Gregory sighed and leaned down, moving a curl of hair aside so he could kiss her temple. "You make a fortune in jewels look cheap, but that doesn't make it okay for you to leave them lying out on the bed."
Olivia smiled up at him sheepishly and shifted to get up from the sofa. "Can't a mother be distracted by the return of her son?"
Gregory settled on the sofa next to her as he smiled indulgently. "He seems so much older, doesn't he?"
Olivia beamed at him, sharing his pride in Sean's accomplishments. "Remember how worried we were that he wouldn't like the idea of a baby?" She straightened her husband's silvery gray tie and tried to keep tears out of her eyes. "But you two have talked about the baby all afternoon."
Placing their entwined hands on her belly, Gregory winked at her. "I liked his eyes, when you came downstairs and he saw how pregnant you really were-" Raising his eyebrows made his own eyes look huge. "I thought his eyes were going to fall out."
Hitting his shoulder made him laugh as she glared at him indignantly. "Oh you're exaggerating, he wasn't that surprised."
He shrugged as he squeezed her knee in reprisal. Her squeak of laughter made him chuckle as she squirmed to get away from his fingers. "I can't imagine leaving you in August and coming back to this." His hands were gentle as they ran over her stomach. "But before you attack me again, I think you're beautiful."
"You have to say that."
Ending a losing argument with a kiss was a useful skill of Gregory's. "I still have to go put the jewels away."
It was rather sweet of him to be willing to put them away, saving Olivia another trip upstairs. "You've had them in the historical society for so long, I don't even think of them as mine sometimes."
"It's excellent publicity for the Historical Society if you wear these out to our anniversary dinner." He caressed the string of white pearls around her neck. "Bette writes an article about the two of us surviving our twenty-two years together-"
Olivia's smile grew nostalgic and she leaned into his hand, letting his fingers run up her neck to touch her cheek. "Darling-"
"Think of it as your charitable contribution." He turned away for a moment and watched Sean sitting lazily on the patio, telling Roger and Bette how amazing his freshman classes were. "Besides, this dinner isn't for us. It's for our friends and our children. A chance for them to tell us how wonderful they think it is that we're still married."
"It is wonderful." She whispered softly to the back of his head. she couldn't have asked for anything more wonderful than having her family together. Gregory knelt down in front of her, resting his hands on either side of her knees.
"I'll be right down sweetheart. Why don't you see if you can find Caitlin on her cellular phone?" He looked out to the patio, and noted that everyone else was ready. "If she doesn't get here soon we're going to be late for our reservation at the country club."
Olivia reached for the phone and pressed the speed dial for Caitlin's cell. Two blocks away, the abandoned cellular phone rang unattended in a rental car parked out of sight in an alleyway. The ringing went unheeded by the owner who had just slipped around and through the back gate to the garden.
She'd overheard her parents talking about the jewels, somehow they had managed to slip that into a conversation that had gone from pleasant to entirely about every piece of medical trivia her brother and father could think up about the dammed baby. The jewels were back in her house. The cursed Deschanel jewels were worth two million dollars. Two million was more than enough to build a life on. The life she should have had with Cole.
Walking up the back staircase of her house for the last time felt good in a way. Cathartic even, because she was finally going to leave all of this behind. Her twisted childhood, her neurotic parents- Sean-
Sean would be all right. He was the last bit of sanity in her family. She had thought for awhile that there was hope for her father. That maybe his consuming obsession with her mother would end after the baby died. Caitlin still didn't know what kind of luck it was that had gotten her mother's pregnancy this far. Certainly this wasn't meant to be? What would her parents do with their second chance besides twist and corrupt that new baby? Fate would have to be kind enough take the baby away without any of her help.
She clutched the vial in her pocket nervously. All it took was a low cut blouse and a smile to get one of her chemistry tutors to let her into chemical supply. It wouldn't hurt. That was why she'd chosen it over everything else. Chloroform wouldn't hurt. She'd heard how Cole died. How someone had held him down in that dark water until he stopped breathing. She hadn't known- she didn't even want to believe it.
