Faces of Fear Read Online Free PDF

and the serenity of the vast sea were abruptly shattered by the voices she'd overheard at last night's banquet.
    How could she live, looking like that?
    Why hasn't her husband fixed those dreadful scars?
    If he could, he would have, wouldn't he?
    I'd never show my face in public if I looked like that.
    Margot turned her eyes from the hideous vision in the mirror and gazed at the beautiful ocean before her, sparkling in the sun.
    Beautiful. Beautiful and eternal: the sea would be forever enchanting.
    How could she live, looking like that?
    How, indeed?
    She reached into the backseat and took one of the fashion magazines from the stack she'd put in the car just before she left the house. She gazed at the cover: the magazine was Elle, and that issue had been one of her best covers ever. She'd worn leather and fur for the shoot, and the camera had caught the seductive little wink she offered as she showed off not only her perfect face, but her flawless legs as well.
    Perfect no more, she thought as she looked again to the mirror in the visor.
    She snapped it closed, and flipped the magazine over so she could no longer see the image on its cover. But in the backseat there were at least a dozen others, each bearing testament to what she had been. She hadn't brought them to look at—they were there as nothing more than evidence, so people would understand.
    So Conrad would understand.
    The ocean stretched before her, shimmering in the sun.
    I'd never show my face in public if I looked like that.
    The remark resounded in her memory so clearly that Margot actually jumped, startled, as if the woman who had uttered it last night were right here in the car with her.
    Consciously settling her rattled nerves, she fished in her purse for her cell phone. Just as her fingers closed around it, it began to ring.
    Conrad's name and phone number glowed on the small screen.
    After a moment's hesitation, she answered. "Conrad?"
    "Margot, where are you?"
    "Palos Verdes."
    "P-V? What are you doing way out there?"
    "Just…taking a day," she said.
    The pause before Conrad spoke again was a little too long, and when he finally did speak, she could hear the worry in his voice.
    "Are you okay?"
    Margot considered the question, and found the one answer that would not only ease his worry but was absolutely true as well: "I'm fine."
    Another hesitation, but not nearly as long. "Should I worry about you?"
    Margot felt her lips curl into a wry smile. There was nothing for anybody to worry about. Not anymore. Not ever again. "Not at all, darling."
    "Okay, then. I'll be home at the usual time."
    "Okay."
    "I love you," he said.
    "Love you, too," she said, then clicked off the phone before the emotion in her chest made it to her voice. "I love you so very, very much," she whispered, holding the phone to her cheek, pressing it against the scars.
    What had that woman in the restroom said? Something about snapping Conrad up if he ever came back on the market?
    She dabbed a tissue at the moisture leaking from her damaged right eye, then opened her phone again and pressed the MEMO button.
    "I'm so sorry, Conrad," she said, her voice soft. "I can't go on this way and I can't subject you to my misery for the rest of your life. Please give Ruffles to Danielle—she's never had anyone to love her. And you take good care of yourself. Never forget that I love you."
    Checking off items on a well-rehearsed mental list, Margot phoned the police to report an abandoned, locked Lexus parked at Vanderlip Park with a dog inside. She rolled down the window far enough so Ruffles would have plenty of cool ocean air but not enough so he could wriggle out. She set her cell phone on the dashboard, then got out of the car, pressed the button on the key that would lock the doors, and dropped the keys back into the car, through the slightly opened window, to the floor behind the driver's seat.
    The ocean breeze lifted strands of her hair as she looked out to sea, walked to the bench