“It's perfect.”

“So are you.” Mike said it as he got out of the car and held the door for her. He had been so stunned by the way she looked that he hadn't been able to move. “Get in the back, Avery. Darling, you sit in front.”

“Can't she sit on my lap?” Ben made a feeble protest as he scrambled toward the back, and Mike gave him the finger. “Okay, man, okay, don't get excited. I just thought maybe since I was the best man, and—”

“You'll be the dead man if you don't watch it.” But the mood was strictly a teasing one as Nancy settled herself on the front seat and beamed at the man she was about to marry. She felt a moment's queasiness about Marion, but she pushed it from her mind. This was the time to think only of herself, and Michael.

“What a crazy night … but I love it.”

They alternately joked and fell silent on the road to the tiny town Mike had in mind, and at last none of them spoke. They had a lot on their minds. Michael was thinking back to his interview with his mother, and Nancy was thinking of all that this day meant to her.

“Is it much farther, love?” Nancy was getting fidgety and her grandmother's handkerchief was beginning to look crumpled as it passed through her hands.

“Only about five more miles, guys. We're almost there.” Michael reached briefly for Nancy's hand. “Just a few more minutes, babe, and we'll be married.”

“Then speed it up, mister, before I get cold feet,” Ben sang out from the back, and all three of them laughed. Mike put his foot on the gas and swerved around the next curve, but the laughter rapidly shrank to a gasp as Michael veered helplessly to avoid a diesel truck occupying both lanes as it plowed mercilessly toward them, going too fast, and almost out of control. The driver must have been half-asleep, and the only sounds Nancy remembered hearing were Ben's anguished “Oh no!” and her own voice screaming in her ears. Then there was endless shattering of glass … shattering … breaking … metal grinding, crunching, roaring, engines meeting and locking and arms flying and leather tearing and plastic cracking as everything was covered with a blanket of glass. And then at last everything stopped, and the world was black.

It seemed years later when Ben woke up, lying with his head jammed into the dashboard and a horrible pounding in his ears. Everything was dark around him and there seemed to be a handful of sand in his mouth. It felt like hours before he could open his eyes, and the effort it took made him feel sick. At first he couldn't understand what he saw. Nothing seemed to make sense, and then he realized that he was looking into Michael's right eye. He was in the front seat with him, but all he could see was Michael, and there was a thin river of blood trickling slowly down the side of Mike's face, onto his neck. It was strange to watch it, but for a while that was all Ben did … watch … Mike … bleeding … Jesus. It dawned on him what was happening. Accident … there had been an accident … he and Mike had been driving and … he lifted his head from where it had lain and tried to look up but a blow as if from iron forced him back down. It was minutes before he caught his breath and could open his eyes again. Mike was still lying there, bleeding, but now Ben could see that he was breathing, and this time when he stirred nothing happened. He could lift his head, and what he saw just beyond Mike was the truck that had hit them, lying flipped over the side of the road. What he did not see was the driver, lying dead beneath the cab of the truck. It would be a long time before anyone saw that. And then Ben realized something more, that he was seeing it all through open windows. There was no more glass left anywhere in the car, they were wearing it all, crushed into tiny particles all around them. And on Mike's side there was also no door. And then he remembered something more. Somebody else had been in the car … Nancy was … and where were they going? It was all so hard to hold onto, and his head hurt so badly, and as he moved a horrible pain shot though his leg, into his side. He moved to get away from the pain, and then he saw her. Nancy … Jesus it was Nancy in some kind of red and white dress, lying face down on the hood … Nancy … she had to be dead … he didn't even care about the pain in his leg now, he dragged himself over the dashboard and to her side. He had to turn her over … get to her … help her … Nancy … And then he saw the fine powder that dusted Nancy's hair. She was wearing the windshield all over her dress, all over the back of her head, all over … My God. With the last of his strength he rolled her slowly to her side and then pitifully, like a terrified little boy, he began to whimper.

“Oh, my God …” There was no face left beneath the blood-soaked blue satin cap. He couldn't tell if she were dead or alive, but for one horrible instant, he hoped she was dead, because there was simply no more Nancy. There was no one there at all, not even a remnant of the once beautiful face. And then mercifully, in her blood and his tears, he passed out.





