River’s End

Olivia’s head and let the tears come. She didn’t allow herself to sob, though hot, bitter sobs welled and pressed into her throat. The tears were silent, sliding down her cheeks to dampen the child’s hair. Julie. Oh God, oh God, Julie.
    She wanted to scream out her sister’s name. To rave it. But there was the child, now going limp with sleep in her arms, to consider.
    Julie would have wanted her daughter protected. God knew, she had tried to protect her baby.
    And now Julie was dead.
    Jamie continued to rock, to soothe herself now as Olivia slept in her arms. That beautiful, bright woman with the wickedly husky laugh, the giving heart and boundless talent, dead at the age of thirty-two. Killed, the two grim-faced detectives had told her, by the man who had professed to love her to the point of madness. Well, Sam Tanner was mad, Jamie thought as her hands curled into brutal fists. Mad with jealousy, with drugs, with desperation. Now he’d destroyed the object of his obsession.
    But he would never, never touch the child.
    Gently, Jamie laid Olivia back in bed, smoothed the blankets over her, let her fingertips rest for a moment on the blond hair. She remembered the night Olivia had been born, the way Julie had laughed between contractions.
    Only Julie MacBride, Jamie thought, could make a joke out of labor. The way Sam had looked, impossibly handsome and nervous, his blue eyes brilliant with excitement and fear, his black hair tousled so that she’d smoothed it with her own fingers to soothe him.
    Then he’d brought that beautiful little girl up to the viewing glass, and there’d been tears of love and wonder in his eyes.
    Yes, she remembered that, and remembered thinking as she smiled at him through that glass that they were perfect. The three of them, perfect together. Perfect for one another.
    It had seemed so.
    She walked to the window, stared out at nothing. Julie’s star had been on the rise, and Sam’s already riding high. They’d met on the set of a movie, fell wildly in love and were married within four months while the press raved and simpered over them. She’d worried, Jamie admitted. It was all so fast, so Hollywood. But Julie had always known exactly what she wanted, and she’d wanted Sam Tanner. For a while, it had seemed as happy-ever-after as the stories Julie told her daughter at bedtime. But this fairy tale had ended in a nightmare—blocks away, only blocks away while she’d slept, Jamie thought, squeezing her eyes shut as a sob clawed at her throat. The sudden flash of lights had her jumping back, her heart pumping fast. David, she realized, and turned quickly to the bed to be certain Olivia slept peacefully. Leaving the light on low, she hurried out. She was coming down the stairs as the door opened and her husband walked in.
    He stood there for a long moment, a tall man with broad shoulders. His hair of deep brown was mussed, his eyes, a quiet mix of gray and green, full of fatigue and horror. Strength was what she’d always found in him. Strength and stability. Now he looked sick and shaken, his usual dusky complexion pasty, a muscle jumping in his firm, square jaw.
    “God, Jamie. Oh, sweet God.” His voice broke, and somehow that made it worse. “
    I need a drink.” He turned away, walked unsteadily into the front salon. She had to grip the railing for balance before she could order her legs to move, to follow him. “David?”
    “I need a minute.” His hands shook visibly as he took a decanter of whisky from the breakfront, poured it into a short glass. He braced one hand on the wood, lifted the glass with the other and drank it down like medicine. “Jesus, God, what he did to her.”
    “Oh, David.” She broke. The control she’d managed to cling to since the police had come to the door shattered. She simply sank to the floor in a spasm of sobs and shudders.
    “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He rushed to her and gathered her against him. “Oh, Jamie, I’m so sorry.”
    They stayed there, on the floor in the lovely room, as the light turned pearly with dawn. She wept in harsh, racking gasps until he wondered that her bones didn’t shatter from the power of it.
    The gasps turned to moans that were her sister’s name, then the moans to silence.
    “I’ll take you upstairs. You need to lie down.”
    “No, no. no.” The tears had helped. Jamie told herself they’d helped though they left her feeling hollowed-out and achy. “Livvy might wake up. She’ll need me.