In-Laws and Outlaws (24 page)

Annette could, though; I don't believe I'd ever heard her speak so rapidly before. She was telling me to stay calm and not get excited and we could all sit down and talk this over like civilized human beings and more garbage like that. I felt as if someone had just driven a fist into my stomach. But at the same time the situation was inherently ludicrous: the Wife trying to reassure the Husband's Lover that everything was going to be all right.

It was a setup. The whole damned thing had been a setup—Tom's pursuit of me, the seemingly natural banding together of two semi-outsiders against the clannish Deckers, the alternating subtle and not-so-subtle pressures to hold me here where they could keep an eye on me. And all with Annette's cooperation … hell, she'd probably thought it up in the first place, she and her twin. I should know by now they were capable of anything.

“Well, you did it,” I told them. “You surprised me. I thought nothing you could do would surprise me anymore, but you managed it.
The Seduction of Gillian
—a farce in one act.” I looked at Tom. “Make that two acts.”

At least he had enough decency left to look ashamed. But not Annette. “Gillian, I know how you're feeling—”

“No, you don't. You don't have the foggiest notion how I feel. You never did. But that's never stopped you and Michelle from including me in your, your manipulating. You thought if you threw Tom at me I'd be more pliable, I'd stop asking questions and ‘fit in'… as docile and unquestioning as Connie? Is that what you wanted? Too bad, Annette—it didn't work.”

Tom spoke at last. “Gillian, don't judge—”

“I
will
judge,” I said heatedly. “It's about time you people were held accountable for what you do. You really do think the rules of decent human conduct don't apply to you, don't you? You do
anything you want
—and you're affronted if you're ever expected to answer for it!”

“Gillian—”

“Don't ‘Gillian' me. You disgust me. All of you.
All
of you.” I turned and left.

I heard Annette murmur something to Tom and then she came after me. As I ran down the stairs she was right there behind me, calling my name. I tried the first door I came to but I couldn't get the damned thing unlocked.

“You
will
listen,” Annette announced, placing the flat of her hand against the door.

I ducked under her arm and headed for the window I'd come in through. Annette climbed out after me. This absurd chase persisted until halfway down the beach stairs when Annette grabbed my arms from behind in a grip of iron and commanded me to stop.

I stopped. “This won't do you any good.”

“Perhaps not. But at least you'll understand something of what we've been going through—I can make sure of that. Of course our throwing Tom at you was disgusting. Do you think we don't know that? Let's sit down, Gillian. Right here.”

So we sat down on the beach steps, Annette still holding on to one of my arms. In the eerie moonlight she looked like a ghost sitting next to me. “Why Tom?” I asked her. “Why not Rob, or even Oscar? He's still a good-looking man.”

She waved her free hand. “Tom was the obvious choice. You might be reluctant to carry on an affair with Rob or Oscar right under their wives' noses.”

“
Might
be? Thank you very much. So if it had been Michelle who went off to Paris instead of you, Rob would have developed this sudden interest in me—not Tom? You and Tom never were planning a divorce, were you?”

“Oh, there were thoughts of a divorce at one time, but the problems have been resolved.”

“I'm so happy for you.”

She sighed. “You have a right to be sarcastic, I suppose. You first learned of the divorce from Connie, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

“She still thinks the divorce is on. We were going to tell her things had been straightened out, probably on the day of Raymond's funeral—we thought a piece of good news might make her feel better. But then you showed up and started asking all these meddlesome questions. We thought a little romancing might divert your attention.”

“And Tom the Stud obliged. Tom the tomcat.”

“Don't be too harsh on him—it was a desperate measure on our part. The whole thing was a stopgap plan, conceived in haste … to buy some time until we could find out what you were going to do. What
are
you going to do, Gillian?”

“Go to the police.”

“About
Tom
?”

How aggravating she could be. “Of course not.”

Her hand tightened on my arm. “You mustn't go to the police, about anything. I mean, you
mustn't
.”

“You're hurting my arm.”

