The Love Killers (3 page)

They carried him up to Rose's bedroom like a side of beef.

She awoke with a start and stared at the helpless figure of her lover. Then her eyes shifted to Enzio. Despairingly she shook her head, well aware of her husband's brand of justice.

He took her from the bed and held her so she couldn't move, only watch. And then the knives came out.

Charles Cardwell was sliced to death in front of her.

It was not easy for Lara to extract herself from the prince. They had been together constantly for six months, and he was possessive, suspicious—and most of all, hotly jealous.

When she told him she had to leave immediately for New York, he jumped to the only conclusion possible for his mind to reach. ‘Who is he? What has he got to offer you that I cannot give you? I
demand
you tell me his name.'

‘It's not a man,' Lara explained patiently. ‘It's a family situation.'

‘But you have no family, Lara, you always told me that,' he stated petulantly.

She nodded. ‘I know, but I do have these distant relatives in America.' A pause. ‘I have a half sister named Beth, and she needs me.'

‘A half sister!' Prince Alfredo shouted. ‘You can't just
acquire
a stepsister.' He stamped around angrily. ‘I know it's a man, Lara. I know. You cannot lie to me.'

Her mind was on more important things.

‘Oh, please!' she exclaimed impatiently. ‘Think what you like. I have to leave, and that's that.'

‘Then I will come with you.'

‘I don't want you to.'

‘I must insist.'

‘
No
, Alfredo.'

‘Yes
, Lara.'

They argued some more until at last he left and she was able to finish packing. It was a relief to be rid of him; the man was impossible. Why was she wasting her time?

Lara Crichton always got first-class service wherever she went. Young, gorgeous, the ex-wife of one of the richest men in London, she was truly one of what the press referred to as ‘the beautiful people.' Constantly featured in the glossy fashion magazines as a shining example of jet-set glamour, she epitomized all that Margaret Lawrence Brown was against.

It would have been a journalistic scoop for someone to discover that they were in fact half sisters, sharing the same father with different mothers.

For individual reasons, as each reached personal fame, they felt no need to reveal the fact to anyone. They had been raised in different countries; their whole lives were completely alien to each other. Occasionally they met, and there was a true warmth between them, a love that crossed their very obvious differences. They understood each other and never criticized the other's way of life.

Their father, Jim Lawrence Brown, had never married either of their mothers. Margaret was five when her mother died, and Jim had moved on, taking the child with him to California. There he met a married woman separated from her husband. Jim and Margaret moved in with her, and eventually the woman gave birth to Lara. A year later, when she and her husband decided to get back together, they gave Jim the child and six thousand dollars to move on again. The money tempted him. He didn't argue.

With the cash he bought an old car and trailer, which served as a sort of home. At seven years of age Margaret was completely in charge of one-year-old Lara.

Jim was a natural drifter; he was always in a dream, playing his guitar, chasing pretty women, or sleeping. He drove them to Arizona, where they stayed on a farm owned by a widow named Mary Chaucer. She took care of Lara and insisted Margaret start school. ‘The girl is very bright,' she told Jim. ‘Advanced for her years. She must have an education.'

After a while Jim began to get restless. He had been far too long in the same place, only now he was tied by two children, and it was a responsibility he wasn't up to. Lara often thought that was why he must have decided to marry Mary Chaucer. She was older than he, a plump, smiling lady who never complained.

Exactly one month after their marriage, Jim took off, leaving nothing more than a scrawled note instructing Mary to look after his kids.

Margaret was nine. She was the one who found his note. It was a coward's note, full of apologies and five hundred dollars.

Eight months after his departure Mary gave birth to Jim's third daughter, Beth, a child he never even knew existed.

After that things were different. With no man around, work at the farm became slapdash and unorganized. Mary was always tired and sick. The baby wore her out. Money started to run short, as did the once-smiling Mary's temper. Margaret was packed off to boarding school, while Lara was sent to relatives of Mary's in England. They did not see each other again for ten years, by which time Margaret was attending college on a scholarship and Lara was doing well as a teen model in London.

