For All of Her Life (39 page)

She stared up at the ceiling.

Then she began to run over every snatch of conversation she’d heard since she’d come to Star Island.

...
he’d do anything for me... anything
...

...
being a sleazeball exonerates him?

...
it was me...

I had to tell you...

She tossed and turned. She stared up at the ceiling. She narrowed her eyes. The room was dappled with light and shadow, moon-glow and illumination seeping in from the patio, since she hadn’t fully closed the drapes. She rose restlessly, walked to the window and pulled the drapes back farther. Then she inhaled sharply.

He was back. Jordan was standing by the window. The guest house was bathed in very soft light within, perhaps from a downstairs lamp, while Jordan was a dark form in the bedroom window. His was a compelling silhouette.

He was watching Kathy.

He raised a hand, beckoning to her.

She bit into her lower lip, furious with him.

She had to change things, if she wanted them to be different. She didn’t want to be proud or stubborn, to make him come to her. She just wanted to make things work.

She turned quickly, unlocking her door, silently running through the hallway, her white nightgown and red hair streaming behind her. She raced across the patio, around the bushes, to the side guest-house door.

She burst in.

And only then did she realize that it hadn’t been Jordan beckoning to her.

Only then did she recognize the murderer. For even as she entered the shadowed realm, a hand with a drug-soaked rag was slapped over her face.

And too late it all began to fall into place, even as she fell to the floor...

“T
ARA, YOU KNOW YOU’RE
going to be all right. They’re releasing you in the morning, and I’ll pick you up. I’m afraid to stay away from the house right now.”

“You don’t want to stay away from her,” Tara told him petulantly.

She really looked stunning. Despite her concussion, she’d had the nurses bathe her, wash her hair, and dress her in something frothy and pink. She was glorious. And once again, reigning. Reporters had dropped by to interview her. God knew what they were going to write when all hell finally broke loose.

Actually, he didn’t care. Just as long as Kathy came out of it safely. And the others, of course. Why did he feel that Kathy was in the greatest danger? Because they all confessed to her, brought her their secrets? Because she was warm, caring, a champion...

His fear for her suddenly and irrationally began to grow. He stood.

“Tara, I’m sorry. I’ve got to go back. I’ll come for you tomorrow morning.”

He turned to leave. She caught his hand. “You’ve got to come back for me, Jordan. I have my career, you know; I can’t be humiliated.”

“God, no. We won’t let that happen,” he promised her. He kissed her forehead, extricated his hand, and escaped her hospital room. Impatiently he waited for the elevator to carry him to the ground floor.

He was running as he headed for his car.

Kathy had come around groggily, feeling as though she weighed a million pounds. She couldn’t move her limbs. It took all her strength just to open her eyes. When she managed to do so, the room was swaying. Nothing was clear.

She was staring at herself. At a very watery reflection of herself. Amazing. It was like a distorted mirror. Her reflection smiled. It wasn’t her. She wasn’t smiling.

She tried to form words. Could barely move her mouth. She knew she ought to scream, but she even couldn’t even whisper.

“You!” She managed to form the word at last. “You were sleeping with Keith.”

“You were bound to figure it out in time. Frankly, Keith was so devoted to you, I thought he might have talked about our affair to you before he died. I guess he didn’t. He wanted to be Lancelot, you know, adoring you from afar, except that he liked women too much and that silly little Shelley would have slept with him anywhere, any time... Still, he liked my game better. Because I pretended to be you. I could talk like you, laugh like you. Maybe he even imagined I made love like you, who knows? The wig was an inspiration. The rest all came from it.”

Judy Flanaghan pushed away from the guesthouse bed, smiling. The light before Kathy’s eyes was still wavering. She tried to move her hands. She couldn’t. She concentrated on rolling from the bed. She couldn’t do that either.

“What...?” she managed to whisper.

“I got you with chloroform at the door, then slipped a few too many muscle relaxants down your throat. The drugs won’t kill you. They didn’t kill Keith, though he took them much more willingly. He was such an ass! Always trying to ruin everything.”

Kathy could barely speak. She had to make each word count. “Why... kill him?”