Until the party. If her father was willing to sacrifice her to save her mother, the thought that he'd murder Cole wasn't a stretch of the imagination. He'd never be caught of course. Gregory was too good at covering his tracks. Ricardo would never find enough evidence, if he even found any at all he deserved a commendation.
She paused with her hand on the door of the master bedroom. Some part of her had always thought she'd inherit it someday. That her husband would carry her over the threshold, after her parents moved on to sail the Caribbean like her father always wanted to, and the house would be hers. The whole life would be hers and for a happy while she thought Cole would be the one to share it with her. Gregory had taken that option away.
Caitlin opened the door, the safe was behind the mirror in the bathroom. It had taken a couple days of practicing while her parents were at work. Her father was too smart to use something as obvious as his anniversary. Her mother's birthday hadn't worked, nor had hers or Sean's. Checking random combinations of numbers would have taken too long. So she had turned to something else.
Her father, for some reason she had never been able to figure out, kept her mother's journals in his study. Stealing those away one at a time to look for relevant dates and numbers was painfully easy. Reading them was more difficult. She had spent so much time building a wall between her and her mother, reading her mother's innermost thoughts at a time in her life when they were most similar threatened that wall. Eventually she just skimmed, pretending it was someone else. Olivia was just a character in a novel.
It was there she had found it, in the second book. The first time Gregory took her mother on a surprise vacation they went to Costa del Sol. He made a point of telling her exactly where it was, and her mother's neat handwriting reported that it was thirty-six degrees north and four degrees west. Scanning down the page gave her the last number. Room nineteen.
36-4-19. That had worked. Yesterday afternoon, just before her parents arrived home from work she'd opened the safe. The jewels weren't there then, but they'd be there by now. Her parents were so distracted with their little anniversary that they wouldn't even notice she was gone until it was too late. Being with Cole had taught her to always have a good escape plan.
The door slipped open with a soft click. The bedroom was dark. Her mother's robe was lazily tossed over a corner of the bed, next to the black briefcase. Caitlin stopped, surprised by her good fortune. It was a shame all her work to find out the combination for the safe had gone to waste, but she wasn't going to give up this chance.
The briefcase wasn't even locked. The pearls were missing, encircling her mother's neck and dangling from her earlobes, but the remainder still topped two million. In South America, two million dollars in American currency would keep her comfortable for the rest of her life.
She opened her backpack and dumped the jewels inside the black plastic bag. After she knotted it, she stuffed it inside. She shut the briefcase, wiped the handle and the clasps clean of fingerprints with the corner of her mother's robe. She turned back to the door, ready to run away from the emptiness. Maybe she'd forget. Live the rest of her life in a new place, with a new name and no one would need to know her past.
She was nearly free. She put her hand on the doorknob, closing her eyes for just a second. A second was long enough for the door to open.
"Caitlin? We were just looking for you." Her father entered the room and smiled at her slightly out of surprise. "What are you doing here? I never thought I'd find you in the bedroom."
She shrugged and followed him in. Caitlin hadn't expected this to be so easy. Punishing her father was a foolish dream, and she was only carrying the chloroform as a last resort. But here he was. In his good blue suit. His favorite. Would they lay him out in it when he was dead?
That was an interesting mental picture. Her father carried in state through the streets of Sunset Beach with her mother, face white and destroyed behind her lacy black veil, at his side. It was a shame she wasn't going to watch. Caitlin had places to be. Places where no one would question why she was alone, or where she had gotten such beautiful jewels.
But Gregory was standing in the way. "Well?" He waited for her to answer, crossing his arms and watching her with a patronizing expression.
Indecision flashed through her. Refusing to go to dinner would create a scene. Letting him take her downstairs and off to the restaurant would make her miss her flight. "I'm sorry daddy." She whispered, surprised by the tears that stung her eyes. She didn't have time for weakness. Gregory had made his choice "I never thought-"
He looked confused, hurt and apologetic. "You never thought what sweetheart?"
