Not for much longer, thought Eve. Let’s see how long the boy lasts without Kate around to protect him.

Eve Blackwell felt her chest tighten. How she loathed the pair of them, mother and son and their crocodile tears! If only it were Alexandra’s body being lowered into the gaping, frozen earth today. Then Eve’s happiness would truly be complete.

Beside Alexandra hovered her husband, the eminent psychiatrist Peter Templeton. Tall, dark, handsome and blue-eyed, Peter Templeton looked more like a quarterback than a psychiatrist. He and Alex made a handsome couple. Peter had once been arrogant enough to think he understood Eve. He believed he’d seen through her, through to the molten core of hatred that bubbled deep within. Alexandra, in her goodness, had never been able to see how much her twin sister hated her. But her husband knew better.

Eve smiled.

Vain fool. He thinks he knows me, but he’s barely scratched the surface.

No, the priest would find no humility in Peter Templeton.

What about her own husband, the eminent plastic surgeon Keith Webster? Many people thought of Keith Webster as humble. Eve could hear his grateful patients now: “ Dear Dr. Webster, such a gifted surgeon, but so shy and unassuming about his talents.” Eve felt her flesh creep as Keith wrapped a protective, conjugal arm around her shoulder.

Protective? He’s not protective. He’s possessive. And psychotic. He blackmailed me into marriage, then deliberately destroyed my face, carving up my beautiful features and turning me into this grotesque, this creature from a carnival freak show. All so that I wouldn’t leave him.

One day I’ll make that bastard pay for what he’s done.

Eve Blackwell was many things, but she was not stupid. She knew that the trees and bushes around St. Stephen’s Church were alive with photographers, and she knew why: they all wanted a picture of her hideously ravaged face.