CHAPTER 21
Before turning for home, Margot asked Blake to drive her to the hospital. He parked the Essex near the entrance, and she went in to ask if anyone had been admitted overnight, or if anyone had tried to visit her patient with the broken arm. The receptionist shook her head, and assured her she had been at her desk since nine the previous evening. Margot thought of trying the other hospitals, but Blake argued against it.
“You can telephone to them,” he said reasonably. “Or, if Miss Allison went to a hospital, they will undoubtedly telephone to Benedict Hall.”
Margot collapsed against the seat. “You’re right, of course. It’s probably better to go home, but I’m really worried.”
“Maybe when we get back, she’ll be there.”
“From your lips to God’s ear,” Margot murmured.
“Ah. Quoting Hattie,” he said.
“Sometimes she’s the only one who knows the right thing to say.”
It took longer than usual to make their way up the hill to Benedict Hall. The fog had persisted through the hours of darkness, and though the sluggish light was beginning to rise, Blake was wary of early-morning vehicles emerging without warning from the mist. As he pulled the Essex into the driveway and around to the garage, Margot looked over her shoulder. Benedict Hall looked much as it had when they left, lights on in the hall and the small parlor, everything else dark.
She felt dry-mouthed and edgy as they left the garage and walked across the lawn to the dark kitchen. Hattie, it seemed, had taken her advice and gone to bed. Blake turned on the light, and Margot saw by the Sessions wall clock that it had just gone six. She went out into the hall and into the small parlor, where she found her father, still fully clothed, sound asleep on the divan. She left him there, turning off the lamp on its side table, closing the door as softly as she could.
The rest of the house was quiet. The maids weren’t due out of their beds for another half hour. Margot slipped off her shoes before she climbed the stairs to go to her room, glancing toward the back of the house. Allison’s door stood open. The door to the bedroom Henry and Adelaide were sharing was closed.
In the vain hope she might find her, she walked down the hall to look in Allison’s room. As before, the bed was made, though it was rumpled. A plaid frock had been tossed on a chair. Allison’s nightdress and dressing gown waited at the foot of her bed, and her brushes and face creams were arranged before the mirror, but there was no sign of Allison.
Margot sighed and turned toward her own bedroom. There would be no sleep tonight, but she could at least wash her face, change her clothes, and—
She was only two steps through her own bedroom door when she saw it. An icy wave of shock swept over her, making her skin crawl and her face go cold. A cry of protest, wordless, involuntary, rose in her throat and died there. Her bare feet carried her forward almost without her realizing it, and she fell to her knees beside her bed in the gray half-light, staring at the—the thing—awaiting her.
It looked gross and offensive on her clean white quilt. The jagged bits of concrete clinging to it couldn’t disguise it, and she could see at a glance it had been arranged with care, so she would recognize it in an instant.
The sapphire. Preston’s sapphire, the one he had placed such faith in. It had been an uncharacteristic bit of mysticism for her brother, his belief that this stone gave him strength and influence, and he had died—supposedly—with this jewel in his hand. Only Frank knew where she had buried it, how she had pressed it down into the wet concrete of the foundation. They had smoothed the spot with a trowel, the two of them together, and agreed the stone would remain there, out of anyone’s reach.
Margot knelt there for a full minute, staring at the sapphire in its jagged coating. It stared back at her, glinting faintly as sunrise began to filter through the mist. When she reached out her hand for it, the shattered cement scratched her palm, but the sapphire glowed an invitation.
It meant nothing to her, of course. It was a stone. A rock, as she had declared before she interred it. It possessed no inherent powers except the ones her brother, a man out of his mind with rage and hatred, conferred upon it. She remembered the bulging spot in the footings of her clinic, and the tingle on her neck that day, that old familiar sense of danger. He had been watching. He had seen her examining the flaw, and he had dug the stone out of the concrete, and he had left it here for her to find. She knew precisely what this meant.
Preston was alive.
He had escaped the fire after all. Slid from the stretcher, and left the sapphire behind in the folds of the ambulance blanket. He had run, fled from the consequences of his actions, hid himself somehow, somewhere. Left his mother to grieve until she very nearly lost her sanity. Let the family bury an empty coffin beneath a meaningless headstone.
She was just about to push to her feet, to carry the thing downstairs to show Blake, when she saw the lock of hair.
