Gregory woke up wondering where he was. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, remembering what had happened. The questions and most of the flames had died out at about five in the morning and he and Sharon had driven off to get some rest in a hotel on Sunset, both exhausted and quiet, limiting their conversation to essentials.
The questioning had gone well, Gregory thought. The two arson investigators were tough, experienced men, but he was sure he hadn’t aroused their suspicions. Luckily, Sharon’s obvious shock condition had excused her from speaking much. There was no doubt that arson had been committed, but the investigators had drawn a blank as to a suspect.
Gregory glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was almost eleven. Sharon looked innocent and relaxed beside him, her mouth open and her breathing even. He got up quietly and slipped into his clothes. He didn’t want to use the telephone in the room, so he left, closing the door softly behind him.
He found a telephone in the lobby and dialed Olga’s number, praying she was back.
“Hello?”
“Olga! Thank God you’re home!”
“Gregory? Whatever is the matter? I tried to return your call, but there was no answer.”
Her composed voice calmed him. He managed a bit of gallows humor. “Oh, I’m fine, except since I saw you last there’ve been two attempts on my life, and I’ve been burned out of house and home.”
“You had better explain,” she said.
He told her what had happened, starting with Sharon’s attack with the knife and ending with the fire of the preceding night. “It appears that Eleanor Harvey has been using Sharon to get at me, controlling her body either through outright possession or some kind of hypnotic command system. The poor kid is not conscious of it, but she’s hanging on to her sanity by her fingernails.”
“She says she knows nothing?”
“Right. Some kind of blackout, I think. Oh, there was one strange thing though. When I told her last night how the fire had occurred, she started to say, ‘Just like the…’ and then stopped. I asked her what she had been about to say, but she didn’t know. Now, the interesting thing is that at last I’ve remembered how Brooke and I died…”
He went on to tell her about the fire that had destroyed them.
When he finished, Olga exclaimed, “My God, the woman was totally insane! I never would have thought she’d go to such lengths. I need to think about this.”
Gregory held the telephone, listening to the silence at the other end.
“I want you to bring Sharon to my house right away,” Olga said at last. “It seems to me that the only way to contact Eleanor Harvey is through her. I don’t know if we can reach her, but we must try to force Mrs. Harvey to face what happened that night. Her guilt is too much for her to bear, so she has made herself believe that you started the fire. I think that’s why she’s attacking you.”
“How do we reach her through Sharon?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll try to have the answer to that question by the time you arrive. But it’s the only chance I see. We know she had to use Sharon’s body, correct? Then it’s the only avenue of communication we have.”
“All right, we’ll be there in about an hour,” Gregory said. “What can I tell Sharon? I know—I’ll tell her you’ve invited us refugees for brunch.”
Olga chuckled. “I can take a hint,” she said. “See you soon.”
Gregory once again found himself traveling up the hill to Olga’s house. Sharon sat stiffly beside him, not speaking. She had been remote since awakening and hadn’t said more than a dozen words. When Gregory told her a friend had invited them to brunch, she got ready as obediently as a child, asking no questions. All of her attention was directed inward, and he was growing more and more concerned by her withdrawal.
Olga greeted Sharon with a friendly smile and a searching glance. Sharon, far from her normal, vivacious self, merely mumbled a greeting, her eyes downcast.
They went into the breakfast room off the kitchen and sat around a blue-tiled table with a yellow sunburst in its center. Olga brought glasses and a large carafe of freshly squeezed orange juice, poured coffee, served scrambled eggs, bacon, and warm croissants, then sat down and joined them at brunch.
“This looks fabulous, Olga,” Gregory said.
For a moment, nobody spoke as they ate. Then Olga broke the silence. “I’m glad to see you are both all right,” she said. “Was the house badly damaged?”
“All things considered, not too bad,” Gregory said. “It will need extensive renovations, but the insurance covers it and we’ll be back there in a few weeks. Luckily, a neighbor saw the flames and called the fire department right away. Thank God, my study was spared. It could have been much worse.”
“Thank God you were spared,” Olga murmured. She sipped her coffee.
“Sharon was lucky,” Gregory said casually. “She got out before it became an inferno. I had to jump through the window.”
“Oh? How did you get out in time?” she said, directing the question at Sharon. She put the cup down in its saucer.
Sharon looked up, her eyes flicking nervously to Gregory.
“It’s all right,” he said gently. “You can talk to Olga.”
“I don’t remember what happened. I just woke up outside,” she said, speaking down at the table.
“I see,” Olga said. “And you also don’t remember attacking Gregory with a knife. Is that correct?”
Gregory was startled at the tack Olga was taking. Sharon pushed her chair back from the table, as if preparing to escape. “Who is she?” she said to Gregory. “What right does she have to ask these questions? What have you told her?”
“She’s a friend,” he said. “She just wants to help.”
“I don’t need help. I don’t need anyone meddling in my affairs. I want to go.” She began to rise from her chair.
Gregory placed a restraining hand on her arm. “Wait a minute, Sharon. Calm down. No need to get upset. She just wants to talk.”
“I’m not going to put up with an inquisition,” she said, a whine entering her voice. “You can’t force me to.”
“Sit down!” Olga’s voice rang with authority. It filled the room, cowing Sharon into obedience. She abruptly sat down in her chair. Her lower lip trembled and her eyes began to brim with tears.
This was a different Olga from the one Gregory had seen before. She seemed to have magnified in size and presence. Her eyes were remorseless, her face devoid of warmth or compassion.