Beth, now ten, lived with Mary in a small apartment. She went to school while Mary worked.

Margaret wanted to help them, but it was hard enough managing to pay for her own education—an education she was determined to have.

At sixteen Lara was quite beautiful, natural, with none of the polish she later acquired. She was happy living in England; in fact, to Margaret she seemed almost completely English—accent and all. They spent a weekend together in New York and the closeness of their early years was still there.

Time went by and they went their separate, highly individual ways. Occasionally they wrote or phoned. But the need for contact was not there; there was a deeper bond of love and security.

Mary Chaucer died of cancer when Beth was fifteen, and although both her sisters invited her to come and live with them, she preferred a more independent life and went off to a hippie commune with her boyfriend, Max.

Margaret didn't object. She was already launched on an equality-for-women project. Her first book,
Women
—
The Unequal Sex,
was about to be published. Her star was beginning to shine.

In London Lara met and married Jamie P. Crichton, whose father happened to be one of the richest men in England—and Jamie was his only heir. Unfortunately, their marriage did not last longer than a year, however, it was long enough to establish Lara as a personality in her own right. The gossip columns hardly went to press without carrying her picture or some anecdote about what she was wearing or doing, or with whom she had been seen. Lara became the darling of life in the fast lane.

* * *

The shooting of Margaret Lawrence Brown made headlines, but the photographers still turned out at Kennedy Airport to welcome Lara Crichton.

She posed briefly in her Yves Saint Laurent suit and big hat, her cool green eyes hidden behind fashionably large sunglasses, Gucci bracelets jangling alongside her black-faced Cartier watch.

‘What are you here for, Miss Crichton?'asked an inquisitive reporter.

‘Business,' she replied, unsmiling. ‘Personal business.'

There was a limousine waiting for her. With a deep sigh she sat back and tried to relax.

Margaret was dead.

Margaret had been murdered.

Oh, God! Why?

In excruciating detail she remembered her last meeting with her sister. Visiting New York for two days of concentrated shopping, she'd almost skipped phoning her. But then she'd called, and as usual Margaret invited her over. She'd fitted the visit in between lunch at ‘21' and a hair-streaking session at Vidal's.

Margaret had greeted her in her usual outfit of faded jeans and worn shirt. The perennial blue-tinted shades she wore to help her eyesight covered her eyes, and her long hair was unkempt. Naturally she had no makeup on her striking face.

Lara tut-tutted. ‘If you bothered,' she said, ‘you could look really ravishing.'

Margaret laughed. ‘Do you realize how much time you waste plastering yourself with stupid crap?' she asked good-naturedly.

‘Don't knock it. I'm getting a directorship of a big makeup company,' Lara said firmly. I'll send you a crate of perfumes, lipsticks, glosses, all sorts of things. You'll love it.'

‘No way, kid!' Margaret replied. ‘You might think
you
need it. But honey-pie—
I
don't give a damn.'

‘Well, you should,' Lara said primly.

‘Says who?'

‘Says me.'

Margaret smiled. She had a wonderful smile; it lit up a room. ‘What's happening in your life, baby sister?' she asked, full of warm concern.

Without further prompting Lara launched into a full discussion of what was going on. Margaret fixed her a drink, and they sat down in the cluttered apartment, and she let it all come out. She always did with her sister; it was better than going to an analyst.

Without pause she'd talked about her problems for over an hour. Was Prince Alfredo the one? Should she sell some of her blue-chips? What did Margaret think of her new emerald ring?

Boring small chat. Looking back, Lara shuddered. She'd never asked Margaret about herself. She'd never bothered to discuss any of her sister's burning causes, even though she knew how important they were to her.

How narrow she must have seemed. How selfish and completely involved with herself. And yet Margaret listened patiently, as if she had all the time in the world. She always did.