She couldn’t mistake it for anything else. It was Allison’s, silky and fair, the way Edith’s used to be. She wished she could think it meant something else, that it had come from some other source, but she couldn’t. Somehow, in some twisted plot only he could concoct, Preston had taken Allison, and he intended Margot to come after her. There was no mistaking the message.
Margot rose to her feet. She would have to go, and go alone. Allison was in more danger than any of them had suspected.
Jars and bottles in mysterious shapes and colors crowded the shelves in the back room of Margot’s clinic. The air held that undefinable tang of medicine, a smell that called up memories of icy stethoscopes, nasty-tasting thermometers, gleaming steel needles poised to puncture tender flesh. Without Margot there, so brisk and efficient and calm, the clinic seemed to Allison a place of horrors, of tortures half-imagined. The inner door to the examining rooms was locked, and though Preston had made short work of the lock on the back door, he didn’t bother with the second one.
It had been a long, frigid walk through the foggy darkness. Preston knew every street, every alley. He knew just how to dodge the policemen who walked the streets, flashing their Daylo searchlights into the shadows, looking for the missing girl. Half a dozen times he had covered her mouth with his loathsome hand, dragged her away from the dancing beams of light, forcing her to crouch behind garbage bins, huddle beneath stacks of firewood, hide behind piled shipping cartons. He had given her the coat again when he returned to the water tower, but she suspected that was more to disguise her than for her comfort. He made her walk fast, despite her broken heel, and by the time they reached the clinic, her back ached from walking on uneven shoes. Her arm stung from his ruthless grip on it. The straight razor had disappeared, but she was sure he had it in his pocket, within easy reach. She felt light-headed with hunger, having not eaten more than a few bites of anything in two days, and that didn’t help. She couldn’t think clearly enough to devise a means of escape.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, when he had finally released her. “The nurse will be here in the morning.”
“Don’t fret yourself,” he said shortly. “It will all be over by then.”
“What will be over?”
He didn’t answer.
The long hike had taxed him, too, she could tell. He was sweating, though she had the overcoat and he was dressed only in a shapeless sweater and some sort of high-collared shirt. He found the storeroom light and switched it on, making her blink against the sudden brilliance. When her eyes adjusted she saw that he kept the muffler raised around his scarred face. Above it, his eyes glittered as if with fever.
Or madness. He was insane. What person in his right mind would sneak into Benedict Hall and out again, then bring her all the way downtown to Margot’s clinic?
He said, “Give me my coat. It’s warm enough in here.”
She took it off and handed it to him. He put it on, though beads of perspiration dripped down his forehead.
Allison kicked off her uneven shoes and leaned against the wall, rubbing her bare arms against the chill of the room. “What am I doing here, Cousin Preston?”
“It’s not about you,” he grated.
“You didn’t need to haul me down here, then!” She glared at him. “I hate people trying to control me!”
“Trying? I didn’t try, cuz. I did control you.”
“Give me one chance, and I’ll be gone,” she said, and pointed to the door. “You broke the lock.”
In answer, he pulled the razor from his pocket and brandished it. He had folded the blade away, but she had seen how easily it opened. She understood very well how wickedly sharp it was. Looking at it, she put a hand to her head, where a thick patch of hair was now missing. He said, “Don’t fret, cuz. It will grow back. It was necessary.”
She could tell he meant to speak lightly, but his shredded voice spoiled the effect. She remembered the way he had seemed at her deb party, sophisticated, wry, clever. Good-looking and confident. She dropped her hand and folded her arms around herself. “I don’t see the point of any of this.”
“There’s a point,” he rasped. “And when she gets here, you’ll see.”
“When she gets here? Who?”
“Don’t be stupid,” he snapped. “Who do you think?”
“Cousin Margot? If you wanted to see her, you could have just waited at Benedict Hall! This is crazy—”
He was standing near the door, but now he spun to face her. “I’m not crazy!” he shouted.
“I didn’t say you were—”
In three swift steps he had crossed the room. He gripped her throat with one hand, choking off her words. He hissed, “Goddammit, I’m warning you, little cuz. You’re not the one I want, but I wouldn’t hesitate. You don’t know me, and you don’t know what I’ve done, or what I can do, but believe me, you wouldn’t like it. You wouldn’t like it at all.”
