Nightchild

Chapter 50

Blythe lay in a tight ball on the bed, staring at one of the solid oak posts her husband had meticulously and lovingly created with his hands. Those hands...so creative and talented, so comforting and soothing, making her want him like she never thought possible, so gentle and at the same time violent and frightening. Her mind was in turmoil as thoughts spun round. She kept seeing Nate's eyes filled with passion as he made love to her then their savage expression as he pounded again and again into the flesh of the young Cajun, who now lay on a cold slab in a sterile morgue somewhere in Dallas.

She bit hard on her lip, wanting physical pain to push aside the more horrible feeling of guilt. She ran her tongue over her lip and tasted the irony bitterness of her own blood. Moaning, Blythe rolled onto her back and stared unblinkingly at the ceiling, pulling a pillow to her stomach where she cradled it with desperate clinging arms. She was to blame for what happened. This was like before...like what happened to her twenty years ago. Except now, a young man lay dead while her rival clung precariously to life.

Why had Nate lied to the police? Why hadn't he told them of the fight? Was it to protect himself or her from further scandal? Could it really have been for her welfare? The idea ran fleetingly through her mind and she pulled it back, clinging to it as one would a rope to keep from falling into an abyss. It was a last hope, an excuse to justify the lies, the deceit.

Oh, how she wished she hadn't overheard Nate tell the police he'd been back for two days. He'd been sneaking around. He'd admitted going to Rene's, letting himself in. In her mind's eye, Blythe saw them in bed together...her husband and Rene Sanders. Like a bolt, she was struck with the vision of him going back to spend another night at the studio, of finding his lover with Joey.

Nate's chilling voice echoed in her head and she could hear him telling Joseph Tupelo that he'd kill him if he ever saw him again. But she couldn't think of that now. No, not now or she'd surely go insane. Blythe had heard Nate at the door but she'd withdrawn into herself, refusing to face him until she could clear her mind of the doubts that tormented her.

Again, the image of Rene's torn brutalized body, lying on the stretcher, flashed through the midst of her agonized thoughts. She saw, not Rene's face smeared with blood and dirt, her hair caked and matted but herself, Gentry Blythe MacLarren, a fourteen-year-old girl just as she'd appeared in the photograph in that newspaper years ago. With this image, Ma's words rang forebodingly in her ears, 'history repeatin' itself', she'd said. Blythe brought the pillow to her face, covering her eyes from the haunting vision, pressing it against her ears to smother the resounding words.

It was true. She knew it. It was her fault. She should never have come here, should never have trusted in love. Herself, that's all she'd ever been able to depend on. As long as she hadn't let anyone else into her world, as long as she'd kept running, she'd been safe...and she hadn't been hurt.

She blinked heavy lids as languor took over her mind. The sleeping pills were beginning to work their splendid magic. She'd taken three more than usual and for the first time in a long while actually welcomed sleep, the omnipresent fear of her nightmares preferable to the blame she was certain was hers and the very real fear of a very real world.

#

Only the luminous numbers of the clock radio provided light in the pitch bedroom. Rolling onto her side, Blythe glanced drowsily at it and smiled in relief. One A.M. Then it had all been a dream that she was happy to awaken from. Automatically, she reached for the reassuring warmth of her husband lying protectively by her. Her fingers searched cold empty sheets and mindlessly, she spun over to nothingness. Bolting up to a sitting position, Blythe rubbed at her swollen eyes and slowly the day's events began to whirl in her mind unintelligibly. Dizzy, she grasped the bed post for support. Her head spun and she grew more unsteady as nausea engulfed her and all thought became impossible.