Prologue

 

When she was five she would have run for cover, scurried under the bed, closed her eyes, shut her ears with the palms of her hands and shivered in the stormy darkness until the violence passed - the thunder but a distant echo, the lightning vanished. But she was not five. At twenty-one and on the verge of womanhood, she was too rational to give in to the terror of a belligerent thunderstorm. What could have sent her scurrying for cover on this night was not the storm but angry voices, livid accusations, and raging bellows rising from the music room, which even with the storm were far too terrifying to ignore. The power in that sector of the city had gone out just as the door slammed shut behind Phillip Wittendon's ten o'clock visitor. An omen, perhaps? The harsh exchange immediately followed. The first 'You fucking bastard!' to befoul the air hurt like a carving knife spearing her gut. She grabbed her belly, wincing at the noxious sound, but rather than flee to the closet or under the bed as she would have when she was young, she pushed back the immediate feeling of panic and kept her ear tuned for more. For her efforts, she got quite an education from the escalating verbal battle, for despite clamorous explosions and pelting rain, this heated quarrel demanded to be heard, and yet the identity of her father's guest was unknown to her.

Phillip ripped into his guest with a flurry of allegations that finally drew the alarmed Rebecca from her room. She listened, praying for the fight to end and for the stranger to disappear. But as the tenor of his words became more strident, a horrible dread consumed her and she remained paralyzed by fear. She stood in the hallway trembling, afraid to take the first step toward the inky territory at the bottom of the stairs. She carried a flashlight in her hand - though it was hardly needed with flashes of bright white erratically streaking the air and illuminating the otherwise dark house.

In the quiet interval before the next clap of thunder Rebecca thought she heard a scuffle. Her fear quickly redoubled. Of all the horrible moments she'd endured in her father's fancy London townhouse, this one seemed more foreboding than all of the horrible moments that had gone before.

Walk away, you fucker, leave, please, please go! she silently pleaded with the visitor.

With the next flash of lightning the sound of a gunshot crackled through the steamy night. Her body went weak as if her life was about to drain away. Then a door slammed, and suddenly, in the interval that followed, a strange sort of quiet replaced the furious commotion on the first floor. Rebecca hesitated, trying to screw up her courage for a descent into the black abyss. She listened, praying that she'd hear her father's voice, or the intricate notes of a moody nocturne rising from the music room, but the storm ramped up again and its noise drowned out any subtle sounds, any clue of things amiss. She could hardly hear herself think.

Fuck! What now? She waited, wishing she could crawl in bed and forget about the whole damn scene, but the sound of the gunshot still reverberated through her mind and wouldn't stop. Go! her inner voice shouted like an angry mother. Go to him, Rebby, now! You have to go, you little chicken shit! The shouting got louder inside her head. You fuckin scaredy-cat, go! But she was not half as brave as the wild girl inside her brain...the one who ran around with the rough crowd, that took the drugs and giggled afterwards, that got arrested and tossed in jail.

As her mind tried to manage the fear, she fought back the urge to flee-to run far from the house, her life and the terror in the downstairs rooms. Her saner, gutsier self pushed her forward and drove her down the steps. At first, her limbs were weak and her body shaking. She could barely breathe. But then Rebby, her cocky alter ego, kicked in and she gave up the hesitation, taking a first step, then a second and third, and continuing until she reached the bottom of the stairs. Her right hand clenched the flashlight in a steely grip, her other hand was balled up in a fist. Her shoulders and neck were tight with tension, and she feared that any second she might snap. She took a moment to catch her breath and summon a little more of Rebby's wild spirit, but with the next burst of lightning, her eyes leapt on the image before her. Her hand flew to her face and she stepped back, emitting a tiny shriek. Although the flash of light was quickly gone and the darkness returned, Rebecca's eyes remained riveted on the tile floor before her. She waited to confirm what she had seen, and with the next flash of lightning, she lurched forward, with the flashlight falling from her hand as she fell to the floor and grabbed for the gun. The barrel was still warm against her sweaty palm, and if she took the time to sniff the air, she would have detected the lingering scent of gunpowder.

For a moment, she seemed to rise above her body and witness the scene with perfect clarity. However, she wasn't ready to accept the truth; she had to see it for herself. Rising to her feet, she moved as if in a dreamy trance toward the music room and stopped there, pushing the door wide open with her right hand, the same hand that held the gun.

Although her suspicions about what she'd find were not wrong, she was not prepared for what she saw. She instantly stepped back and did an about-face - as if turning her back on the sight would make it disappear. But when she turned around again, the ghastly tableau was as fixed and real as the walls of the penthouse, its polished floors and solid doors.

Directly before her was Phillip's magnificent concert Steinway - gun-splatter dotting the ivory keys. On the floor beside it lay her father's twisted body in a pool of darkening blood. Bloodstains covered the front of his white starched shirt and his face was plastered with a final grimace. Fitting, she thought in one brief moment of clarity, that he would be grimacing with despair at the moment of his death. How like he was in life. Never happy. Never pleased. Not with himself nor his daughter nor the world that had given him fame and fortune.

