The Happiest Day by Sandy Huth Page A

mother?”
    “You’ll wake
Rachel,” Norris said wearily.  “What do you want from me, Peter?  I’ve already
been judged innocent.  Do you want me to confess to murders I didn’t commit? 
Would that make you happy?”
    “Somebody murdered
them and there were only two people in this house.”
    “Why do you assume
it was me then?”
    Peter laughed incredulously. 
“What are you saying?  Are you honestly trying to make me believe that it was
Rachel who killed Frederick and Helen?”
    Norris looked him
straight in the eye.  “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Peter.  And that’s why
you’re never going to tell anyone about this ever.”
    Peter fell back in
a chair as if Norris had punched him.  “It isn’t true,” he said in a hushed
voice.
    “It is.  I swear
it.  I don’t blame her, though.  After what Stern had done to her that night,
I’m glad she did it.”
    “Why my mother,
though?”
    “Helen came across
them.”
    “How did she get
them upstairs?”
    “I helped her and
we staged the scene.”
    Peter looked up at
him, dazed.  “Was she really in bed with you?”
    “Not on that
night, no.  When she woke me up to tell me what she had done, I was asleep in
her bed, waiting for her.”
    “Was it the first
time?”
    “No.”
    Peter struggled to
his feet.  Nothing he had ever known was real anymore.  “I’ve got to get out of
here.”
    “Will we see you
again?”
    Peter looked at
him with an incredulous look.  “After what you just told me?”
    “We’ll miss you,”
Norris said quietly.
    He stumbled to the
door of the study and looked back one last time.  “This God that you pray to
all the time, how does He feel about what you’ve done?”
    Norris lifted one
shoulder.  “We removed evil from this household.  I think God was with us that
night.”
    Peter’s hand
grabbed the door frame.  How could he leave Rachel alone with this man?  Then
he remembered.  She was his wife.  He had no more power where she was
concerned.  “Good-bye, Norris.”  He left the house without another word.
    Upstairs, Rachel
laid in her bed, tears streaming down her face.  She knew Peter was still
downstairs and it broke her heart, knowing how disappointed he was in her.  The
look on his face when Norris had announced their marriage and pregnancy almost
brought her to her knees.  She had faked feeling ill simply to get away from
the look in his eyes.
    “He’s gone.”
    She startled then
wiped her face hurriedly.  Norris hated to see her sad.  “Is he?”
    “How do you feel?” 
He came over to the bed and sat next to her, stroking her hair.
    “Better.  I guess
I’m just tired from all the travel.”
    “Me, too.”  He
began to massage her neck with a gentle touch.  “Feel good?”
    “Mm,” she
answered, her body beginning to relax.  “Was he upset when he left?”
    “No more than when
he came.  He was asking a lot of questions about what happened the night Helen
and Stern died.”
    “What did you tell
him?”
    “I stuck with the
story.  He’s just going to have to accept it.”
    “I hate living a
lie,” she said, her voice trembling a bit.  “Everyone is so angry with us and
it hurts.”
    “We can’t take the
chance of confiding in anyone.  This has to stay between us or I’ll be ruined. 
We’ll lose everything.”
    “I know.  I made
you a promise, Norris.  I’ll never tell.”
    He lowered his
body so that he lay behind her and kissed her neck reverently.  “I love you,”
he said emotionally.
    “I love you,
too.”  She tried to turn to face him, but he held her in place.
    “No,” he
whispered, “stay like this.”  He pulled her dress up from the hem, exposing her
below the waist.  She felt him fumbling with his own pants and willed herself
to stay relaxed.  It wasn’t that he wasn’t a considerate or skilled lover—he
was both.  It was that she couldn’t shake the feeling that he every time he touched
her, he was pretending she was her