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And
Kelly’s Annual Birthday Extravaganza which was always a blast.
    And of course
there was Mom. She was really going to miss Patricia.
    The three of
them, Patricia, Gavin and Julia, had always been close. They had to
be once Dad left them high and dry with only a token look back
every once in awhile at the family he created and then
abandoned.
    Patricia was
never the “cool” Mom. She was the stern and loving Mom and she was
very wise. Life hadn’t dealt her a good hand, divorced young with
two kids and an ex who forgot to pay the child support far more
often than he remembered. He also forgot he had another family,
vastly preferring (and not too concerned to show it) his two
daughters and son from his beautiful, wealthy and upper class
second wife. “The Izod Family” Gavin used to call them as a joke
but it was too real to be truly funny and it always made Mom’s
mouth tighten at the corners to hear him say it.
    But, despite
all this, Patricia had made a happy home, full of laughter, good
times and support (with a great deal of meddling). She tried to
fill the void (although sometimes failed) of an absent, careless
father.
    And as the
years went by, Patricia and Julia’s relationship had changed from
mother and daughter to confidants and friends.
    Julia
needed that. After she’d left Sean, her heart in tatters and her
self-esteem so low she had to dig a ditch to drag it around after
her, with the added burden of living a life as the unwanted
daughter, Julia had decided she did not ever want another man. The
men in her life had torn her heart out and kicked it around. Her
father by not wanting her. In Sean’s case, four years she suffered
his bad moods, cruel words, relentless attacks on her confidence,
flirtations and infidelities. She figured she might find someone
else eventually (although she didn’t really look). But Julia had
rules. Whoever that someone would be, he wasn’t going to be
handsome, wealthy or accomplished. He just had to be there . There to
listen to her when she had a bad day. There to help her unpack the
groceries. There to drive the car every once in awhile.
    She was tired
of always having to be the one to drive the car. She just wanted to
get in and let someone else drive.
    But now, any
thought of that was far away. Now she had the children and this
inconceivable situation and would likely be driving the car
forever.
    On that
thought, she felt it and her head come up as her hand dropped.
    What it was, she
didn’t know. A draught against her ankles, but not just any
draught, this was intensely cold and felt, somehow, menacing. She
had kept the door to her room open just in case one of the children
called, maybe it came from there.
    She felt it
again. It wasn’t a chill throughout the room, just a draught at her
ankles. It was mid-October, and cold, but even the chill outside
was not of the fierce arctic of the draught at her ankles.
    She looked
around the room and saw nothing. She’d turned on most of the lights
but had not drawn the drapes. She stared out into the dark night
wondering if Douglas had come home and opened the front door
letting in the cold. Surely she’d have seen the lights of his car
as the length of her suite ran along the front drive.
    She got up to
look out the windows and then she saw them, two headlights coming
down the hill and around the bend where the Chapel was ensconced.
Douglas was just arriving home, Julia watched him park by the
fountain.
    Then she heard
it.
    A scream.
    A frightening,
terrible, blood-curdling, high-pitched woman’s scream.
    “Dear God, the
children…” Julia whispered and she ran out into the hallway as fast
as she could in the direction of the scream.
     
     
     

Chapter
Three
    The
Problem
     
    Douglas Ashton
drove his Jaguar through the winding country roads outside Bristol
Airport.
    Normally
Carter would have collected him from the airport. However that
morning when he left, Carter had to get to Heathrow to pick