Chapter 4




He looked so painfully pale as his mother sat there watching him. Marion Hillyard sat in a corner of the room with a bleak expression on her face. She had been there before, in that room, on that day, watching that face … not really that face, or that room, but she felt as though nothing had changed. It was just like when Frederick had the massive coronary that had killed him within hours. She had sat there, just as still, just as frightened, just as alone. And he had … Frederick … she felt a sob catch in her throat again and she took a deep, sharp breath. She couldn't cry. She couldn't let herself think those thoughts. Her husband was gone. Michael wasn't Nothing was going to happen to Michael. She wouldn't let anything happen. She was holding on to him now with every ounce of strength she could give.

For a moment she turned her gaze to the nurse's face. The woman was watching Michael intently, but with no sign of alarm. He had been in a coma all that day, since the accident the night before. Marion had gotten there at five in the morning. She had called a twenty-four-hour limousine service and been driven up from New York. But she would have walked if she'd had to. Nothing would have kept her from Michael's side; she had to be there to keep him alive. He was all she had now. Michael, and the business … and the business was for him. She had done it all for him … well, not all for him, but for the most part. It was the greatest gift she could give him. The gift of power, of success. He couldn't throw that away on that little bitch … he couldn't throw it away by dying. Jesus. It was all her fault, that damned girl. She had probably talked him into this. She had …

The nurse got up quickly and pulled at Michael's eyelids, as Marion went tense and forgot what she had been thinking. She stood up silently and quickly and walked to the nurse's side. Whatever there was to see, she wanted to see it. But there was nothing. No change. The expressionless woman in white held his wrist for a moment and then mouthed the same words again. “No change.” She motioned toward the corridor then and Marion followed her outside. This time the woman's concern was not for Michael, but for his mother.

“Dr. Wickfield told me to ask you to leave by five o'clock, Mrs. Hillyard. And I'm afraid …” She looked menacingly at her watch, and then smiled apologetically. It was five fifteen. Marion had been at Michael's side for exactly twelve hours. She had sat there uninterrupted all day, with only two cups of coffee to keep her going. But she wasn't tired, she wasn't hungry, she wasn't anything. And she wasn't leaving.

“Thank you for the thought I'll just walk down the hall for a moment and come back.” She wasn't leaving him. Not ever. She had left Frederick. Only for an hour, to have dinner. They had insisted that she eat something, and it had happened then. He had died while she was gone. That wasn't going to happen this time. She knew that as long as she sat there, Michael wouldn't die. The damage was mostly internal, but even Wickfield felt he'd come out of the coma soon. Still, she wasn't taking any chances. They had thought Frederick would make it, too. There were tears in her eyes now as she stood staring blankly at the pale blue wall behind the nurse.

“Mrs. Hillyard? The woman gently touched her arm, and Marion started. “You ought to get some rest. Dr. Wickfield set aside a room for you on the third floor.”

“There's no need.” She smiled blankly at the nurse and walked away toward the far end of the hall. The sun was still bright in the window there, and she sat carefully on the ledge, to smoke her first cigarette in hours and watch the sun set over a white church in the pretty New England town. Thank God the town only looked remote, and was actually less than an hour from Boston. They had had no trouble bringing in the best doctors to consult, and as soon as he could stand it, Michael would be moved to a hospital in New York. But at least she knew that in the meantime he was in good hands. Medically, Michael had taken the worst of it. The Avery boy was pretty badly broken up, but he was awake and alive, and his father had had him taken to Boston by ambulance that afternoon. He had broken an arm, a thigh, a foot, and a collar-bone, but he'd be all right And the girl … well, it was her fault, there was no reason why she should … Marion stubbed out the cigarette with a quick crushing motion of her foot The girl would be all right too. She'd live anyway. The only thing she had lost was her face. And maybe that was just as well. For a fraction of a second Marion wanted to fight the anger, wanted to make herself sorry for the girl—just in case all that crap about Christian charity was true, just in case her feelings made some difference for Michael… just in case there was a God who would punish her by taking him. But she couldn't do it. She hated the girl with every ounce of her being.