46

Now move!” Ivy demanded.

Jasper left his backpack on the table and took his place as instructed on Ginny’s other side, helping Alison bear Ginny’s weight. Moving behind them, Ivy retrieved the lantern from the table and jabbed the gun for emphasis into the hollow of Alison’s back.

“We’re going on a little journey.” Ivy nudged them out the door and into the corridor. She held the light aloft, high over her head. “Up the stairs.”

Another set of stairs at the far distant end of the tunnel disappeared into the darkness above. Slowly, one painful foot at a time, she and Jasper dragged Ginny up the stairs. She counted the steps silently, her lips set in a grim, straight line.

Ivy was too relaxed, too confident. She obviously feared no interruption of her plan, whatever it was. Jasper paused on the sixth step, as if on cue, and for a split second Alison surged forward, caught off guard.

Ivy jabbed the gun into her spine. “No bright ideas from you.” She pulled a metal lever protruding from the packed earth wall of the chamber. With a sound reminiscent of rusty hinges, there was a clanging and scraping, and the dead-end wall at the top of the stairs slid over and out revealing the small electric sconce that hung below the main staircase in the house.

Thank God for electric lights.

Jasper lurched forward. Mounting the remaining steps with Ginny in tow, she stepped over the threshold into not safety but at least civilization again. Alison couldn’t help taking a deep, steadying breath, glad beyond all reason to be out of that chamber of despair below the earth.

Looking back, she noted the massive grandfather clock had swerved to the right as if on an invisible track concealing the secret passageway beneath. Thunder boomed in the distance.

Right behind them, Ivy dogged their footsteps. “Take her into the parlor. Dump her on the settee. The police detective,” Ivy turned with feverish eyes to Alison, “can find her there in the morning. Dead with the same gun that killed Frank.”

Alison trudged with Jasper past the grand staircase and into the foyer turning into the front parlor. Glancing out the sidelights of the front door, she saw darkness had fallen across Raleigh due to the approaching storm. Another rumble of thunder rattled the glass panes in the windows.

She thought of her children. And Mike. Strange how she felt no fear for herself. Ivy had killed at least two people. And if she were not stopped, she would kill at least two more tonight. No one knew Alison’s whereabouts. No one was going to rush in and save her and Ginny.

Only God could help them now. The thought, instead of reducing her to cowering terror, was oddly empowering. As she and Jasper lowered Ginny onto the settee, her eyes darted about the room for a weapon to utilize against Ivy.

As if reading her mind, Ivy planted herself between Alison and the fire irons under the mantel. Mute, Jasper’s braggadocio had faded fast in Ivy’s presence.

“It’s the eyes.” Alison pointed at the portrait in an attempt to distract Ivy. “I see it now. The resemblance. Green like your great-granddaddy.”

Jasper scowled and Ivy frowned. “Think yourself clever, don’t you? Well, too clever for your own good as I think you’ll soon discover. Jasper,” she gestured. “We’ll not have further need of your services tonight.”

He crammed his hands into his trouser pockets and slunk away into the foyer.

“You, too.” Ivy motioned for her to follow.

With a backward glance over her shoulder to Ginny, slumped sideways on the settee, she was forced to comply.

“You,” Ivy waved the gun at Alison, “stand on the bottom step and wait.”

“I need to get my pack,” mumbled Jasper. He turned his back to them, putting one foot on the descending stair step.

Ivy smiled at his retreating form.

That smile . . .

She opened her mouth to call a warning, but as the words formed on her tongue, it was already too late.

“You do that.” Ivy grinned. “Son.”

He whirled at the tone in her voice. Ivy brought the gun forward at lightning speed, pulling the trigger. Alison had no time to react as the bullet slammed into Jasper’s chest.

A tiny spot of blood seeped through his grubby shirt. The force of the impact caused him to stagger farther into the recess of the hole. He stretched out one hand as if to catch himself.

Or perhaps, as if toward Ivy. Afterward, she was never sure which.

“Mother . . .”

With a manic push, Ivy shoved him backward into the pit of darkness and out of sight. There was a dull thud as his body hit the bottom of the hidden staircase.

Alison screamed.

“Shut your mouth,” Ivy snarled.

Her hands over her mouth, she sank down and leaned against the curved banister of the stairwell. Had Ivy actually killed her own son?

Ivy reached up to the grandfather clock, adjusting both hands to the twelve o’clock hour and setting the moon dial to its crescent position. With a metallic grinding sound, the clock swung to the left, once more in its proper place, concealing the secret chamber beneath the house.

A rumble of thunder shook the house to its foundations. Lightning crackled.

“Do you fear God, Ivy?”

