Close on to midnight, there was no one else in the swimming pool. When Caroline had first stood with that once again pristine stretch of blue water at her feet she had nearly drawn back: It would be a long time before she was entirely comfortable with solitude, and the locked door to the ominous mud room still bore the police seal. But Douglas offered to stay with her, to float around quietly at the other side of the pool. That compromise reassured her, and the strong, steady laps she had swum in the silky water soothed her further. Soon, very soon, she would have to approach Doug with the offer to free him from marriage to a psychopath's daughter-ironic, really, considering his own efforts in practically the same cause. But not now, not here; it was more than time for a small fraction of the relaxation and ease she had come here to find.
When the three figures at the far end of the echoing, chlorine-scented room caught her eye, she was startled, but not badly so, and although she glanced to the side to make certain that Douglas was there (and he was, standing protectively upright in the hip-deep water), she put her head down and continued her measured strokes to the end, where she surfaced to prop her arms on the rim of the pool.
"We need to talk with you, Caroline." It was, strangely, King David who spoke, not the beautiful DEA agent whom she had decided had to be the rock star's lover. She looked from Emilio to Lauren Sullivan, then dropped back underwater to swim to the side and pull herself out. Retrieving her terry cloth robe from the bench, she belted it on and swept her wet hair back from her face.
"About what?" About how devastating it was to have a mother who murdered and blackmailed and God knew what else without a qualm? About the link she had to this stunning red-haired woman before her, a link neither of them could mention without drawing forth the deep shame of being birthed by Hilda Finch? About how miserable and lost she felt, with only Douglas left to her? And how being faced with the larger-than-life trio of a seven-figure actress, a drop-dead-gorgeous bodybuilder, and a six-foot-four rock singer with black and green hair, tattooed eyes, and more sheer animal magnetism than Mick Jagger (all three of them, moreover, fully dressed, and in clothing so expensive it showed no sign of the long day behind them) made her feel like a low-rent cockroach? The three of them presented a united front, linked together in a bond that Caroline did not fully understand and felt that she personally would never again know. She faced them with her chin up. "You want to talk to me about what?"
The tattooed eyes gave a quick sideways glance to where Douglas stood. Doug Blessing, whose own looks and charisma faded in their presence as a star in daylight. She held out one hand to her husband, her eyes defiantly on those of the rocker, who nodded and waited until Douglas had sloshed from the pool and joined them.
"Let's sit down," the singer suggested. They sat, on two facing benches. His words, though spoken in a low voice, reverberated back from the mosaic tile scenes that lined the room, and as the blue water grew still again, the universe seemed to contract to where the five of them sat.
Caroline could not bear it. She seized the initiative and spoke first. "If you're here to tell me that Lauren Sullivan is my half sister, I already know it. And Lauren," she went on, forcing herself to meet that world-famous gaze, "I promise never to tell a soul that my mother had anything to do with you. I'd probably deny her myself, if I could. Is that all you wanted?"
"No," said the actress, her sultry voice ripe with some intense but unidentifiable emotion. "Dad, do you want to…?"
She was, Caroline saw in disbelief, speaking to King David, who stirred and reached into a pocket.
" 'Dad!' Did you call him-but… you told me you're, what? Forty-four?" Caroline objected, staring incredulously at the rock star. Even for someone as wild as King David, fathering a child at the age of, what? seven or eight? was a bit hard to believe.
He laughed, checked the two photographs he had taken from his pocket, and handed one of them to Caroline. "Detective Toscana found these on Hilda Finch when he arrested her."
Caroline dried her fingers on her robe and took the faded snapshot by its white-bordered corner. It showed a red-haired young man, in profile. She turned it over and read, in a girl's handwriting, "Tad Blake."
"Okay," she said, waiting for the explanation.
"Hold it up," the singer ordered, and when she had done so he got to his feet and turned his head to give her the side of his face.
"Christ!" exclaimed Douglas, who saw it at the same instant: The picture showed the baddest boy of heavy metal music as a clean-cut, all-American college kid, before tattoos, heroin, and decades of late nights in smoke-filled rooms.
The singer looked down at Caroline, the lightning bolts crinkling in amusement. "Yeah, that's me all right. I dropped out a couple months after that was taken, went to San Francisco to become, if you can dig it, a folk singer. Instead of that, I discovered drugs. I woke up five years later, cleaned up my act a little bit, and discovered hard rock. But can you imagine somebody called Tad Blake eating live bats on stage? The name would be fine for a folk singer, I guess, but it just didn't have the right ring for where I wanted to go. So I changed it, got the tattoos to change my looks and my image, traded my gold-rimmed glasses for contact lenses, lied about my age-remember, these were still the days when we didn't really trust anyone over thirty. I wrote 'King's Revenge' in 1972, it went platinum, and I haven't been off the charts since. And now everyone just assumes that I'm in such lousy shape for my age because of all the years of drugs and parties. I don't have to let on about the vegetarianism and health spas."
"Tad Blake?" Caroline said, looking at the red-haired youth in wonder. Douglas nudged her elbow; she looked up to see a second photo being held out to her. She took it and nearly fell backward off the bench: Tad again, this time looking straight at the camera, his arms around a small, trim girclass="underline" Hilda Finch.
Caroline gaped at the man across from her, then at Lauren. "Dad," indeed; Lauren's resemblance to the boy in the picture was unmistakable. She covered her mouth to stifle a laugh, a slightly hysterical sound that caused the other four to eye her with concern. "Sorry," she gasped. "I was just thinking what Douglas 's constituency would do if they found out that their congressman's wife was related, even secondhand, to King David."
"They wouldn't know whether to impeach me or ask for your autograph," Douglas replied, sounding rather uneasy at the prospect.
"You'd sure as hell dominate the heavy metal vote," the rock star reassured him, the sheepish grin on his middle-aged features eerily like that on the snapshot. "But hang on, it gets even weirder. You're right saying you're Lauren's half sister, but it's not through Hilda Finch that you're related."
"What? What are you talking about?" Caroline's mind seemed to slip gears a fraction, then spin wildly. Her voice climbed higher. "Of course we're related through Mother, who else is-"
She broke off as King David and Lauren Sullivan, after a quick exchange of glances, rose as one and came to sit on the bench next to her. Without a word, Lauren lifted her right hand into the air and held it out, the palm toward Emilio. On the other side of her, the singer did the same, his thumb brushing her little finger.
"Now you," Lauren told Caroline. "No, the right hand."