Danielle Steel - Malice

“Did you go to jail?” Matthew asked, intrigued by the story. It was sort of like cops and robbers, or something on TV. It sounded interesting to him, except for the part where he beat her.

“Yes, I did,” she said quietly, looking at her daughter, who so far, had said nothing at all. “I went to prison for two years, and I was on probation in Chicago for two years after that. And then it was all over. I moved to New York and met your dad, we got married and had you, and everything's been happy ever since then.” It had all been so simple for the past fifteen years and now it was going to get difficult again. But it couldn't be helped now. They had taken the chance of exposure along with Charles's political career, and now they had to pay the price for it.

“I can't believe this,” Abigail said, staring at her. “You've been in jail} Why didn't you ever tell us?”

“I didn't think I had to, Abby. It wasn't a story I was proud of. It was very painful for me.”

“You said your parents were dead, you never said you killed them,” Abigail reproached her.

“I didn't kill them both. I killed him,” Grace explained.

“You make it sound like you were defending yourself,” she argued with her mother.

“I was.”

“Isn't that self-defense? Then how come you went to jail?”

Grace nodded miserably. “It is, but they didn't believe me.”

“I can't believe you've been in prison.” All she could think of were her friends and what they would say now, when they heard the story. It was worse than anything she could imagine.

“Did you kill Dad's parents too?” Matt asked, intrigued.

“Of course not.” Grace smiled at him. He was really too young to understand it.

“Why are you telling us this now?” Andrew asked unhappily. Abigail was right. It wasn't a pretty story. And it wouldn't sit well with their friends.

“Because the press has found out,” Charles answered for her. He hadn't said anything till then, he wanted to let Grace tell them in her own way, and she had done well. But it wasn't easy to absorb, for anyone, least of all for children to hear about their mother. “It's going to be on the news tonight, and we wanted to tell you first.”

“Gee, thanks a lot. Ten minutes before it goes on. And you expect me to go to school tomorrow? I'm not going,” Abigail stormed.

“Neither am I,” Matt said, just for good measure, and then he turned to his mother with a curious expression. “Did he bleed a lot? Your dad, I mean.” Grace laughed in spite of herself, and so did Charles. To him, it was all like a TV show.

“Never mind, Matt,” his father scolded.

“Did he make a lot of noise?”

“Matthew!”

“I can't believe this,” Abigail said, and burst into tears. “I can't believe you never told us all this, and now it's going to be all over the news. You're a murderer, a jailbird.”

“Abigail, you don't understand the circumstances,” Charles said. “You don't have any idea what your mother went through. Why do you think she's always been so interested in abused children?”

“To show off,” Abby said angrily. “Besides, what do you know? You weren't there either, were you? And besides, this is all because of you, and your stupid campaign! If we weren't here in Washington, none of this would have happened!” There was a certain truth to that, and Charles felt guilty enough without having Abby rub it in , but before he could answer her, she ran upstairs and slammed the door to her bedroom. Grace stood up to go, but Charles pulled her into her seat again.

“Let her calm down,” he said wisely, and Andrew looked at them and rolled his eyes.

“She's such a little bitch, why do you put up with her?”

“Because we love her, and all of you,” Charles said. “This isn't easy for any of us. We have to work it out in our own ways, and support each other. This is going to be very hard once the press start tearing your mom apart.”

“We'll be there for you, Mom,” Andrew said kindly, and got up to give her a hug, but Matthew was thinking about what she'd said. He kind of liked the story.

“Maybe Abby will shoot you, Dad,” he said hopefully, and Charles could only laugh at him again.

“I hope not, Matt. No one is going to shoot anyone.”

“Mom might.”

Grace smiled ruefully as she looked at her youngest son. “Remember that the next time I tell you to clean up your room or finish your dinner.”

“Yeah,” he said with a broad grin, showing that his two top front teeth were missing. Surprisingly, unlike his siblings, he wasn't upset. But he was too young to really absorb the implications of what had happened.

Eventually, Grace went upstairs and tried to talk to Abigail, but she wouldn't let her mother into her room, and at six o'clock they all gathered downstairs to watch the television in the den. Abby came down silently and joined them, and sat in the back of the room without talking to her parents.

The telephone had been ringing off the hook for two hours by then, but Grace had put it on the machine. There wasn't a soul alive they wanted to talk to. And there was an unlisted emergency line where Charles's aides called him. They called several times, and warned that they had been advised again that the story was ugly.

It was presented as a special bulletin, with a full screen photograph of her mug shot from prison. What startled Grace above all was how young she looked. She was barely more than a baby, only three years older than Andrew, and she looked younger than Abigail in the picture.

“Wow, Mom! Is that you?”

“Shhh, Matthew!” they all said at once, and watched in horror as the story unraveled.

The story was definitely not pretty. It opened with the news that Grace Mackenzie, wife of Congressman Charles Mackenzie, candidate for a Senate seat in the next election, had shot her father in a sex scandal at seventeen, and had been sentenced to two years in prison. There were photographs of her going into the trial, in handcuffs, and of her father looking very handsome. They said he had been a pillar of the community, and his daughter had accused him of rape, and shot him. She had claimed self-defense and a jury had not believed her. A two-year sentence for voluntary manslaughter was the result, followed by two years’ probation.

There were more photographs of her then, leaving the trial, again in handcuffs, and as she left for Dwight, in leg irons and chains, then another photograph of her at Dwight. She sounded like a gang moll by the time they were finished. They went on to say that she had been at Dwight Correctional Center in Dwight, Illinois, for two years, and was released in 1973 for two years of probation in Chicago. There had been no further problems with the law subsequently, to the best of their knowledge, but that possibility was currently under investigation.

“Under investigation? What the hell do they mean?” Grace asked, and Charles silenced her with a gesture, he wanted to hear what they were saying.

They explained that people in the community had not believed the sex scandal story at all. And then they followed it with a brief interview with the chief of police who had charged her. Twenty-one years later, he was there, and he claimed to have total recall of the night she was arrested.

“The prosecutor felt she'd been trying to …” he smiled wickedly and Grace wanted to throw up as she listened,“… I'd say, tantalize her father, and she got angry when he didn't take the bait. She was a pretty sick girl, back then, I don't know anything about her now of course, but a leopard don't change his spots much, does he?” She couldn't believe what she was hearing, or what they'd encouraged him to say.

They explained again, for all who hadn't caught it the first time, that she was a convicted felon, convicted of murder. They showed her mug shot yet again. And then a photograph of her looking like a moron, with Charles, as she stood next to him when he was sworn into Congress. And they explained that Charles was now running for the Senate. And then it was over, and they moved on to something else, as Grace fell back in her seat in horrified amazement. She felt completely drained of all emotion. It was all there, the mug shots, the story, the attitude of the community as expressed by the chief of police.