Kissed a Sad Goodbye

“You—you bastard!” Lewis shouted, shaking him. “I’ll kill you for this.” When his fist struck William’s face, the sight of the bright blood flowing from William’s nose only made him angrier.
    William hit him back and they grappled, straining for a better hold, another blow.
    Then Irene was between them, shouting, pulling them apart.
    “Stop it! What’s the matter with you? Stop it! Lewis, how could you?”
    Panting, he stared at her. “I... He...” In that moment Lewis realized he couldn’t tell Irene what he’d done that day—he could never tell her. And when he met William’s eyes, he saw that William knew it, too.
    He had no memory of the days before Edwina’s funeral, only of Irene, afterwards, coming to him in the barn. His case was packed; he had meant to leave without telling her goodbye.
    “You can’t tell me you don’t love me,” she said. “I won’t believe you.”
    “No,” he had answered her. “I won’t tell you that. But it doesn’t matter now. Nothing does. I’m sorry.”
    He had left Irene then, left the Hall, left them all behind. And he’d never told anyone the truth... until the night Annabelle had told him she loved his son and called him a cheat and a liar. She’d said she’d never hurt her father for him, that she couldn’t believe she had ever considered doing something that would cause William Hammond so much pain.
    He hadn’t known until that moment how much Annabelle had come to mean to him—that she should turn against him was beyond bearing. His words poured out—he’d wanted to hurt her—and he told her that her precious father was a coward and a murderer, and he told her exactly what William had done.
    Lewis opened the door of the car and stumbled out into the rain. He was soaked by the time he reached the warehouse, but he hardly felt it. The door was unlocked, and he stepped for the first time into the building he had tried for years to destroy.
    As his eyes adjusted to the shadows, he saw that the large main floor was empty, but a light shone from a door on the catwalk that ran along the left-hand side of the building. Feeling his way carefully to the stairs, he began to climb. He heard a faint sound, and as he neared the top of the staircase, the sound sorted itself into a singsong voice, rising and falling beyond the open doorway.
    William Hammond sat behind one of the scarred oak desks in the center of the room. He was talking to himself, his hands busy with the colorful tea tins on the desktop, but when he looked up and saw Lewis he didn’t seem at all surprised.
    “She was beautiful, wasn’t she?” said William, his eyes drifting back to the tins. “She made these for me. My favorite colors, cobalt and russet. Russet like her hair. She looked like her mother, so beautiful.”
    “William.” Lewis stepped further into the room. “Why did you do it? What did Annabelle say to you?”
    “Do you remember, Lewis?” William’s gaze skated across his again. “Do you remember the watercress? And the deer? I’ve been thinking.... It all seems so vivid, like it was just yesterday.”
    “Did Annabelle find you here, William? She was angry with you, wasn’t she?”
    For an instant William’s eyes were clear. “Annabelle loved me. She was a perfect daughter.”
    “I know she was. But she found out, didn’t she… about Edwina.”
    William froze, the tea tins suspended in midshuffle like a shell game gone awry. “She said things... terrible things. She said she’d tell people... Sir Peter, even. That she would sell... this.” His hand looked almost translucent as he gestured round the room. “And she said... she said she’d spent her whole life trying to live up to me— and that I was a hollow man. A hollow man,” he repeated. “I didn’t mean—”
    “You didn’t mean to kill her?” said a voice behind Lewis, and without turning he knew it was his son.
    Lifting a hand to halt him, Lewis warned, “Gordon, no.” But Gordon came on, and as Lewis felt the force of his son’s fury, he realized his own had drained away at last.
    William rose. “I only wanted to stop her from saying those things. I never meant...” He looked impossibly frail.
    “But I do.” A gun appeared in Gordon’s hand—and Lewis saw that it was his own.
     
    IT WAS STILL POURING WHEN THEY reached the warehouse. Kincaid killed the engine as the Rover coasted to a stop behind a gray Mercedes.
    “Lewis’s car?” asked Gemma, thinking she