Tears of pain sprang to her eyes. She could breathe—just—but she couldn’t speak. It was all so bizarre, the whole evening, her mother screaming, Preston dragging her all over Seattle, now nearly strangling her. This couldn’t be happening. She was imagining it. It was a nightmare. If she could only breathe, surely she would wake up and find herself tucked up in her bed.
“Stop tempting me.” He opened his fingers, releasing her. He took a step back as she clutched at her throat and sucked in noisy breaths.
He spoke faster and faster, his voice so raw it must hurt. He waved the razor in front of her face. “Little idiot. I’ve seen you, dangling after the great Dr. Benedict.” His burned throat whistled when he drew breath. “You have no idea what she’s like. You think she’s the great healer, kind and clever and all that nonsense? She’s fooled you. You’re as blind as the rest of them!”
He began to play with the razor, opening it, closing it, opening it again, testing the blade with his thumb, turning this way and that as if he were looking for something. The sour odor of him increased, filling the small space. Allison’s skin prickled with goose bumps, and the room seemed to contract around the two of them. She backed toward the inner door to the clinic, wondering if there was some way to get it open, to lock herself in some other room or escape through a window.
“Don’t even think it!” he shouted. He opened the razor and slashed the air with it, once, twice. Allison’s heart fluttered, and she felt as if there weren’t enough air in the storeroom to sustain them both. She wished with all her heart she had eaten Hattie’s overbaked salmon tonight. This battle was real, not the artificial one she and her mother had been fighting for so long. She needed strength. It had been a long, cold, taxing night, and she was nearly at the end of what she had.
She braced herself against the inner door, her hands behind her. Her voice sounded thin to her, but she had to ask. “What do you want me to do?”
“Shut up!” he shrieked, in a voice that made her bones shiver. “I want you to shut up!”
That, at least, she could do. She pressed her lips together. She let her spinning head drop back against the wood, telling herself she didn’t dare faint. If he came for her, if he lost the last shreds of control he had, she had to try to protect herself.
From beneath her lowered eyelids, she watched the erratic sweep of the straight razor as Preston, muttering to himself, tugging at the muffler over his face, paced the room. Every time he came near her, her stomach tightened and her heart thudded, but she kept herself upright. It was tempting to slide down, to sit on the floor, to rest, but the glitter in his bloodshot eyes convinced her she didn’t dare.
When Margot, in stocking feet, crept down the main staircase, she saw by the light under the kitchen door that Blake was still there. She debated furiously with herself.
It would be much faster to go in the Essex. Blake would be deeply upset if she didn’t tell him what she had found, and what she had to do. But could she keep him safe? His heart still wasn’t as strong as she would like it to be, and the dragging of his right leg worried her.
On the other hand, when he realized she hadn’t returned, he would come looking. He would guess where she had gone, and follow, unless she lugged the chunk of concrete with her, and took the lock of Allison’s hair as well.
Trust, she thought. There was no one in the world she trusted more than Blake. Except perhaps Frank, but he wasn’t here.
She glanced to her right, where the small parlor was still dark, and from which she could hear her father’s heavy breathing as he slept on. The rest of the house, from the servants’ attic bedroom down to Hattie’s, behind the kitchen, was silent, sleeping. Waiting.
She descended the staircase, and turned left, toward the kitchen.
When she opened the swinging door, she found Blake leaning against the counter, a mug of coffee in his hand. He straightened when he saw her face. “What is it?” he asked in a low voice.
She said, “Get your coat, will you, Blake? I’ll explain on the way.”
“You can stay with the car,” Margot said. She peered down Post Street, but it was too early—not quite seven—for any of the businesses to be open. The shifting fog hid doorways and windows. Only one light showed on the street, shimmering through the mist.
“I don’t want you going in there alone,” he answered. Theah. His accent had turned more Southern than she had heard in months.
“I know you don’t, but until we see what’s going on . . .” She opened the passenger door and climbed out of the Essex.
“I’m not going to argue, sweetheart. This is the way it’s going to be.”
Despite everything, despite the sleepless night and the blood-chilling anxiety that gripped her, hearing the old endearment from Blake’s lips gave her strength. She managed a wry smile across the top of the automobile, and she made no objection as he got out of the driver’s seat and walked around the front, leaning on his marble-headed cane. “You see the light?” she said.
“I do.” Ah do. He reached her, and side by side, they started around the building.
