Blood Is Quicker Than Water Read online

  Blood Is Quicker Than Water

  Kate Watterson

  writing as

  Katherine Smith

  A Tom Doherty Associates Book

  New York

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  To Alex. This one is for you, buddy.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Excerpt from Fractured

  Tor Books by Kate Watterson

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Prologue

  It was only the beginning of the dream; Cassandra Beaumont knew that as well as she knew she lived and breathed.

  The waiting was over, the votes counted, and after an endless night of flash photography, cheers, and infinite handshakes, at last they were going home.

  The world outside was gray and wet, a thin November drizzle heralding the expanse of dawn on the horizon. Drooping with exhaustion, Cassandra dimly heard Robert decline a waiting limousine. Someone, a polite stranger with no face, helped her into the passenger seat of their Mercedes.

  Her husband hummed as he pulled away from the building. The wheels squealed on the wet pavement.

  “Landslide!” He hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand and laughed out loud in satisfaction. “I knew I’d win, but a damned landslide?”

  “The youngest man ever to be elected senator in the history of Illinois. It’s wonderful.” She leaned her head back against the seat and shut her eyes. “God, I’m so tired.”

  “Tired? How the hell can you be tired, Cassie? I won.”

  Lifting her lashes and glancing over, she stared at his profile, seeing the faint smile on his mouth. His stand on abortion and plans to reform the state budgeting structure aside, she couldn’t help but wonder how many of the female voters had been swayed by his looks and name, that image so carefully created and exploited by the press. He fairly exuded the infamous Beaumont charm, even at five in the morning. The trace of a daybreak beard only lent a certain dash to his lean face, his dark hair was rumpled attractively, and he’d discarded his jacket and tie, his shirt open to show off a muscular upper chest and strong neck.

  They’d been married for five years and she still thought he was one of the most handsome men she had ever seen.

  The tires whined as they gained the freeway and changed lanes. The rain pelting the windshield had changed to ice, pinging loudly against the glass. The inside of the car smelled stale and dank with the dying autumn.

  Not wanting to disrupt his jubilant mood, she still couldn’t help but murmur, “You’re driving awfully fast.”

  Robert looked amused. “Darling, I always drive fast and there is virtually no traffic at this time of morning.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Just relax. Can you imagine how Morris is feeling right now? For an incumbent, he sure got handed his ass.”

  “Robert, please. I know you’re excited, but you’re going nearly eighty.”

  Any more words stuck in her throat. At that very moment she heard something crack and the vehicle lurched sideways in a sickening arc. Suddenly the world was a melee of swirling colors and screaming metal.

  Robert cursed, wrestling with the wheel.

  The Mercedes hit the guardrail hard, slamming her forward against her seatbelt. Gasping for breath, she dizzily realized with panic that the ragdoll sensation she felt meant they’d gone over the side of the road and the car was airborne.

  “No!” she screamed.

  Chapter 1

  Her shaky return to the world was filled as always with gray edges and inner ghosts.

  At the moment, she wouldn’t mind never sleeping again.

  Cassandra Beaumont rolled to her back and pushed the damp hair from her forehead, still trembling in the aftermath. Her heart pounded, sending the blood roaring in her ears. Her nightgown was soaked with cold sweat. Blinking up at the ceiling, she let her breath out very slowly. Control. She needed complete control.

  The room was dark but cool. Large, familiar, with the armoire in the corner and the long windows she loved across from the bed so she could look out into the garden in the summer. The air conditioning hummed its low seductive song. The security lights penetrated the curtains, casting an oblong pattern on the ceiling of her bedroom.

  Everything was normal. Quiet. The alarm hadn’t sounded.

  It was just another damned nightmare. Her subconscious had been working overtime lately and she was sick of it.

  “Mummy?”

  “Tim.” She sat up so swiftly that the room whirled for a moment. Her hands flew backwards to support her body. The bottom sheet was damp to the touch. “Go back to bed.”

  A pair of solemn, dark blue eyes gazed at her from the doorway. “You yelled. I woke up.”

  “I’m sorry.” Swallowing hard, she tried to smile but her lips felt as stiff as dried leather.

  “That’s okay.” It was forlorn forgiveness.

  Framed by the darkened doorway, her son was light and shadow, his curly dark hair sticking up in tufts, his precious blanket clutched in his arms. Wearing cartoon pajamas and red socks, he looked so very … very young.

  And so very much like his father.

  “I’m fine. I just had a bad dream.” She wiped her damp hands on the blankets in a self-conscious gesture. Her legs were still trembling in betraying little convulsions. “Do you want me to take you back to your room?”

  “No.” His stocking feet shuffled against the carpet. “Can’t I sleep with you?”

  She should have known he would ask. It was the same battle every night, over and over. Ever since the accident he’d been very dependent, rather unlike the forthright young child he’d been before.

