“I knew I’d find you two together. Well, your warning was a little too late, Christina. Nothing is going to save your lover now.” He laughed shortly.
She forced herself to speak despite the feeling that she would faint at any moment. “Tommy, you can’t do this! It’s—it’s murder! You are throwing your own life away.”
“Do you think I give a damn about my life anymore? I don’t care what happens to me as long as he dies. And he is going to die, Christina—right before your eyes. Do you think I don’t know you have been sleeping with him all the time we were engaged? Do you think I’m that much of a fool?”
“It’s not true, Tommy!” Christina cried. She edged around in front of Philip, but he pushed her aside forcefully and she fell back against the bed.
“Just stay out of the way, Christina. This is between Huntington and myself,” Philip said harshly.
“Very touching,” Tommy laughed. “But I don’t intend to shoot Christina.”
“Tommy, listen to me!” Christina pleaded. She had to stop him! She pushed herself off the bed and faced Tommy, her breasts heaving. “I’ll go away with you, Tommy. I’ll marry you today. Only please, please, put the pistols down.”
“You’re lying. You’ve always lied to me!”
“I’m not lying, Tommy. This is insane! You have no reason to be jealous of Philip. I don’t love him, Tommy. He doesn’t want me and I don’t want him. How could I want him after what he did to me? Please—you’ve got to listen to reason! I’ll leave with you today, and we’ll never mention this again. Tommy, please!”
“That’s enough, Christina! You’re playing me for a fool again, and I won’t have it. You have always wanted him, so don’t try to tell me otherwise!” Tommy raged, the muscles twitching in his cheek. “All the time we were engaged you wouldn’t even let me touch you, but you’ve lethimput his hands on you, haven’t you? Well, no more! You won’t have him, Christina—nor his son.” Tommy laughed again when he heard her gasp, but he kept a steady eye on the motionless Philip. “Did you think I would leave that brat alive to remind you of him? No, Christina—they will both die! I have two bullets, one for each of them.”
“You will have to use them both on me, Huntington. And even then I will tear you apart.” Philip’s voice was calm but deadly.
“I doubt that, Caxton—I am an excellent shot. My first bullet will find your heart, and that will leave me one to kill that bastard son of yours. She will have nothing left of you.” He paused and stared blankly at the floor. “You were all I ever wanted, Crissy, but they took you away from me.” He looked up at Philip, and the madness returned to his eyes.
Tommy raised one of the pistols and aimed straight at Philip’s heart. A bloodcurdling scream escaped Christina, and she plunged forward just as Tommy fired. Philip had stepped aside to avoid the bullet, but he was able to catch Christina in his arms as she collapsed, blood pouring from a head wound.
Christina felt that she was falling, falling in slow motion and spinning around and around. Everything flashed red before her eyes—and then blackness engulfed her.
“Oh my God. What have I done? I’ve killed her!” Tommy cried. The color drained from his face, and with a sickening cry he turned and ran down the stairs. But before he’d reached the front door, John came tearing through the dining room, with Kareen and Johnsy right behind him.
“Tommy!” John yelled, halting him at the door. Tommy turned slowly around, and John paled at the sight of the two pistols in his hands. “My God! What have you done?”
Tommy dropped the weapons instantly, as if they burned his hands. But one pistol was still loaded, and it exploded with a horrible sound when it hit the floor. An anguished scream echoed from upstairs. Tommy fell to his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“She’s come to haunt me already!” Tommy cried. “Oh, God, Crissy, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I loved you.”
“Stay where you are, Tommy,” John commanded in a choked voice before he ran up the stairs, the women right behind him.
“Where will I go?” Tommy mumbled to himself in the empty hall. “Why doesn’t Caxton come after me? Justice must be done! Oh, God, how could I have been so blind as not to see how much she loved him—so much that she would run into my line of fire to protect him? I can’t live with what I’ve done—I want to die!”
DAMN IT, DOCTOR, why won’t she wake up? It’s been three days now, and you said it was only a superficial wound—it didn’t even need bandaging!” John paced the floor in Christina’s bedroom as old Dr. Willis closed his bag.
“From what Mr. Caxton tells me, I’m afraid Christina’s condition is mental, not physical. When she awoke from the first faint and heard the second shot, she instantly assumed her son had been killed. There is absolutely no reason why she shouldn’t wake up—she just doesn’t want to.”
“But she has every reason to live!”
“We know that, but she doesn’t. All I can suggest is that you sit here and talk to her—try to bring her out of it. And don’t fret so much, John. In all my years, I have never lost a patient who died of plain stubbornness. Except your mother. But she was awake, she willed herself to die. Talk to Christina. Tell her that boy of hers needs her—tell her anything that might make her come out of it. Once she’s awake, she will be fine.”
After Doctor Willis left, Philip came into the room and stood beside the bed.
“What did Willis have to say?” Philip asked soberly.
“That there is no reason why she shouldn’t wake up, she just doesn’t want to!” John replied heatedly. “Damn it! She’s willing herself to die from grief, just as our mother did.”
Late that night, after John had spent the whole day talking to her, Christina finally opened her eyes.
She looked at John, who was sitting in a chair beside her bed, and she wondered why he was there. Then she remembered what had happened.
“Oh, God, no—no!” she cried hysterically.