Gun in hand, Ivy motioned for her to climb the stairs to the second story. “There is no God.” Her lips tightened. “We have to be our own gods. It’s up to us to make our own destiny. I told Frank as much that day on Orchard Farm Road when he said the same to me.”

Her heart pounding, Alison pulled herself to her feet. “Well, you should believe. God exists, and He’s not going to allow you to hurt me.”

Ivy laughed again. “Frank’s God didn’t help him that day in his car. And your God isn’t going to help you, either. Who is going to stop me? You?”

With a confidence she didn’t know she possessed, Alison mounted the stairs. “Yes, I believe I am.”

For her bravado, Ivy shoved her forward, causing her to stumble up two of the treads and scrape her knee. “Shut up and do what I tell you. Move it.”

At the top of the stairs, she found herself propelled toward the master bedroom and the sleeping porch overlooking the front portico.

Advancing gun in hand, Ivy backed her to the edge of the railing until her heels could retreat no further. The wind blew strands of hair across her face. The night air was sticky with moisture, pregnant with the coming violence the storm would unleash.

“Why the attack upon Ginny Walston?”

Ivy sighed. “So nosy. Right to the end. How Frank stood living with you all those years, I’ll never know.”

“Let’s talk about Frank then.”

Anything to delay and distract.

An odd look flickered across Ivy’s face. “No. I don’t want to talk about Frank. You want to know answers before you face this make-believe God of yours? All right.”

Ivy took a deep breath, waving the gun as she spoke. “Ginny was getting too close to the truth. Too suspicious. I was careful. I’ve always had to be careful, but somehow she started to suspect I was involved with her husband’s death.”

“Dr. Walston?” Alison’s eyes widened. Waving the gun around made her nervous.

“He was my boyfriend first at UNC.” Ivy’s voice took on a musing tone. “How different my life would have turned out if he’d only married me. He was in med school. Ginny and I were in nurses’ training together.” She laughed, a sound as unpleasant as her dead son’s. “I actually introduced them to each other. Biggest mistake of my life.”

In light of what she knew about Ivy’s history, she doubted the validity of that statement.

Ivy’s voice grew younger, as if she were once again that twenty-something version of herself. “She had everything, the daughter of a Raleigh surgeon. Her life has always been so easy.” Her tone hardened. “And she took him. The only man I ever loved.”

“Until Frank?”

Ivy looked at her, a frown creasing her brow. “Until Frank.” She tossed her head. “Leo married Ginny the day we graduated from training. I kind of lost it.”

Another vast understatement.

“The next thing I remember is waking up married six months later to that cretin, Jasper’s father, and I was pregnant and trapped.” Her eyes glittered. “I don’t like being trapped. I bided my time. I made my plans. Then, I walked into my new life.”

“As if Jasper had never happened.”

Ivy sniffed. “It was him or me.”

Alison suspected it had—when it came right down to it—always been all about Ivy when push came to shove.

“You’ve been clever.”

Ivy’s ramrod posture eased.

To Alison’s relief, Ivy took the bait. She had counted on Ivy being unable to resist the urge to brag.

“Yes, I have.” Ivy smiled. “It took many years, but I finally got that shrew Ginny.” She gave an ugly laugh. “Leo and Ginny, so sickeningly devoted to each other. I saw Ginny leave the board meeting with Frank one night.” Ivy shook her head in disbelief. “I couldn’t believe she’d try to steal my man a second time, but she did.”

As Jasper had said, Ivy’s grasp of reality was tenuous at best. Lightning sizzled the air, causing Ivy and her both to jump.

In that split second before the streaks lit the sky, she thought she heard the sound of car doors slamming from the direction of the parking lot. She prayed Ivy had been too distracted to hear it.

“So, I went to see Leo late one night and told him what I’d seen.” Her face took on a grotesque purple hue. “He laughed at me. He didn’t believe his darling wife would do such a thing. Luckily, I came prepared.”

“You killed him and made it appear a suicide.”

Ivy gave a small smile of satisfaction. “If you could have seen the look on his face when I held the gun to his temple?” Her voice purred. “Priceless.”

She rubbed sweaty palms down the sides of her capris. Crazy didn’t begin to cover Ivy.

“And that’s how it will appear to the detective when he finds your body on the ground below. After being overwhelmed by grief and shame at killing Ginny, your husband’s lover, you leap to your death.”

“I’m not leaping anywhere, Ivy. And Ginny was never Frank’s lover. Just like he was never yours.”

Ivy waved the gun as if waving the annoying mosquitoes of sanity away. Her voice grated like dry bones rubbing together. “Whatever. Ginny kills you and then kills herself or vice versa. Same result.”