“I'm sorry.” She withdrew her hand, a Band-Aid on her forefinger scraping lightly across my skin. “But you must forget about the police, Gillian.”

A Band-Aid. On her finger. The same Band-Aid I'd watched her apply on the sailboat, when she'd cut her finger in the galley while preparing lunch. I thought of the one bead of bright red blood dropping down onto her shorts.

Onto her
white
shorts.

White. White shorts.

“You're Michelle,” I said stupidly. “You're not Annette—you're Michelle!”

There was an intake of breath, and then a groan. “We can't keep anything from you. What gave me away?”

Good god in heaven, was there
nothing
she would stop at? “The bandage. It wasn't Annette who cut her finger. My god, Michelle—you don't recognize any limits at all, do you? Your twin sister's husband!”

Her face was a white blur in the moonlight. “Oh, Gillian—
think
. Annette's house. Annette's bedroom. Annette's husband.” She put her hand back on my arm. “But no Annette. Where do you think Annette is right now?”

I stared at her.

“That's right,” she nodded. “She's with Rob.”

My head began to reel. Husband-swapping! That struck me as hilarious and I began to laugh. Husband-swapping—how
very
suburban! John Updike would have loved it. I laughed and laughed. Maybe Tom was Joel's father and Rob had sired Ike—no, that wasn't likely; the twins would have arranged even that to their liking. I couldn't stop laughing.

“Gillian! Stop it!
Stop it!
”

Gradually I let my laughter trail away, even though I still thought it was all so very funny. “I know you and Annette share everything, but it just hadn't occurred to me that ‘everything' included husbands as well.”

“We share families, not just husbands. Do you think either one of us would marry a man who was a stranger to the other?”

“What?”

Michelle made a sound of exasperation at having to explain something so obvious. “I married first, you know. But Rob and I didn't go ahead with it until Annette had substituted for me a few times in the, ah, premarital bed. We had to know whether she found Rob compatible or not.”

“Compatible!”

“Yes, compatible. Then when Annette was thinking of marrying Tom, it was my turn to check
him
out. It was the only sensible thing to do, Gillian, since we knew we'd be sharing.” She laughed easily. “The men didn't even know. They learned to tell us apart quickly enough, but at that time they couldn't.”

I stood up and moved down a few steps; I didn't want to be near her. “Did they ever find out you'd
tested
them?”

“Oh, we told them. Later.”

“And they didn't mind?”

“No, why should they? They both passed.”

That did it. That's what really made my stomach heave. There was just no end to it. They had their rules and the rest of the world had different ones, and if you didn't like it—well, tough shit. Michelle was so
calm
telling me all this; she was enjoying it, really enjoying it—since I was so obviously anything but calm. Rubbing my nose in it, she was. Treacherous, amoral,
poisonous
people! I turned and ran down the steps to the beach.

I could hear Michelle calling Tom, and then another set of footsteps thundered down the stairway. He must have been on the rear deck listening, all this time. I ran and ran, digging my heels into the hard-packed sand; I had no destination, no plan. I just wanted to get away from
them
.

Tom finally caught me. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, making me stagger so that we both almost fell. They weren't the arms of a lover holding me now but those of a stranger; I didn't know this Tom, I didn't know him at all. “Don't struggle so, Gillian,” he said, panting. “You'll hurt yourself.”

“Oh, you're worried about my getting hurt?” I gasped. “Gee, that's real swell of you, Tom.”

“Please, Gillian—don't.”

Michelle came jogging up, breathing easily. She stopped and rested one hand on her hip, looking at me with an expression I couldn't read in the moonlight. “Gillian, Gillian. Whatever are we going to do with you?”

Was she asking for suggestions? “Drown me. Shoot me. That'll be easier than holding me prisoner the rest of my life.”

“Now you're being melodramatic.”

“Well, pardon me all to pieces. We can't have that, can we?” Responding like a child. Bitter? You bet I was.

Tom loosened his hold slightly. “You're not going to do anything rash, are you?”

I didn't think that worth answering. “
Are
you going to kill me?” I asked Michelle.

