“How the hell did you find me?” Her voice was sharp and her eyes were blazing. She had come three thousand miles to escape him and now here he was again.

“I had to.” He stared at her blankly. “You're my wife.” The baby-sitter sat there staring at him, looking frightened, and Vanessa instinctively reached over and took the baby protectively into her arms. She was watching her mother grow angrier by the moment and Vasili looked as though he were totally crazed. “Why didn't you come back?”

“I'm not ever coming back. And I don't want to discuss this here.” She glanced worriedly at the children. Vanessa had seen enough of this in the past, and she didn't want her seeing more now.

“Then, let's go in there.” He pointed to the bedroom, and Serena followed him into it with long angry strides. “I want you to come home!” He turned to face her, and she shook her head from side to side.

“No. Do you understand? No! I am never coming back to you, Vasili. Now get out of my house and get out of my life.”

“I won't!” He was shrieking. “You took my baby, and you're my wife, you have to come home to me if I tell you.”

“I don't have to do a damn thing. You're a bloody junkie and you almost destroyed me and my children—”

“But I didn't, I didn't …” he interrupted her. “I love you … I love you … I love you.…” And as he said the words he advanced on her, his maddened black eyes flashing into hers, his hands instinctively closing on her throat and squeezing harder and harder and harder, and she suddenly began to choke and then turned purple as he shouted, “I love you! … I love you! … I love you!” In the room beyond, Vanessa heard him, but after a few minutes she didn't hear her mother, and suddenly terrified, sensing that something was amiss, she burst through the door, with the baby still in her arms. What she saw in the bedroom was Vasili, kneeling, sobbing, on the floor, his hands still around Serena's neck, as she lay with her head twisted at an odd angle, her eyes open, her portfolio spilled out on the floor.

“What have you done to my mother?” She shrieked at him, clutching Charlie.

“I've killed her,” he said softly. “Because I love her.” And then sobbing hysterically, he collapsed on the floor beside Serena.





46

“And Vanessa? Can you think of something unkind to say about her too?” He was furious with his mother. He had been grief-stricken and numb ever since Serena's death, and even in the midst of the horror she had no kindness to spare for her only grandchild, and it soured the last of his feelings for her. Only Pattie seemed unusually sympathetic. Most of the time now Greg was too drunk to give a damn. But Pattie spoke constantly about what she read in the papers, and said that it was tragic that all of this should have happened to Brad's only child. For a time Teddy was touched at her concern for Vanessa, but as the days went by, it seemed to become an obsession with her and it made him nervous. She called him at the office to discuss it, and a few days before the matter was to be heard, she asked for the name of the judge.