  How she hated it. The difference was pronounced and a little frightening—actually, a lot frightening.

  “We’ve discussed this, honey. You need to be a big boy and sleep in your own room.” Flinging back the covers and angling her wobbly legs over the side, she swung out of bed. She crossed the room to pick him up, his body small and firm in her arms. His little arms went around her neck and he sniffled slightly against her skin and clung to her.

  God, she loved this precious human being. How much was almost as frightening as her dreams.

  Throat tight, she said, “Timmy, you know everything is okay, right?” She pressed her face against his silky hair and smelled baby shampoo mingled with his special childish scent.

  A sob shook him slightly. “Yes.”

  “I’m here.”

  “Mummy, I know. But … Daddy isn’t.”
br />   No, she thought with as much emotional detachment as possible, he isn’t. Very gently, she promised, “You and I are going to be great on our own, sweetheart.”

  * * * *

  To him, the show was a complete fiasco.

  Michael moved like a shadow through the elite crowd, feeling rather like an automaton, a smile plastered on his face. His jeans and denim shirt were well-worn, a contrast to everyone around him, but long ago he’d had his fill of formal wear and stuffy affairs. The long gowns and tuxedoes made his casual appearance conspicuous, but that was the point, wasn’t it? Drinking bad champagne from a long fluted glass, it was all he could do to look anything other than bored with the whole social thing. He’d even signed a few autographs with reluctance, feeling like a sham.

  A great artist?

  He certainly didn’t feel like one.

  Oh yes, his paintings sold in record numbers. It was … amazing. But he felt somehow cheated and maybe a little Hollywood cheap. Damn all, he thought darkly and emptied his glass as he saw a portly man detach himself from a group of overdressed, overweight ladies. He was Hollywood cheap.

  The director of the gallery smiled like he’d just eaten a pound of the finest caviar. Drifting close, Trevor Alcott murmured, “A success, Michael. Congratulations.”

  Moving into an alcove where he could watch the flow of people, Michael said, “The turnout is much bigger than I expected.”

  “Oh, no. I was sure this display would draw quite a number.”

  “Interested in my work?” The delicate question was as much a challenge as anything. The evening grated on the good manners that had been pounded into him since he could toddle across the floor. He felt a little like strangling someone. Alcott, as it happened, was at the top of the list of potential victims. Michael hadn’t wanted this at all.

  Alcott had the grace to turn the slightest bit red. “I … yes, of course.”

  “Not my family and the illustrious Beaumont name? That full-page ad in the paper looked more like a political banner than an invitation to an art showing. Why didn’t you tell me you were going to do it? This is New York, half the world probably saw it.”

  Alcott’s eyes widened slightly in the folds of skin under his heavy gray brows. “You are a Beaumont. That doesn’t hurt, Michael, you know that. Whatever gets your work out there so it can be seen helps. Having a famous name is in your favor.”

  “I’m sure you feel that way, I’m just not sure I do.” Michael did his best not to snarl the words.

  Obviously stung, the man said, “I am in the business of promoting artists and their creations. Selling their pieces. That is what I’m doing. Here. For you.”

  “I want people to enjoy what they see. To purchase a painting that will grace their home and enlighten their life, not just to have them buy something, even if they think it sucks, just because my last name is in the corner.”

  “I am giving you great exposure.” The protest was more of a bluster.

  Michael lifted a brow and smiled coldly. “Using all means possible, is that it?”

  Above the perfectly immaculate collar of his white shirt, the director’s plump mouth tightened. “Yes, that is it. You won’t object when I hand you the check from tonight’s proceeds.”

  Michael could easily point out that that logic was extremely flawed, since the very name that Alcott had hung the bank on was the one that ensured Michael did not have to do anything as pedestrian as worry about making a living at painting, or anything else for that matter.

  He was a goddamned Beaumont.

  Lucky him.

  “I’m absolutely starved. Are we nearly done?” A slim arm slipped through Michael’s and a hand came up to suggestively caress his shoulder. The interruption might have been welcome except when he turned his head, he looked into a pair of sea-green eyes that owed nothing to genetics and everything to colored contacts. He could even see the little rings around the irises. The woman clinging to his arm exhaled a delicate blast of gin across his face. “Darling, I think I’m in the mood for Thai.”

  He said shortly, “I didn’t think you ate real food. At least you never have in my presence.”

  “I’m off my diet, just for tonight.”

  “Well, sorry, we’re not done.”

  “How soon?” The full lips pouted.

  Alcott, both tactful and relieved, took that moment to drift off, or better yet, escape—he was moving at a pretty fast pace. With reluctant amusement, Michael watched the man fade into the crowd and then replied, “Darling Tiffany, I have no idea. An artist is supposed to be available for his adoring public.”

  “Adoring public?” The vacant green eyes widened. “What do you mean? Like groupies?”

