“Kill me if you want, tell the police anything, I'm not giving you a dime, Steve Porter, or whoever the hell you are. You took everything I had to give for the past seven months. You conned me into believing that you loved me, you used me, you lied to me… you're not getting one thing more out of me. Ever!” And he could see in her eyes that she meant it, but he knew with total certainty that he was far more powerful than she was. And without saying a word to her, he walked over, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and yanked her head back.

“Don't ever talk to me like that again, Gabbie. Don't tell me what you will or won't do. You'll do exactly what I tell you, or I'll kill you.” Her eyes grew wide as she stared at him, and listening to him was like hearing an echo. “I want the money. Now. Do you get that? Or are you even dumber than I thought? I'm not going to fuck around with this. Now call the lawyer.” He pointed to the phone and waited for her to come to her senses.

“I'm not calling anyone,” she said calmly, although her knees were shaking. “The game is over.”

“No, it's not,” he said, releasing her again, wondering just how much roughing up it was going to take to make her understand that he meant it. Not much probably. She was scared of her own shadow. “The game is just beginning. The romance is over. The bullshit. The pretense. I don't even have to tell you I love you now to get what I want. All I have to do is tell you what I'm going to do to you if I don't. Is that clear yet?” She didn't answer him, but stood facing him from a few feet away, wrestling with her own silent demons. “Call the bank, Gabbie. Or I'm calling the police. The man is dead. You have his money. You had everything to gain from it. They'll believe me.” She wanted to kill him with her own hands, and the white rage he lit in her nearly overwhelmed her. She grabbed the phone off the desk and dialed the operator, and he saw it. “What are you doing?” He looked instantly worried.

“I'm calling the police for you. Let's get it over with.” He yanked the phone out of her hands immediately and hung up, and then with a single gesture, he ripped it out of the wall, and handed it to her.

“Let's be sensible about this, or do we have to discuss it all afternoon? Why don't we just go to the bank and get it? That's nice and simple. Then I catch an airplane to Europe, and it's all over. For you. For me, it's just beginning.”

“How do I know you won't tell the police anyway that I paid you the money to kill him?” It was just the evidence he needed, and she could see now that he would stop at nothing.

“You don't know that, and actually it's not a bad idea. But you'll have to trust me. You have no choice now. If you don't give it to me, I might kill you. It might be worth it to me for all the aggravation you've caused me.” It was suddenly her fault again… she was the one… he had to do this because she'd been such a bad girl… it wasn't his fault… he didn't want to do it… she made him…

“Kill me,” she said bluntly. It didn't matter anymore. There was always someone, something, trying to hurt her, blaming her for everything. It was always her fault, and there was always going to be another one, hurting her, leaving her, lying to her, threatening to kill her in body and spirit. In their own way, they had already killed her, and she knew it.

“You're a fool,” he said, approaching her menacingly. He was not going to be beaten by this woman, this fool he had been living with, sharing the pittance she made, having to steal five-dollar bills from hidden envelopes she kept under her mattress. He had lived on crumbs for long enough. He wanted the whole pie now. “Don't fuck with me, Gabbie.” But he could see in her eyes that he was getting nowhere with her, and he had no more time to waste. The others would be back soon, and he wanted his money. His money. It was his now. He had earned it.

Without saying a word, he put his hands around her neck and started to shake her, and she just stood there. She was letting him do it… just as she always had… she just stood there. She was the good little girl she always had been.

“I'm going to kill you, you fucking bitch,” he shouted at her. “Don't you understand that?” But there was a force in her he couldn't contend with, a bottomless place he could not reach and no one else had. He would have to kill her to do it, and he knew it. But he wanted the money from her more than he had ever wanted anything in his life, and he was not going to let her stop him.