She acted shocked. “
Kill
you? Why would we do a thing like that?”

“That's the way you solve your problems, isn't it?”

“You don't know what you're talking about!”

“I know you killed Raymond,” I hissed. Tom's hands tightened on my arms. “You two and Annette and Rob and Elinor and Oscar. All of you. You all ganged up on Raymond … and
you murdered him
.”

For a long moment the only sounds were those of three people's harsh breathing and the slap of water against the shore. There—it was out in the open now. I'd made my accusation. The question was, what were they going to do about it?

After a while Michelle spoke one word: “Conference.”

Michelle's place was the closest, so that's where they took me. I was tired, tired and depressed. Michelle went upstairs to wake her twin and her husband. Tom gave me a glass of brandy and laid a hand on my shoulder; I took the brandy but shrugged off his touch.

Annette was the first to come down, wearing a Chinese red silk robe with a wide sash. She came over to where I was sitting and touched my face, gently. “Oh, Gillian. Why couldn't you leave well enough alone?”

Well enough? She called murdering her own brother
well enough?
I didn't answer.

“We can't let you leave now, you know.” For the first time since I came back, Annette looked her age. “You do understand that, don't you?” I still wouldn't answer. She sighed and left me to drape herself decorously over the middle of a sofa.

Rob and Joel came down together, and I felt a whole new set of aches. I'd put all the blame on Joel, when in fact it was his … Joel! “What's Joel doing here?” I asked sharply.

“It's all right, Aunt Gillian,” he answered sleepily. “I—”

“You didn't involve
him
in it, did you?”

“Don't be absurd!” Rob said angrily. “What do you take us for?”

“Then what's he doing here? Do you want him to find out—”

“He already knows. Joel has a right to know. It's part of his heritage, after all, grim as it is.”

“You told him? You actually
told
him about it? He's only fifteen years old!”

He smiled tightly. “I know how old he is, Gillian.”

I gave up on the father and turned to the son. “Joel? Do you understand what they did?”

He nodded. “Better than you do, I think. I understand they saved my life. They've risked everything they have to keep me alive. Yes, Aunt Gillian, I understand.”

Michelle came in, announcing Elinor and Oscar were on their way. She was wearing the same robe she'd put on when she jumped out of bed in Annette's house—white. I'd been too stunned at the time to notice.

“What was she planning to do?” Rob asked his wife.

“Go to the police,” Michelle told him.

“I'm right here,” I said acidly. “Ask
me
.”

“Sorry,” Rob apologized.

Sorry
. I fought down the urge to start laughing again.
Sorry
. Oh, by all means do let us keep our manners!

Tom spoke up. “Rob, I need to borrow a shirt.” He was wearing only pajama bottoms.

Rob took him upstairs; I watched them go, wondering at the two men. They were partners in a conspiracy to commit murder, they shared wives as well as family life, they were thrown together in constant close cooperation not by their own choice but by that of Annette and Michelle. And now they would cooperate again, in deciding what was going to happen to me.

Elinor and Oscar came in, eyes puffy with sleep; Elinor carried a box of Kleenex. Oscar came over and planted himself in front of me. “So. You just couldn't keep your nose out of it, could you?”

“Oscar,” Michelle said and shook her head.

He paid no attention. “This whole matter would have been over and done with if
she
hadn't come along.”

Oh,
I
was the villain. “If you expect me to beg your pardon, think again,” I snapped. “You're the ones who killed Raymond, not me.”

Elinor interceded, her voice still hoarse from her cold. “It had to be done, Gillian. It was the only way to stop him.”

“No, it
wasn't
the only way to stop him! You could have gone to the police!”

“With what?” Rob asked, coming back in. Tom followed, wearing not only one of Rob's shirts but a pair of his tennis shorts as well, which were too tight on him. “How could we go to the police?” Rob asked. “We had no hard evidence. We knew Raymond had killed Bobby and Ike and Lynn, and he knew we knew. But we couldn't prove it. Doesn't it mean anything to you at all that he killed our kids?”