Around the time of the Montauk explosion, way back in the seventies, she knew she’d had some sort of a breakdown. Was her mind slipping out of her control again, was that what this was all about?
But everything was good now. She and Max were OK. Weren’t they? Her daughter Layla and Constantine’s son Alberto were cruising the Caribbean islands, touching base rarely, but they were fine. Layla contacted Annie and Max whenever she could, even sometimes arrived unannounced on the doorstep, much to their delight.
Yeah, everything’s fine, Annie told herself. But there was that niggling sense of trouble looming she couldn’t deny. The dreams. This feeling of something bubbling away under the surface, sending up noxious dirty little plops now and again to her brain – something bad. Max had been so cold to her recently, looking away from her, leaving her without a kiss, without even a single civil word.
Yeah, you need a shrink, she told herself, almost laughing at such self-indulgent weakness. She was Annie Carter, she was rock-solid, a strong and single-minded woman. So why was she letting her imagination run riot? Yes, she had secrets – guilty secrets. And… maybe now he had one too.
Shut up, you silly cow, she told herself, lying back down, flicking off the light.
He’s at it and you know it, said the voice in her brain. He’s screwing around. He’s tired of you. And maybe that’s what you deserve because you’ve been keeping secrets from him, bad secrets, and maybe he’s found out.
That was when the phone started to ring in the living room.
Sicily, June 1994
Max Carter was fed up to the back teeth when he flew into Catania. He left his two travelling companions at the airport with a promise that he’d be in touch soon, and picked up his hire car. In a sour mood, he then took the coastal road to Syracuse. He checked into the Grand Hotel Villa Politi, and waited. He waited for over a week, eating fine Sicilian food and drinking a little Strega – not too much, he didn’t want to risk getting pissed and losing focus – and still the woman was dicking him around.
Bloody women.
She was capricious, imperious, but he was used to that in women – he was married to Annie Carter, for God’s sake. But this woman was proving even more difficult than Annie. It didn’t surprise him, given the way the two women had clashed in the past over who was the queen bee. It was a game Annie would always win at, hands down.