"Nothing." Caitlin forced herself to smile. A smile was a good ending. Maybe he'd understand it wasn't personal, it was just what she had to do. She had to take the jewels so she could start a new life. Gregory and Olivia had made sure she wouldn't have a life any other way. If they had just been more understanding, listened to her and what she needed instead of always focusing on themselves- "I love you daddy."
The corner of his mouth turned up in a soft smile and he opened his arms. "I love you too sweetheart." She rested her head on his chest as he embraced her. He was happy, she reminded herself as reached for the vial in her pocket. The chloroform seeped into the handkerchief, making her fingers cold as it evaporated.
It wouldn't hurt, it would be quick, and as painless as going to sleep. After the way he treated Cole, it was more than he deserved. Gregory would die quietly. Caitlin kept her smile, tasting metal as she bit her lip in desperate excitement.
As they parted from each other she brought up her hand. Gregory's gaze was fixed on her and missed the way she brought up the handkercheif. In one smooth motion she clamped it over his nose and mouth, just like Cole had taught her. She locked her other arm around the back of his neck as he realized what she was doing and struggled to pull away from her.
If Gregory had caught on a moment earlier, he might have broken free, but the noxious chemical was to quick to weaken his body. His brown eyes locked with hers, driven dark with sorrow and betrayal. One more breath and he went down. Caitlin knelt next to her father's unconscious form. The hand with the handkerchief rested on her knee. She reached up and touched a piece of his hair. there wasn't much grey in it yet. He looked like he was sleeping. She straightened his arms, resting them at his sides as she rolled him on to his back.
Tossing a glance to her backpack and the window to the garden, Caitlin knew she could leave now. It would be some time before anyone came looking for him. Her heart ached to leave him there and be done. But he had killed Cole, the first man she'd loved. The man that was meant to be with her for the rest of her life and if she didn't punish him, no one would. Cole's death would become a footnote.
"You should have just listened to me daddy.' Caitlin whispered as she brought the handkerchief back to his face. "If you and mom had just given Cole the jewels, we'd be married by now." Her free hand went to his chest, feeling the slow beat of his heart. As more of the toxic chloroform entered his blood, his heartbeat got slower and weaker. Finally, just like the slow rise and fall of his chest, Gregory's heart stopped. Caitlin dropped the handkerchief and backed away in shock once it hit her that her father was no longer a person.
He was a body.
Tears clawed at her eyes, but she forced them back. Now was not the time to grieve. Now she had to run. Caitlin grabbed her backpack and reached down to close her father's eyes. "Goodbye daddy..."
She rustled the curtains, bumped the plant on the balcony as she dropped into the garden. Brushing dirt from her black pants, Caitlin straightened up and let herself out of the garden. She walked to the car, she'd left it unlocked. Her cell phone flashed at her, annoucing the voicemail. Caitlin dropped it out of her door, hearing the plastic bounce and crack against the pavement as she drove away,
Belle romped in from the yard just on Rose's heels after her walk. Presenting her head to Olivia to be scratched, Belle circled the living room, sniffing Bette, Roger and Sean as they returned from the patio.
"Find beauty yet?" Bette wondered as she perched on the arm of the sofa next to Olivia.
"Olivia handed her the phone to hang up, now that Bette was in between her and the phone. "No, I haven't been able to find her."
"Where'd Richards get off too?" Roger wondered as he rubbed Bette's shoulders thoughtfully. "Are we ever going to get to dinner? I do love you both, but my penguin suit-" He tugged at his tie. "Is a mite itchy."
"He just went upstairs to put something away for me." Olivia responded as she pulled herself up from the sofa with a sigh. "We should be ready to go as soon as Caitlin get here."
Shaking his head as he poured himself a glass of water, Sean was about to say something about how much his sister had changed when Belle's bark rang down from upstairs. First it was just Sean who looked up, but the dog kept barking.
"I'll go check." Sean started towards the stairs. "Dad's probably just playing with her." He took the stairs two at a time. Belle met him at the top of the stairs, but she barely acknowledged him before returning to the door to the master bedroom. She ran inside, barking and starting to growl.