  Lord, help him. Groupies? Michael said gently, “I’m joking, of course.”

  “Oh.” A troubled frown briefly crossed Tiffany’s lovely face. Blond, leggy, and as absent of intellect as she was full of bodily charms, she looked very nice on his arm but at that point the attraction was over. He’d found that out after the first date. After the first five minutes of the first date. Why she’d shown up here was a mystery to him. She certainly had no interest in paintings, his or anyone else’s. But in her very short, very tight designer black dress, there were plenty of interested eyes on her.

  He suggested, “As far as I’m concerned, you can leave and grab a bite anytime.”

  “Without you?” She actually batted her lashes at him. It was a maneuver he’d never seen done before, except maybe in cartoons.

  He wanted to laugh out loud. “I don’t think you need me. Half the men in this room are staring at you with their tongues hanging out. Just pick one.”

  “Oh, Michael.” She hit his arm playfully. “Stop it. You’re so funny.”

  Hilarious. Yeah, that was him. He needed to get rid of Tiffany before he moved her to the top of his need to strangle list.

  “Odd, I wasn’t trying to be. Here”—he put one hand on the small of her back, guiding her out of the alcove—“let me introduce you to a friend of mine. I think you two might get along.”

  * * * *

  Cassandra looked at the caller ID and sank slowly into a chair. Had she not already been sweating, she would be now. Her throat seemed oddly clogged as she tried to swallow. Her hands began to shake.

  She was calling. Again.

  The number was displayed in bold print, undeniable and nerve-shatteringly real.

  What was she going to do?

  The phone pealed, insisting she do something.

  No.

  With an unsteady hand, she reached out and grasped the receiver, slowly bringing it to her ear. “Hello.”

  “Mrs. Beaumont, you’ve been out.” The whisper was eerie, sibilant, deliberately unrecognizable.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I know a lot of things.”

  “I … I just went to play tennis with a friend.” Good God, was this maniac watching her all the time? Her heartbeat kicked up another notch.

  “Of course.” The caller gave a hoarse laugh. “That’s what all good rich little wives do, isn’t it—tennis at the club, lunch with the girls, our nails done at three and a massage somewhere in between? What’s it like, princess?”

  “What do you want?” Cassandra hated her raspy voice for the betraying vehicle it was.

  “The world hasn’t forgotten you yet, have they?”

  Forgotten her. Oh God, she so wanted to be forgotten.

  She drew a breath. “I want you to stop calling me. The police know all about this. They … they can trace this, find you.”

  “Let them. That would be just too bad for you, wouldn’t it? Everyone would know.”

  “Know what?”

  “Our guilty little secret. Now, now.” Soft, silky admonishment drifted down the line. “You know what I want.”

  “Money.”

  “Sure. I want money. Or else I’ll publish those pictures and spill my guts all over the tabloids.”

  The phone was
slick and wet in her sweating hand. Swallowing hard, she said, “Robert is dead, I—”

  “Sweetheart, don’t try to sell me some load of crap about how you don’t have it. He left you a fortune, no question about it. I just want a little cut and I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  God. Cassandra shut her eyes. “How much?”

  “Fifty grand.”

  Relief was definitely a relative term. Expecting a much larger amount, she waited a fraction of a moment before saying, “If I agree, how should I get it to you?”

  “Oh, honey, I’ll be in touch, don’t worry. Get the money, keep it with you, and I’ll let you know when and where to drop it.”

  But she would worry. And she knew very well that blackmailers bled their victims dry. Desperately, Cassandra fought to make her voice firm. “This is the last time. I’m not going to be strung along and I want those pictures, free and clear.”

  A laugh. The line went dead.

  Dammit, Cassandra thought wearily, slowly replacing the receiver. Cradling her head in her hands, she tried to still the tremors in her body.

  The phone began to ring again.

  Lifting her head with quivering dread, she looked at the display. The number there was almost as unsettling as her unwanted last caller. This, now, was the very last thing she needed. There were tears on her lashes and she blinked hard. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the phone. “Marie?”

  A soft feminine voice spoke, the overtones modulated and smoothly pleasant. “Cassandra. How convenient modern society is, telling a person who is on the other line. I guess I should be grateful you didn’t decline to answer my call.”

  Her mind felt blank, numb. “Of course not.”

  “Don’t say that, my dear. We haven’t seen Timmy but a few times in the past six months. It isn’t right. I feel something is wrong, that your neglect is deliberate. I wouldn’t want any unpleasantness between us over this issue.”

  Unpleasantness. Still dressed in her sweat-stained clothes, slumped in the chair by the bedroom window overlooking the garden, Cassandra managed to murmur, “I know it has been a while since you’ve seen him, but I thought we needed some time together, just he and I. He is still … adjusting. I’m trying, he’s been to a therapist, but it upsets him, so I’ve just tried to be here for him.”