It made Margot’s blood rise to know that her clinic had been invaded, that someone—that he, who was supposed to be gone from her life—still held power over her. She was grateful for Blake’s bulk at her shoulder. Despite her brave words, this was not a confrontation to take on by herself. Blake understood that better than anyone.
He hadn’t argued with her interpretation of the artifacts lying in wait for her. He knew how devious her younger brother had always been. And evidently, though the idea was almost too bizarre to take in, still was. She had described the bit of concrete, the stone half buried in it, and the stomach-churning sight of a strand of Allison’s hair, deliberately laid out to show how long and thick it was. It was not possible that either had come to rest on her bed by accident.
Blake had said only, “Good Lord. He survived.”
“He screamed, that night in the fire,” she said in a shaking voice. “Both Thea and I heard it, a shriek I was sure meant he was dying. Burning to death.”
Blake was turning down Madison, driving as fast as he dared through the fog. He said, speaking a sentiment that hadn’t yet occurred to Margot, “Poor Mrs. Edith.”
“Oh, my God, Blake. I can’t imagine what this would do to her. How could he? How could he?”
Now, they approached the back door of her clinic. The lock was broken, the brand-new brass Schlage Frank had installed himself, to keep out the occasional tramp in search of alcohol. It had a glass doorknob on each side, a pretty carved thing Margot had taken pleasure in. The doorknob hung loose now, shiny with mist. The lock had been gouged out of the wood, splintering the door above and below it. The door was closed, but loosely, light showing through the broken lock and around the edges of the doorjamb. Margot paused on the step to gather herself before she put her hand on the slick glass knob. When she felt she was as prepared as she was going to be, she pulled on it. The door swung open, and she walked over the sill and into the nightmare.
Now that the moment was here, now that he had maneuvered her into position, exhilaration at having succeeded made his heart pound. He whirled when the door opened, alerted by the rush of cold air, and saw her in the doorway.
Margot. His lifelong enemy. In his grasp at last.
He sidestepped swiftly to seize Allison with a hard hand on her neck. She yelped in surprise and pain as he jerked her forward. He thrust her in front of him, but he hooked his arm around her throat, pressing her fair head against his shoulder. In his other hand he held up the straight razor so its blade glittered in the light. He found he was breathing too fast, the air rasping through his scarred throat. He forced himself to breathe deliberately. He didn’t want anything to spoil this moment or betray his excitement. It was almost over, all his pain and suffering and misery. It was almost over for both of them.
“Doc,” he said. He saw the jerk of her body as she heard his altered voice for the first time. He felt her alarm over the razor’s blade as clearly as if she had screamed, and that gave him pleasure. There had been no pleasure in his life for a very long time. “I see you got my little invitation.”
“Preston,” she said, spreading her hands in entreaty. “Why? Why did you let us all believe you were dead?”
“What do you care?” he demanded. Allison wriggled in his grasp, and he pressed the flat of the blade against her cheek to stop her. She emitted a tiny gasp, and froze. He rewarded her by lifting the blade away from her skin, but only slightly. He kept it high enough to be in her line of sight, and he felt by the tension in her body, pulled tight against him, that she knew it was there.
Margot said, “You’re hiding your face. Are you burned?”
“Trust you, doc,” he snarled, “to want the disgusting medical details before you even ask if our little cousin is all right!”
“I can see she’s all right,” Margot said. “I want her to stay that way.”
“Oh, good. Motivation!” He lifted the blade again and slid the flat of it down Allison’s cheek. It was probably cold. She shuddered, and he laughed. “I would hate to scar this pretty face,” he said, his eyes on Margot. “Wouldn’t you just hate to see that?”
“Of course,” she said. She took a step forward, into the room, and now he saw that Blake was behind her, on the outer step.
“Blake!” he cried. “I might have known the doc wouldn’t make a move without you!”
“What do you want, Preston?” Margot said. Her voice, that deep, mannish voice he had always hated, was as even as if he weren’t standing here with a razor blade held to her protégé’s cheek. “Tell me what you want, so we can get this over with. Let Allison go home to her parents.”
“God, Margot, I hate it when you tell me what to do.” He tried to purr the words, as he could have done once, but they came out as a growl.
Margot made a small, uncertain motion. “I’m not,” she said, and her voice trembled just a little. He wanted to hear it tremble more, wanted to see her shake with fear. He wanted her to beg him for mercy.
Then he could end it.
