Part 104 (1/2)

knowing if the nuns found them and told her father, he would get that

sad, hurtful look in his eyes. She didn't want to hurt him, but she

couldn't forget.

She read the stories through, through she could have recited them by

heart by this time. Looking, she was always looking for something new,

something that would tell her why it had happened, how she might have

stopped it.

There was nothing. There never was.

There were new clippings now-pictures and stories about Bev and P.M.

Some said Bev would at last get a divorce and marry P.M. Others played

up the juicy angle of two men who had been like brothers torn apart by a

woman. There was the announcement of Devastation's new label, Prism,

and pictures of the party in London on the day it had become official.

There was her father with another new woman, and again with Johnno and

P.M. and Pete. But not Stevie. With a sigh, Emma took out another

clipping.

Stevie was in a clinic where they put drug abusers. They called him an

addict. Others called him a criminal. Emma remembered she'd once

thought he was an angel. Emma thought he looked tired in the picture,

tired and thin and afraid. The papers said it was a tragedy; they said

it was an outrage. Some of the girls snickered about it.

But no one would talk to her. When she had questioned her father, he

had told her only that Stevie had lost control and was getting help. She

wasn't to worry.

But she did worry. They were her family, the only family she had left.

She had lost Darren. She had to make sure she didn't lose the rest.