Part 105 (2/2)

cigarette. And wept.

P.M. OPENED HIS LETMR as he sat in the empty house he'd just bought on

the outskirts of London. He was on the floor with the ceilings towering

over him, a bottle of ale by his knee and the cool blues of Ray Charles

coming from his only piece of furniture, the stereo.

It hadn't been easy to leave Bev, but it had been harder to stay. She

had helped him find the house, as she'd promised. She would decorate

it. She would, now and then, make love with him in it. But she would

never be his wife.

He blamed Brian for it. No matter what Bev had told him, P.M.

eased his pain by placing the blame squarely on Brian. He hadn't been

man enough to stay with her through the bad times. He hadn't been man

enough to let her go. Right from the beginning Brian had treated

Bev badly. Bringing her a child from another woman, asking her to raise

it as her own. Leaving her for weeks at a time while he toured. Pus.h.i.+ng

her, he thought viciously, pus.h.i.+ng her into a lifestyle she never

wanted. Drugs, groupies, and gossip.

And what would Brian say, what would they all say, if he announced he

was leaving the group? That would make them sit up and take notice,

P.M. thought as he swallowed some ale. Brian McAvoy could go to h.e.l.l

and take Devastation with him.

More out of habit than curiosity, he opened Emma's letter. She wrote

him every couple of months. Cute, chatty letters that he answered with

a postcard or a little gift. It wasn't the girl's fault that her father

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