“He was threatening to go to Derrick and to Jordan with the whole thing. Derrick needed the group. I needed the group. You see, you’re the wonderful, miraculous Kathy! Put her with Jordan, and she’s a singer, popular from day one. Take Jordan away, and she’s still an important person, moving into the world of publishing. You’ve never doubted yourself, never faltered, never been anything but perfect, marvelous, wonderful Kathy. Even Keith saw you as perfection; he laughed at me. I tried to help him when Jordan was so furious, but he laughed and told me I didn’t mean anything to him, that he didn’t need me. He didn’t care if the group fell apart. If Jordan said it was over, it was going to be over. And if he felt like it, he’d tell Derrick exactly what I was doing.”

Yes...

She might have seen it, but she hadn’t. Because other people had motives that were more obvious. Larry, the sleazebag, could have murdered Keith to keep his secret. Shelley could have killed him in a jealous rage; Miles could have killed him on Shelley’s behalf.

But Judy...

She had resented them all. She had wanted the limelight, had wanted to pay her husband back for his infidelities. She hadn’t loved Keith, but he had been unique, talented.

“It hurt you when I dressed up as you. I let other people see me. I let Jordan think his precious, perfect wife was sleeping with his best friend. That night it was so strange. I hadn’t really planned to kill him. But he was so cocky. So damned self-assured. Insulting. Threatening. And laughing all the while. He kept playing with his lighter. I played his game. I was so mad I wanted to beat him. Just beat him until he was nothing but blood and gore. I wanted to wrench his heart out of his chest. God, I hated him at that moment. Then I saw all the stuff he had around him. He was drugged and laughing when I started spraying the place—with simple things. Hair spray. Imagine. But I’d always liked fire. I knew how to make it work. He had lots of aerosols up here. They made it easy to make this place just burn and burn and burn...

Kathy could move her eyes more easily now, her lips. She could swallow.

“I don’t do drugs. They know it. Someone will suspect. You can’t get away with this a second time.”

Judy, her wig waving over Kathy’s face, laughed softly. “Everyone knows you and Jordan had another blowup today. Jordan would make the perfect murder suspect if it were ever determined that Keith had been killed. He was jealous, we all know he has a horrendous temper, and he hated Keith. He thought Keith was sleeping with his wife.”

“Jordan’s at the hospital.”

“I stole the muscle relaxants from Miles. He has a bad back, poor baby. Perhaps you came here desolate. You tried to win your husband back. Same old story. You lost him to a younger woman. What a shame. Sad. So sad. Things like that happen. You’re older now. Aging well, but aging. You can’t bear it; there’s just nothing left to live for anymore. Why not hurt Jordan with your suicide, the way he’s hurt you? Burn yourself to the ground, just the way his best friend did, the best friend with whom you’d been cuckolding him all those years ago.”

“Judy, you’ll be caught this time.”

“Maybe. But this is my only chance. People tell you things, Kathy. Derrick probably said something somewhere along the line that gave me away. Of course, he thought I was only pretending to have an affair. He’s always liked games. You know, sex games, dress-up, fantasies. That’s where I got the idea of dressing up as you for Keith. If you didn’t figure it out, Derrick would say something to you that would click. You would know if we stayed together much longer. I tried to keep Jordan from allowing this to happen. I paid a cutthroat from one of Castro’s prisons to put the fear of God into him and you. It didn’t work. Jordan just had to have the truth; he couldn’t just allow a guilty man to burn. Because Keith was guilty. He was a druggie, even if he wasn’t guilty the time it was pinned on him. He was a user. And he used people up, too. He deserved what he got. Then last night... that silly twit. Tara. Who would have imagined that the little fool was running around playing dress-up, too? If I’d been a little more on target, she’d be dead now. Instead, she’ll live to help Jordan grieve for you. Charming picture, eh?”

Kathy tried to twist her head to watch Judy as she moved across the room, pulling the wig off at the dresser, picking up a large can of hairspray and playing with her natural cut. The air was becoming heavy with the smell of the aerosol spray.

Judy turned back to her, smiling, beginning to spray the bedcover, spraying Kathy’s clothes. Kathy twisted her head again, once more willing her limbs to motion. She saw the bedside table. Judy had placed a few household cleaners on it. All highly flammable. Smiling, she now sprayed the rug, the drapes.

