The Ladies Killing Circle Anthology 4-Book Bundle. Barbara Fradkin
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“All right, the Beacons it is.”
The sun had been shining when we woke up, but halfway up into the mountains, a thick white fog rolled in, slicking the windshield and blocking the views I had come to see. Patrick slowed the Jag to a crawl.
“We’re going to get soaked,” he muttered as we reached the trailhead. “I didn’t bring rain gear.”
I reached into my backpack and pulled out a windbreaker. “You can wear this; I brought a poncho too.”
Patrick accepted it with a surly grunt, but once we’d stepped out onto the open moor, he pulled it around himself tightly. We scrabbled up the mossy slope, dodging sheep turds and bowing our heads against the damp. Beyond us, pale mist swallowed everything. I could see Patrick trudging up ahead, and occasionally a sheep appeared out of the fog, but mostly we were in a cocoon. Nothing, not even sound, penetrated. But despite the cold and wet, it felt magical.
Patrick stopped suddenly, gasping for breath. “O’Shea,” he said, “why are we doing this? We can’t see a damn thing.”
“It might clear,” I said. “I read the weather changes every hour.”
“But there’s not another human being for miles, and I’m freezing.”
I unzipped my backpack and pulled out a sweatshirt which Patrick took with a grudging smile.
“Do you have two of everything?” he asked.
“Training from my stepfather. Be prepared, the Führer always told us.”
He sat down on a rock to put the sweatshirt on. “You don’t like him much, do you?”
“He had a way of making you feel you were always failing some test.”
“What about your real Dad?”
“Well, he did fail every test, including fatherhood,” I said. “Couldn’t get his priorities straight, my mother said. I haven’t seen him in ten years.”
Patrick unscrewed his water canteen and offered it to me. “It must feel pretty shitty to matter so little to someone.”
“I went through a stage of that,” I said, wondering why on this gray, empty moor, I was telling a perfect stranger about the part of me that still hurt when touched. “But Dads are highly overrated anyway.”
“Mine’s dead.”
He said it so quietly I hardly heard him through the fog. I sat still a moment, wondering what to say. I didn’t want to ask how he died, because I wasn’t keen to stir up Patrick’s gloom.
“Sorry,” was all I could come up with. “I guess your mother does double duty then.”
“She’s dead too.”
I cringed inside. I thought of my own mother, whose favourite saying was “Patrick, don’t make waves.” I’d always thought her worse than useless, even accused her of driving Dad away, but I’d never wanted her dead. The magic of the moor vanished, leaving only bleak, bone-chilling damp. I knew I had to say something helpful now. I couldn’t make a joke or pretend it was no big deal. “That’s rough. Was it an accident?”
He turned his face away. “Car accident. I might’ve been killed too, if I hadn’t decided to stay on campus a day longer to pack up my things.”
“How’d you manage?”
He slitted his eyes against the mist. “After the affairs were settled, I packed all the things I wanted, bought a plane ticket and took off.”
“Wow.” I fell silent, thinking about what it would be like to have no one. No one telling you it’s time to grow up, no one whining that you should finish university. Or get a job.
Freedom. Complete, utter freedom.
“I guess your parents left you pretty well off, eh?”
“That doesn’t make up for it.”
“I didn’t mean that, but you can do pretty much anything you want.”
“I could.” He hunched down into his shoulders. “It just takes time to figure out what that is.”
“Still, I’m sure you’ve got friends to visit.”
“I don’t have friends, Patrick. I have drinking buddies and good-time boys who haven’t shown their faces since the funeral.”
I was failing miserably at yet another test, that of cheering the guy up, so in time-honoured, male-bonding tradition, I reached into my backpack to pull out a couple of beers. Hardly Adolf’s idea of hiking equipment, but they came through in a pinch.
“Well, my friend,” I said, tapping my beer against his. “Here’s to a new start for both of us.”
Patrick’s hatchet face worked a moment, then a slow smile transformed it. “Agreed. And tomorrow we’re going to the Pembrokeshire coast to hike along the cliffs. In the sun.”
Back inside the B&B, we peeled off our soggy clothes and hit the shower. Since my only pants and sweatshirts were soaked, Patrick offered some of his. I marvelled at the rich materials and expensive labels. Adolf shopped only at Discount Dan’s. Anywhere else, he said, and you’re just putting money in the pockets of the rich. I picked a pair of black Cartier jeans and a Hugo Boss sweatshirt with leather elbow patches. It felt good to be rich. By contrast, Patrick put on his most tattered jeans.
Again I marvelled at the effect money has. When we returned to the Trewern Arms for dinner, the pub owner was all over me and the waitress who cleared tables was almost slipping in her own drool. With my string-bean physique and gawky lack of class, girls rarely gave me a second glance. This was a change I could get used to. Patrick grinned at my open delight but said it would wear off.
“I’ve had money all my life. After a while, you think people only like you because of it. No girl’s ever wanted the real me, and my frat buddies liked me only when I was picking up the tab. It leaves you feeling empty.”
“Well, no girl’s ever wanted the real me either,” I replied, ordering a new round of drafts with a flick of my finger. “At least this gets you something. And when you were growing up, I bet you had a swimming pool, the latest toys and vacations in Hawaii.”
“All under the watchful eye of nanny. Or rather nannies, because Dad kept trying to screw them and Mom kept firing them.”
“Better a gorgeous Swedish nanny than the beady eye of an ex-army sergeant with a fetish for All Bran. ‘A cleansed body’s a cleansed mind’, my stepfather always said.”
“At least he didn’t raise you by proxy, like mine,” Patrick countered. “Kind of like a wholly-owned subsidiary.” He stopped himself just as a scowl was beginning to spread over his face and drained his beer with a quick toss.
“Okay, so Dads are shits the world over. We’re out from under them now, right?”
But the scowl was still spreading. I tried again. “And at least you’ve got the money.” Curiosity gripped me, for I was getting used to the feel of Boss leather against my skin. “Or is that still all tied up?”
With an effort, Patrick shook his head. “Dad had accounts all over the world, which I can access if I need to.” He paused, then patted his daypack beside him. “But I’ve got the entire life insurance policy in diamonds right here at my side.”
I plunked my beer down with a jolt. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
He held his hands out, palms up, like a beggar. “I wanted the feel of it in my own hands. Not a little piece of plastic or a signature at the bank. I wanted something to hold on to, something to give me a good time. Two million dollars, right here in my hands—that’s got to give me a good time.” His eyes grew glassy. “Right?”
The exercise, the rich pub food and the four pints