The End of the Dream by Ann Rule Read Free Book Online Page A

there.
    Since she would be living with them, she hoped that she would.
    Marge met Scott first, Kevin was away on a two week trip. Scott’s hair was naturally black, but it was sunburned almost blond in places, and came down to his shoulders. His face had been softer and more boyish back in Restonnow, it was a man’s face, chiseled and handsome. He had a short beard, and he wore a blue bandanna tied around his forehead.
    He stood just under six feet and he was browned by the sun, with a washboard stomach and well-defined biceps. Marge noted that his voice was a deep, masculine rumble and that his grammar was perfect. On the first night she met Scott, Marge recalled that they walked down to the beach. They sat there and talked for four hours, “Until long after the sun set, “ she remembered. “The sky was black and we could see the stars. It was so pitch black that we could hardly see to find our way back.” She recalled being utterly mesmerized that first night. Scott was so interested in everything she had to say, and she found everything he had to say fascinating. He told her that he divided his time between The Shire and a house in Honolulu that he shared with four other men. He spoke of his modeling career and about his family back in Virginia. It was hard for Marge not to feel romantic about a stranger who poured out his heart to her in the velvet darkness of a Hawaiian night. She found Scott exciting and attractive. “I quickly became infatuated with him, “ Marge admitted. “Any one would have. We spent almost two weeks getting to know one another, but people kept telling me that I hadn’t met anyone until I’d met Kevin.” Marge Violette was bewitched by Scott, but she wasn’t in love with him, she soon realized that he would be emotionally dangerous. He was clearly not a one-woman man. Scott never promised fidelity and she never expected it. He would go off to his town house in Honolulu often. She had no illusions that he wasn’t dating other women.   She simply enjoyed watching him, listening to him, hearing him play “Blackbird” on his guitar. She studied his face in the firelight the way someone might watch a completely handsome actor in a movie. He was like quicksilver, impossible to trap or to hold. But the others who hung out at The Shire Plantation were right about Kevin. “When Kevin showed up, “ Marge recalled, “he stood in the doorway and he filled the room. He was even more intense, if possible, than Scott was.” The two men were so alike. Even their voices were so similar that, if she closed her eyes, she found it impossible to know which of them was talking. Yet, at the same time, Scott and Kevin were completely different. Scott was too handsome, too perfect. Any woman who truly fell in love with him was asking for a broken heart. It wasn’t that he was shallow. He wasn’t but he was ephemeral. She knew that one morning he would be gone. If not gone entirely, gone from her. Kevin was solid, a man who was deeply committed to his art. He seemed to be more of a jokester and hedonist than Scott was, but, underneath, he clearly knew where he was going. He was always looking for a job where he could use his talent, and his heart was in his little basement studio.
    “It was Kevin I really fell in love with, “ Marge remembered. “I would have married Kevin in a minute if he’d asked me, but he didn’t, he wasn’t ever cruel, but he kept reminding me that he and I didn’t have that kind of a relationship. There were other women he wanted not me.
    “ Kevin’s brown hair was bleached flaxen from salt water and the sun, and it blew in the sea wind. He was a little taller than Scott, and probably twenty pounds heavier.
    Marge watched them together, and marveled at what close friends they
    were. They laughed about the same things, remembered the same things,
    and told hilarious stories about what bad little boys they had been back
    in Virginia. “There was no leader and no follower