Sean followed her in, worrying that a bird had flown through the window or something else strange. His father was lying on the floor. Still as-
He dropped to the ground, running through everything he knew in an attempt to force aside his own panic. "Dad?" Grabbing his wrist, Sean felt for a pulse as he reached up to his father's bluish-purple lips. No breath warmed his fingers. "Dad!" His own heart thudded in his ears. He felt himself move in slow motion towards the hallway.
"-Need an ambulance!" Sean finally managed to scream as he crawled back to his father. He was still warm. He had just seen him talking to his mother. He hadn't been down long. The sounds of everyone else scrambling up the stairs faded into the back of his mind. He dropped his hands to his father's chest, locking his fingers together and reaching up from the sternum.
As he started chest compressions, Roger burst through the door. Bette must have been the one to call for the ambulance because his mother's scream cut through to his heart from the doorway. He didn't know what she was saying as she started to sob hysterically. Roger checked for a pulse and breath, already slipping into his professional calm.
Nodding to Sean to continue compressions, Roger dropped down to breathe for his best friend. Sean counting his fifteenth compression and waiting for Roger.
The doctor's fingers pinched Gregory's nose as he dropped his face to his. Roger pulled back abruptly, grabbing Sean's shoulder as his eyes searched the room. He found the handkerchief crumpled by Gregory's ear. Roger lifted it and sniffed at it carefully. Sean decided it was better to keep up chest compressions. His mother dropped to the floor on the other side of his father's chest. She was crying so hard that her hands were shaking as she reached for Gregory's face.
Roger grabbed Sean's shoulder, shocking him out of his task. "Get her out of here."
Sean stared back dumbly as Roger dragged him to his feet.
"Chloroform-" Roger explained as he stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket. "Premature labor-" Roger's hand slapped across his face and Sean pulled himself out of his panic. "Just get her out of here."
Roger helped Sean drag Olivia to her feet, even as she fought them to get back to Gregory. Sean pulled her out into the hallway, trying to reason with her was impossible, and he couldn't find his voice. His words wouldn't come. She was starting to fight her way past him when Bette arrived from downstairs.
She was white, but she took Olivia and pulled her away from the bedroom door. Bette started to whisper to her friend just as the sirens started to creep into Sean's ears. Bette led Olivia back, away from the front staircase, and away from the bedroom door. Cut off from Gregory and losing to her terror, Olivia fell to her knees. Sean saw Bette drop down next to his mother out of the corner of his eye as he returned to Roger.
At a nod from the doctor, he resumed chest compressions. Focusing on counting to fifteen, pausing and counting to fifteen again was better than thinking about the sirens that were screaming closer to the house.
The clanging of emergency services as they made their way up the stairs, the way his mother was so lost in terror that Bette had to remind her to breathe, Roger barking explanations to the paramedics- all of it blended together. It was chaos. Hell.
And his father still wasn't breathing. How long had it been two minutes? Three? How long until the mind he hated, envied, and loved was gone forever? What was life like without his father? What would the world be like if Gregory never woke up?
Sean recognized the whine of the defibrillator as it charged.
"Two hundred joules." Roger ordered firmly in the voice of steely calm Sean remembered from the operating room. "Clear-" All hands darted back from his father.
The electricity lanced out and Gregory's body arched up before thudding to the floor. In that silence, while they all waited, Sean felt his childhood slip away.
This was it. One of the moments that would define his life. How could he step up and fill his father's very large shoes? How would he tell his little brother what his father had been like and do Gregory Richards justice?
Could he sit at his mother's side while she brought his baby brother into the world alone?
Roger's voice had the same crispness as the electricity. "Two twenty-" The same electrical whine of the charge building up.
Sean looked to Bette as she held Olivia back from the scene. His mother was a different person, so stricken with fear that she couldn't move.
"Clear-" The same thud as his father's body hit the floor. "Again."
"Clear-"