She tiptoed in for a closer look at the warped expression, and with a scowl of her own, she fell to the floor and slammed the gun down on his chest - like a punctuation mark to the man's sudden demise. A huge wave of emotion engulfed her slight body and she fell over, sobbing. Her mind reeled, turning crazy for a moment. "You ass, you fucking ass..." she quietly repeated as she limply banged the gun against her father's bloody chest. "You've really done it now..."

She couldn't count the number of times she'd wished him dead. Times when her anger swelled as large and expansive as his - she was her father's child, after all. The comparisons in their temperament were fitting. Now awash with anger and fear of the terrible unknown before her, she could only sob.

Once the emotion finally subsided, Rebecca forced herself back to the present. Lifting herself from the dead body, she rose to her feet. She was unsure how to feel. However, as the enormity of the moment began to creep into her consciousness and she looked down at her clothes, she knew she'd made a huge mistake. Her nightgown was covered in blood, the oozing crimson still seeping into the white fabric as it hung in the pool of red. She stepped back, then frantically gazed around as she struggled to decide what to do. Her eyes landed on her father's cell phone sitting innocuously on the piano bench.

Call the police. 999. That's all you have to do, she heard herself think. But the doubts kept piling on and her fear increased with every dreadful moment that ticked by. She was dazed, unsure, and could barely hear above the confusion in her head. Yes, yes, of course, she should call the police. But when she reached for phone and saw the name of her father's solicitor, Arthur Steele, glaring back at her from the lit screen, she hit the dial without thinking further. The efficient, clear-thinking man who had kept their lives from going off-kilter on numerous occasions would have to come through for her now. Nice work, Rebby, he's saved us before, he'll do it again. Her alter ego was happily satisfied. But Rebecca couldn't help but think that regardless of what Arthur could do to help her, she was still headed for disaster.

 

***

 

"Your choices are limited, Rebecca," Arthur stated flatly. Despite her bloody nightclothes, Arthur had sat her down in a chair and ordered her to stay put as he scrutinized the scene then quickly searched the rest of the rooms on the lower floor of the condo. During that time, Rebecca remained frozen in her seat in the music room, shivering, her eyes closed - she couldn't bear to look at her dead father. When Arthur finally returned to the music room, he gazed at Phillip's skewed body one more time, then at her. She looked at him, wondering what rabbit he'd be pulling out of his bag of tricks to make this nightmare go away. But this time there was no white rabbit, no easily sweeping a bad scene under the rug. Arthur's verdict would be a tough one to swallow.

"Arthur, please, you can make it go away, can't you?" she pleaded. Her sorry eyes were puffy from crying and still filled with tears.

"Go away? Go away?" His eyes flashed as ominously as the lightning that streaked the room in garish bursts. He scowled, then humphed, sighing, then with beady eyes drilling her like two fixed lasers, he curtly reminded her of the horrible truth. "You think this will go away, you're more naïve than I expected."

"But I'm innocent!" she cried.

She could see from his disapproving expression that he didn't believe her.

She took a deep breath to settle herself and tried again, her voice unwavering. "Arthur, I did not kill my father."

He nodded. "Yes, yes, I'm sure," he spit out coldly. "It only looks that way from every angle I can see."

"Oh, please, you can't think that!" she looked to him, pleadingly. "I was upstairs, the storm was raging. I heard the gunshot...I panicked...picking up the gun..." her voice trailed off as she searched his face for even the smallest hint that he accepted her account - but she found none.

"Whether you're innocent or not, and frankly, I'm having a problem believing you are..." he scowled at her and went on, "regardless, once I call the police, they will descend on this scene like maggots, so will the paparazzi. You'll be grilled for hours by detectives who would like nothing better than to see you swinging from a gibbet. Not only will they dig up every arrest, every complaint filed, the tabloid innuendo will arraign, try and convict you a hundred times before a real jury finally decides your fate - which will not be good from what I see here. Make it go away? I can't if I call the police. That's the dilemma here - too many variables that I can't control. I'm afraid I don't have enough favors I can call in this time. Especially with your father gone." His sane words forced her back to the chilling reality of the last two years and the explosive relationship between the virtuoso pianist Phillip Wittendon and his precocious, rebellious daughter. "And let's not forget what happens once Lavinia arrives on the scene. You think she'll believe you? Champion your cause?"

Rebecca hung her head; just the thought of her stepmother and her stomach instantly soured. The woman had been separated from her father for two years, but they weren't divorced, and she'd never stopped hovering around their lives. Her haughty cunning was as menacing to Rebecca as her father's wrath. Following every one of Rebecca's legal skirmishes - the drugs, the reckless driving, the wild parties, the public tirades - Lavinia would be the first in front of the cameras, there almost by default. For his part, her father was content to let the woman speak for the family even when the Wittendons were no longer her family. Phillip wouldn't have her in his house, but he was more than happy to let her charm the press during times of crisis with her witty repartee and droll remarks as she moaned the fate of her volatile stepdaughter before the eyes of millions. She spoke as if she was still intimately involved with the family, and Phillip never bothered to correct this misconception, even as his disdain for her increased.