Why was it you always found out how much you needed someone just when it was too late?

* * *

Lara stared out of the window as the limousine headed toward the city. Margaret was dead, and she intended to find out why.

Somebody was going to pay for her sister's death. She would make sure of that.

Beth Lawrence Brown came to New York by train. It was the first time she had been there. In fact, it was the first time she had been anywhere outside of the commune that had been her home since she was fifteen. Now twenty, she was clear-skinned and fair-haired, with hair that hung straight and thick, reaching below her waist. She was a very pretty girl. Her face had a childlike innocence, with large blue eyes and a wide, soft mouth.

Beth wore her usual outfit, a long dress of Indian fabric, patched in places, thonged sandals on bare feet, and many necklaces of thin leather with hand-painted beads and signs hanging from them. Close to her neck, almost a choker, was a thin gold chain with a gold cross. On the cross were engraved the words
LOVE—PEACE—MARGARET
.

The two sisters had been very close—not in terms of distance, but in the same way that Lara and Margaret were close. There was a true feeling of unity.

Beth carried with her a large, pouchy suede purse. In it were her things—a hairbrush, a pair of jeans, a flimsy blouse, and many books. She didn't believe in possessions, only books—her passion was reading.

‘Wanna buy me a drink, cutie?' A drunk sidled up to her. I'll give ya a lil' action in exchange.'

She ignored him, her expression pensive and thoughtful. Margaret would have told him to fuck off. Lara would have said what a dreadful little man he was. How different her two sisters were.

Cass had promised there would be someone to meet her. She was supposed to wait at the information booth, but the train was early, and she didn't want to hang around, so she decided to walk to Cass's apartment.

She couldn't believe what had happened. It was inconceivable that Margaret was dead. She was such a good person, clever and bright and caring. So she was tough—everyone knew that—but how else could she have survived?

She hasn't survived, Beth thought sadly. My sister is dead.

Beth had last seen her six months previously. Margaret had arrived to stay for a weekend. Everyone at the commune liked her; in fact, they welcomed her visits. She brought all the new books, record albums, and toys for the children—clever toys, not commercial junk. There were ten children living on the farm, and the responsibility of raising them was shared among the five women and eight men who also lived there. One of the children was Beth's, a little girl of four. Max was her father.

Margaret had greeted her niece, Chyna, with special hugs and kisses. ‘She's going to grow up to be president one day,' she joked. ‘She's so smart, I love it!'

Beth smiled serenely. ‘With you to guide her, I'm sure anything is possible.'

‘Bet on it, kid, When she's ten she's coming to live with me in New York. We'll take it from there.'

Margaret shared in the work over the long weekend. She didn't mind what she did—washing floors, helping with the cooking, gardening. She said it helped her relax. She also found time to sit and talk to Beth, listen to her problems, and give advice.

They had a party the night before she left. Great sounds and great hash Max had brought in from California. Margaret had gone off with Clasher because he was short and ugly and the least likely to be her choice. Sex was a very free thing at the commune. There were no hang-ups or jealousies. None of the pressures of life in the real world.

When Margaret left the next morning she had given Beth the gold chain, kissed her, and whispered softly, ‘You're really lucky. You're doing what you want to do,
and
you're happy. You can't ask for anything more, kid.'

And Beth had smiled, a wide, childish smile, and made Margaret promise to come back soon.

‘After the summer,' Margaret had said. ‘Maybe for Christmas.'

Now the summer was almost ending, and Beth was in New York. She didn't know for how long, she only knew it was where she had to be.

* * *

Enzio took the call in his study. He smiled and nodded. Of course, things were back to normal. He had been right. His decision was the only way. Semiretired he might be, but for any major problem that had to be taken care of, he was the one they all turned to.

Frank, his oldest son, had suggested other ways of dealing with the trouble. What did Frank know? Thirty-six years old, a good businessman, but when it came to decisions his ideas were all soft. What good were threats if you didn't plan to carry them out?