“I hate you,” she said quietly, speaking not only to him, but to a chorus of others… “I hate you, Steve Porter.” He slapped her hard across the face then, and the familiarity of it was terrifying. She knew the sound and the feel of it, the force of it as she reeled from the blow and struck her back against the corner of the desk just behind her. And seeing her begin to fall, he grabbed her arm and yanked her toward him, striking her again, with his fist this time. He landed a crashing blow on the side of her head, and she could hear a sound like sandbags hitting the pavement, but she had no eardrum for him to damage, there was nothing he could do to her that hadn't been done before. She had lived the same nightmare for the first ten years of her life and he couldn't touch her, as he sent her flying. He struck blow after blow, pummeling her face and her body. And then he beat her head into the floor and she could only hear him vaguely in the distance, saying something about the money. He had completely lost control by then, she was an animal that had to be destroyed, a beast who wanted to keep him from everything he deserved and had dreamed of.

He pulled her to her feet again then, and when he threw her against the wall, she knew her arm was broken. But she no longer cared, about any of it. He would get nothing from her, and the life he sought to take from her now meant nothing to her. There had been too many lies, too many heartbreaks, too much pain, too many losses, and he was just one more. She saw a white light around her finally as she lay on the floor and he kicked her, screaming at her, to call the bank, to give him what he wanted, and telling her how hateful she was, how rotten, how he had never loved her. His words raged at her with as much venom as his fists did, and as she looked at him, she thought she saw Joe, and then the professor, and finally her mother, all saying something to her… Joe was telling her that he loved her and couldn't be with her… The professor was begging her not to let Steve do this to her, and her mother was telling her that it was all her fault, that she was as rotten as he said and she deserved it. But as she listened to all of them she knew the truth of what they were saying. That it was not her, but them… it was all their fault, not her own… it was Steve who was the villain… it was Steve who had killed the professor, and now her… and with a strength she never thought she could muster again, she staggered to her feet to face him. She was bleeding all over and her face was completely distorted. There was no way he could take her to the bank now, no way he could call the police, no way he could do anything but run, without the money. And with a final burst of rage, he lunged at her and tried to squeeze the last breath from her. He shook her until the room spun around her, and still she held on, still she clung to him, clawing his face and fighting back now. She would not let him do this to her, no one would ever do it to her again. She refused to let go of life as he tried to strangle her, and then finally he dropped her to the floor, kicked her one last time, and left her.

She didn't know if she'd won or lost as she lay there. And it didn't matter. They had all tried in their own way to kill her… Joe… her mother… Steve… her father… they had tried and failed. They had reached down as far inside of her as they could get and tried to destroy her spirit, tried to extinguish it like a small flame but it was always out of reach, just beyond them, and for that they hated her more than ever. Gabbie rolled over on her back, and looked up at the ceiling with eyes filled with blood and pain, and she saw Joe standing there, looking down at her, telling her he was sorry. And this time, when he held a hand out to her, and beckoned her, she turned away, and walked slowly alone into the darkness.





Chapter 23




MRS. ROSENSTEIN SAW Gabriella lying there as she walked past the professors room late that afternoon, on the way to her own room. There was blood everywhere, the furniture was overturned, and at first she didn't even see her. Gabriella looked like a limp rag doll. Her face was unrecognizable, her hair was matted with blood, there were bruises on her neck, and she lay so awkwardly, it seemed obvious to Mrs. Rosenstein that Gabriella was dead. She had to be, she appeared not to be breathing. And everyone in the house came when they heard Mrs. Rosenstein screaming.

One of the boarders called the operator immediately and saw that the phone had been torn out of the wall in the professors room. He was one of the few guests with his own phone line.

Everyone in the house stood huddled and crying as they waited for the ambulance to come. One of the new boarders had searched for a pulse and said that she still had one, but barely. And it was impossible to know how much damage had been done, given the obvious blows to her head. It was entirely possible, one of the boarders whispered, that she'd be brain-damaged forever… so young… so beautiful… So terrible… they all whispered as Mrs. Boslicki sobbed, as they all asked each other who could have done this. For a moment Mrs. Boslicki wondered if Steve had done this and run away, but when someone looked in his room his things were all there. They were dreading telling him what had happened.