “I know you won’t believe me right now, but everything really is going to turn out all right. Risa’s not going to kill you, and Alison’s not going to hate you, and you and I are going to be just fine.”

Michael closed his eyes and felt Scott’s warmth next to him. Was it possible? Could he finally live with no more lies, and no more wondering if everyone knew about him? But as he felt Scott’s arms slip around him, he suddenly knew as much as he could know, at least right now, that he was with the person he wanted to be with, needed to be with.

“Come on,” Scott said, pulling Michael to his feet. “Let’s go to bed.”

An hour later, with Scott’s arms still wrapped around him, Michael fell into the deepest sleep he’d had in years.

He was home.

5

CONRAD DUNN STARED DOWN INTO THE SMASHED FACE OF HIS WIFE, and all the love he’d ever felt for her dissolved into a cold, dark fury.

On purpose. Margot had done this on purpose.

Diving head first onto the rocks below the bluff in Palos Verdes was one thing, but diving face first was entirely another.

What Margo had done wasn’t simply a matter of killing herself. No, she had taken it much, much further, deliberately destroying the best work he’d ever done.

Sabotage. After all he’d done to make her so beautiful — to turn her face into a work of art — her dying act was to destroy not only herself, but his work — his brilliant work — as well.

The last of his grief and his guilt evaporated as he gazed down at the pulpy mess Margot had made of his greatest, most perfect creation, and he had to grip the edges of the stainless-steel table to maintain his balance.

Danielle DeLorian, already wearing a rubber apron, took the dress he’d brought from Margot’s closet from his hand before he dropped it, hung it carefully on a hanger the mortuary had provided for that purpose, then stood next to Conrad as he fixated on the ruin that had been his wife.

“She did this on purpose,” Conrad breathed, his voice trembling.

“You don’t know that,” Danielle countered.

“I know,” Conrad assured her, his eyes boring deeply into hers. “Believe me, I know.”

“Well,” Danielle said, looking up at the clock, more to break the lock Conrad held on her gaze than because she needed to know the time, “we have a lot of work to do if you’re still going to insist on an open casket.”

“Oh, we’re having an open casket all right,” he said, his voice grim. “I told her I would make her beautiful again, and by God I intend to do it right now.”

The act of putting on an apron and a pair of rubber gloves gave Conrad a moment to reject his rage and put both his brain and his emotions into professional mode. This was a reconstruction job, nothing more. He’d been doing those all his life, and as he looked down at the wreckage that lay on the table, he knew exactly what needed to be done to repair it.

All of it.

He gripped the chin and moved the head back and forth.

The head, not her head.

“Fortunately, most of the damage was done to the right side,” he said. Much of the scarred skin was missing, along with the underlying tissue. Bones had shattered, and what skin was left had blackened at the edges.

The eyeball was missing.

He turned the head and probed with practiced fingers. “On the left, it’s mostly abrasions and contusions.” His fingers probed further. “There’s an orbital fracture here, but that’s relatively simple.”

“Perhaps there’s a way to orient her in the coffin so her good side—” Danielle began as she tested the iron in preparation for curling Margot’s newly washed hair into gentle waves.

“When I’m finished,” Conrad cut in, “there won’t be a good side. There will be two perfect sides.”

He set to work, first filling Margot’s mouth with cotton, so her cheeks wouldn’t appear so sunken, then doing the same with the empty eye socket. The lids would be closed anyway, so there was no need to replace the eyeball itself. Next he trimmed off the black, curling edges of skin with a pair of surgical scissors and began cutting away the mess of crushed flesh and shattered bone beneath. When the last of the debris had been cleared away, he picked up a jar of putty from the tray of instruments and began to sculpt one half of Margot’s face.

“Be careful not to tug,” he warned Danielle as he smoothed putty around the cotton-stuffed eye socket.

She nodded silently and continued working as efficiently and expertly as Conrad himself, laying the flowing waves of hair around Margot’s head so they would neither be soiled by his work nor be in his way. Only when the face was finished would she finally lay the hair over Margot’s shoulders.

Two hours later the reconstruction was finished. Conrad stood back, regarding his work with the detachment of the complete professional. The face looked smooth and blank, like a freshly fired ceramic doll’s head.

Danielle opened her cosmetics case and laid everything out on a tray. “Go get a cup of coffee or something, Conrad,” she said, looking up at the big clock on the wall. “Or lie down for a while. You’re exhausted.”

“Not until she’s perfect,” he replied.

With an expertise in her own field that was equal to Conrad’s in his, Danielle began applying makeup to the colorless putty from which he had rebuilt Margot’s face, and as Conrad watched, his wife slowly began to emerge from the blank, expressionless facade he had created.