“You’d be amazed at how gullible people are—and just how impossible it would be to prove something like this
beyond the shadow of a doubt.
That’s the only way to convict a person in our court system. Beyond the shadow of a doubt.”

“Judy, don’t do this to me. I never hurt you!”

“But you did.”

“How?”

“You’d never know. Never. You’ve never been on the outside, looking in. Taking the crumbs. Standing outside the limelight while the audience went wild. Never mind, it doesn’t matter now. After the inquest, we’ll all get to go home again.”

Smiling, she reached into her pocket for something.

A book of matches.

“Tell Keith hi for me, and say that one day I’ll see you both in hell.”

She struck a match. The flame jumped up, a brilliant red, yellow, and blue.

She dropped the match... and smiled as she watched fire spread like a flaming sea over the bedcover.

There was no traffic. He drove at a breakneck speed, unable to understand the sudden panic that had seized him. He left the mainland, ripped onto the causeway, and burst onto the bridge to the island, ignoring everyone and everything in his path.

He drove up to his house, amazed to see that everything was quiet, the usual lights were on, and there seemed to be no activity.

Yet even as he jerked the car to a screeching halt and leapt from the driver’s seat, he saw the sudden arrow of fire, bursting out above the roof...

From the guest house out in back.

Mickey awoke, puzzled at first as to what had disturbed him. He heard nothing.

Then he realized there was something strange about the air. The smell of smoke....

He bolted up. Raced to the window. Dialed 911. Raced out into the hallway.

“Fire!”

Instinctively, he headed for Kathy’s room. Banged on the door. Screamed her name.

The sheets caught fire in a sudden, small inferno. Kathy managed to scream, and willed herself to roll. God! She shrieked silently, trying desperately to move! The fall to the floor was an impact for which she couldn’t really brace herself. Stunned, she lay where she’d landed, terrifyingly aware of how quickly the flames were spreading, how smoke was already beginning to fill the room.

She heard Judy’s laughter, a chilling sound. The woman was psychotic. An absurd realization. And one made too late...

She was aware that Judy was starting to move, ready to escape the blaze before it could devour her. Again, Kathy managed an aching, dragging movement, half rolling, half twisting her body toward the foot of the bed. Just in time to trip Judy as she ran.

Judy shrieked, falling herself, her head striking the footboard as she went down. Momentarily dazed, she stared at Kathy with glazed eyes.

Kathy lifted an arm, forced her fingers to grasp Judy, inched herself across the floor.

With every aching, grasping movement, her limbs fought the drugs that froze them.

Yet as she slowly struggled, the fire flickered, then spread. With a violent whoosh, the drapes went up in flames. The bed was now an inferno.

Someone had to come. God, she had survived the bed! Someone must come...

But smoke was blackening the place, and she was spasmodically coughing, choking—moving inch by inch.

The stairs. She pulled herself along Judy’s body, moving like a snake, slithering, desperate to reach the stairs. She came to them. She pushed herself—slid, tumbled, moved downward...

“No!” Judy was up, after her. Falling, crashing, coming down the stairs herself. She fell upon Kathy at the landing. Kathy fought her hold, until she realized that Judy wasn’t fighting her. Judy had knocked herself out again; it was just her weight that was holding Kathy down.

She could hear the fire. Within seconds, it had swirled into a wild, raging thing. The drapes were ablaze on the ground floor. Tongues of flame were dancing down the stairs. A sofa shot up into an orange inferno.

She crawled. Elbows on the floor, toes trying to find a hold. The door was so very near. So very far... The smoke, oh, God, the smoke was blackening the room, it was filling her lungs, she couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t fight.

She had to, had to...

Her eyes teared, her mind worked in an hysterical fashion, warning her to keep close to the floor when she could do nothing less. She kept crawling, no
slithering,
for what seemed like eons but was only seconds. She prayed...

Then hands were on her. She discovered that she had a voice again. She shrieked out, thinking it was Judy holding her back, trying to take her into the flames. She wouldn’t be like Keith, unconscious. Nearly paralyzed, she would be unable to move quickly enough to escape a searing agony. She would...