“I’m just asking,” Margot said. “I’m not telling. You wanted me here, and I came. You can let Allison go home with Blake, and you and I will—”
He felt rivulets of sweat running down his ribs inside the hand-me-down shirt. A wave of fury made him tighten his hold on Allison’s throat, her chin tucked tight into the crook of his elbow. She stumbled, losing her balance, but she didn’t make a sound.
She really was a tough little thing. And so pretty. He could have done things with a girl like that, seen her rise to the top of the social circle. She could have been a sister he could boast about, someone to be proud of.
Instead, he had been cursed with Margot, more man than woman, Margot with her hands always into the most disgusting things, the filthiest stuff, then coming home to Benedict Hall and sitting down at the dinner table, touching the flatware and the crystal and the napkins with those hands. . . .
“Preston,” she said now. “Let me see your face. Surely we can help you—”
With one swift motion, he tore the muffler off and threw it aside. Margot’s voice trailed off in what must be horror at the destruction of his face and neck. Behind her he heard Blake’s sudden, swiftly indrawn breath, but he ignored that. Blake wasn’t important.
He sneered at Margot with his stiff, scarred lips. “You think you can help me, doc? I think you’ve done enough already.”
“Oh, Preston,” she whispered. He saw pity in her face. He had grown to hate that look of pity, no matter whose face wore it. It was useless. It was offensive. She said, “You’ve suffered terribly.”
Allison, held tight in the crook of his arm, quivered against him. She was crying, he thought, but silently. Oddly, this gave him no joy. He rather liked her, and he admired her spirit. He loosened his hold on her neck, but he kept the razor blade close to her face to forestall any shenanigans.
He looked past Margot to the outside step, where Blake stood in a tense posture, leaning on his cane, ready—it seemed—to dash into the room if necessary. “Hello there, Blake,” he said. “Haven’t turned up your toes yet?”
“Mr. Preston,” Blake said heavily. “Won’t you let Miss Allison go? We can talk about what you—what you need.”
“Need? I need what I’ve always needed!”
Margot took another step forward. “Plastic surgery, Preston,” she said. “They’re doing amazing things these days, and I can help you find—”
“Stay where you are, doc! We’re doing this my way!” He pressed the blade against Allison’s cheek once again and felt another sob shake her small body.
“Doing what?” Margot asked. “What is it we’re doing, Preston?”
“Don’t take that doctor tone with me, Margot,” he grated. “It’s all over for you and me. It’s your fault I look like this, and it’s your fault our poor little cuz is in this fix.”
“That makes no sense,” Margot said and took another step.
He pressed the blade tighter, and a thin line of blood oozed from Allison’s tender cheek and dripped under his hand. “You want her to look like me?” he cried.
Margot froze. “Don’t!” Allison twisted backward, away from the razor.
“Stop it,” he hissed in her ear. “You’ll make it worse.”
Allison said, shakily but clearly, “It’s already worse, Cousin Preston.”
He wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t do it. The tension in the storeroom was as thick as the fog outside, a miasma of sweat and fear and rage. Somewhere a clock ticked and ticked, maddeningly, scraping his nerves.
He had thought he would like this. Thought he would enjoy this moment when he had the power, and could force Margot to do what he wanted. He hadn’t expected to feel sympathy for Allison, hadn’t expected to see pity on Margot’s face. He needed the sapphire back, he thought. He needed Roxelana’s strength to do what had to be done. He wished he had it here, with him, but then Margot would never have understood, would never have come . . .
Damn it. It had to be done, with or without the stone. The time had come. The end for both of them.
He said, “I can’t take this life anymore, doc. Not this way.”
“I can understand that. It must be awful. But, Preston, if you’ll just let me—”
“Shut up!” His voice was too rough to have any power, but the razor had plenty. He pressed it against Allison’s little white neck, and she trembled against him like a leaf in the wind. “Just shut up, Margot! You’ve fooled everyone, all these years, but you can’t talk your way out of this one. I’m going, but I’m by God not going alone!”
Blake drew a swift, alarmed breath. “Preston, you don’t mean that.”
“Be quiet! I’m only letting you stay so you can take our little cousin home,” he snarled.
“Let her go then,” Blake said.
“In a moment. When I have what I want.”
Margot said, warily, “What do you want, Preston?”
He braced the razor under Allison’s chin and whispered, “What I’ve always wanted, Margot. You. Come here.”