The Stroke of Winter(90)

“I don’t know, Father,” Grey said, his eyes pleading, imploring his father for answers he could not give. He shook his head. “I woke up and found those.” He pointed to the stack of canvases. “And all of this.” He gestured wildly around the room.

Sebastian Bell gazed at the canvases, the paintings his son had created. He’d had such hopes for the boy, who displayed a talent even greater than his own. But dread and horror overcame him when he realized what these paintings depicted. The obsession. Fear seemed woven into the images.

Daisy, that poor girl. The father could barely make himself utter the words to the son.

“Did you kill her?” It came out as a harsh whisper.

Grey collapsed onto the floor, overcome by his sobs. “I don’t remember,” he managed to squeak out.

“Where is her body?” Sebastian hissed.

Grey continued to sob, the wails of the damned.

But he didn’t need to ask. The painting of the cliff told him all he needed to know. He grabbed his son by the collar and pulled him to his feet.

“Get yourself together,” Sebastian growled at him. “We’re going to fix this. As much as can be fixed.”

He hurried his son down the stairs, catching his wife’s eye as they went. She took a few steps toward them and opened her mouth to speak, but Sebastian shook his head. Their locked eyes spoke volumes to each other. Without even having to say it, somehow she knew. Her hands flew to her mouth as she watched them walk out the door.

As Sebastian drove toward the cliff, Grey seemed to slip into some sort of catatonia. He wouldn’t respond to his father’s questions. He just stared straight ahead, a slight smile on his face, a tear escaping from his eyes.

And then, they arrived.

Sebastian Bell stood on the cliff, just outside Wharton, his heart racing in his chest. He gazed over the side but saw nothing but the pounding waves. How could it have possibly come to this? That boy, his son, had been evil from the word go. He and Serena had both known that. Early on they didn’t want to admit it, but as Grey grew into a young man, it simply became evident. An undercurrent, always thrumming, wanting to get out. Sometimes, horrible times, it did.

But this? A sense of utter dread overcame Sebastian. If his son could kill the one closest to him, his beloved Daisy, what next? Where would he stop? Would he stop?

But it wasn’t his son. He saw that now. The boy’s eyes were black as night.

“Is this the spot?” Sebastian asked.

A low growl escaped Grey’s lips, then laughter. “She knew better than to leave me.”

But the voice wasn’t Grey’s. It was the monster’s. The side of Grey Sebastian’s other son called Mr. Hyde. The demon that had plagued his family since the day Grey was born.

And all at once, something overcame Sebastian. He saw the years of covering up misdeeds and abuses and hurts. He saw his dear wife, Serena, crying in anguish night after night. He saw poor Indigo, afraid and cowering in the face of his brother’s rage. And now this. Nothing was going to make this right again. Nothing was going to make his son right again. Was it even his son? Or was this a demon standing before him?

And so, before he could even think about it or consider the gravity of his actions, Sebastian summoned all the strength he had, ran at the monster as hard as he could, and pushed.

As his son flew over the cliff and hit the rocks below with a sound that pierced a father’s heart, Sebastian’s chest seized up, a pain worse than he’d ever endured. He turned his eyes toward the star-filled sky. Not the worst place to die. His boy had died there. And so many others.

But no. He didn’t die there and then. He managed to drive back to town, back to La Belle Vie. He made it into the entryway before he fell to the ground.

Serena flew to his side. “Call James,” he whispered, referring to the Bells’ loyal handyman. “The cliff. He needs to hide the bodies.”

Serena understood.

And then, he was gone.

After the ambulance arrived and took his shell away, and she had made the call to the handyman, Serena walked up to her husband’s studio. A calm had overtaken her. Now it was about Sebastian’s legacy and Indigo’s future.

So much blood. It was then she noticed the canvases. One look at them told her all she needed to know. She gathered them up and stacked them in the bathroom—maybe she’d burn them at some other time. Maybe she’d keep them. But she knew one thing. They would never see the light of day. It was then she saw the scratch marks on the door, long scratches, deep in the wood—what had happened there? Grey, what have you done? It was almost as though he had imprisoned Daisy in this room. Was that what had happened when she and Sebastian were away?

Serena hurried out of the studio and shut the door behind her. She made a mental note to have the handyman seal it up entirely when he was finished with that other business. She didn’t want to see the inside of that room ever again.

And the years wrapped themselves around that door, holding it tight, along with the terrible secret, and the demons, it contained. Until the time was right to unleash it.

The End.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS



This book was written during the teeth of the pandemic, although I didn’t set it in this new reality we’re all dealing with. My editors and I thought everyone was pandemic weary, and when you’re reading a novel for an escape, which many of my readers have told me they do with my books, you all didn’t have to curl up with this story and find yourself caught up in this frightening and difficult time again. So I don’t make any references to it, and my characters are not dealing with its aftermath. Maybe I’ll do so in another book, sometime in the future.