“I’m going to ask you some hard questions,” she told Sharon. “And you are going to answer them. If you attempt to leave, Gregory will hold you in that chair if he has to. Do you understand?”
Sharon looked at Gregory in confusion, fear showing in her eyes. Gregory was more surprised than ever at the change in Olga. He thought…what had he thought? That Olga would just chat over coffee and get Sharon to talk? He really hadn’t thought at all. He’d been afraid to. He’d been willing to leave it all in Olga’s hands, and that was how he would have to continue.
“Do what she says,” he said to Sharon, as sternly as he could.
Sharon switched her frightened gaze back and forth between Olga and Gregory, cringing in her chair.
“Now, I want you to listen carefully,” Olga said firmly. “It is important and your life may well depend upon it. I believe that you have been used by the spirit of a dead woman to attack Gregory. That is why you have not been able to remember what has been happening. It is imperative that, as a first step, we get you to remember.”
As Olga spoke, a change came over Sharon. She now looked outraged. Her voice rose to a shriek. “You mean I’ve been possessed?” Olga’s words had struck some core of final resistance. Sharon looked from one to the other, her eyes widening. “You’re both deranged, certifiable fruitcakes. I blacked out, that’s all that happened. Plenty of people suffer from blackouts. You’ve been watching too many horror movies.”
Gregory shook his head. “Sharon, there was no physiological reason for a blackout.”
“I still think you’re lunatics and I want out of here now!”
“You are not going anywhere,” Olga said firmly. “The only reason you are unable to remember is because you are afraid to. Now, let us take the night you attacked Gregory with the knife. Tell me what happened when you went to bed.”
“You take it!” Sharon shouted. “This is ludicrous! I’m not listening to any more of this. I’m leaving.”
She stood up. Olga nodded at Gregory and he grabbed her arm. “Sit down, Sharon.”
She tried to pull her arm away. He took her by the shoulders, and forced her back into her chair. She pushed his hands.
“I’ll scream,” she said, looking at Olga.
“No one will hear you,” Olga said calmly.
“This is harassment. I’ll sue you.”
“Sharon, don’t forget you did have a knife in your hands and you did try repeatedly to stab Gregory with it, aware of it or not. Better we sort this out now. So, tell me what happened before and after you went to bed.”
Gregory looked at both of them: Sharon, suddenly defiant; Olga, with the velvet glove removed from the iron hand he never knew she possessed. He didn’t like what was happening. It wasn’t in his nature to use bullying tactics. And yet, he told himself, he had no other choice than to trust Olga.
“What is this? The Gestapo? I don’t remember!” Sharon protested.
“Yes, you do remember,” Olga said. “You are just refusing to look at it. Think back.”
“No. I told you, I don’t remember,” Sharon said sullenly.
“What happened when you went to bed?”
“I went to sleep. That’s all I remember.”
“Did you dream?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What was it you started to say to Gregory after the fire? ‘Just like the…’”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Gregory said the fire had been started with gasoline, and you began to say, ‘Just like the…’ What did you mean to say?”
“I don’t know. It just came out. I was upset. In shock.”
“What were you thinking when you said that?”
“Nothing.”
“What decisions did you make before you went to sleep that night?”
“I don’t know!” she screamed. “I don’t know! I don’t know! Stop asking me these questions. Leave me alone!”
Gregory looked at Olga. “Olga, maybe…” he started to say.
“No!” Olga said emphatically. “Let me handle this.”
Sharon turned to him, sensing an ally. “Gregory,” she pleaded. “Make her stop this. Please!”
“Sharon, she’s just trying to help you.” He was speaking as much to himself as to her. He decided that maybe he wasn’t as tough as he’d thought.
“Help me?” she huffed. “With these accusations? Telling me that I’m lying? What kind of help is that? I can’t remember what happened. Maybe nothing happened. All I have is your word that I attacked you with a knife. Maybe he’s lying to justify hitting me,” she said, pointing at Gregory. “Did you ever think of that? Maybe he started the fire, too.”
“No,” Olga said. “He’s not lying. Tell me about the fire.”
“Why do you believe him and not me? I don’t know anything about it. I woke up on the lawn.”
“And you think you blacked out?”
“Yes! Yes, I blacked out.” Sharon put her head down into her hands and leaned on the table. Then she looked up as if she’d just thought of something. “Maybe I fainted inside from the smoke and Gregory carried me out. Maybe he’s lying about that too. Trying for some reason to drive me nuts and get rid of me.”
Gregory rolled his eyes.
“No, that is not what happened,” Olga said. “What do you remember about the night of the fire?”
“Nothing, goddamn you! I remember nothing.”
“Would you let me hypnotize you?” Olga said. “Try to get you to remember that way?”
“Are you out of your mind?” Sharon said, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t let you near me with a ten-foot pole!”
“Then you will just have to remember,” Olga said. She stood up, the perfect hostess. “More coffee, anyone?”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Sharon said. “Greg, why are you doing this to me?”
Gregory clenched his jaw. It was one question he could answer. “Sharon, someone is trying to kill me. I’m trying to find out why.”
Olga filled their coffee cups, then sat down again.
“All right,” she said. “Now think back to the night with the knife. In what frame of mind were you?”
“I can’t remember anything about that night,” Sharon said gruffly.
“What can you remember about that night?”
“Going to bed. Nothing. I can’t remember anything, except I woke up with a bruise on my jaw where he hit me.”
Gregory began to feel a little dizzy. Their voices droned in his ears. Remember, don’t remember. Olga’s persistence was like a battering ram against a wall. He lost track of the time. He could have been sitting there one hour, three hours, he didn’t know. He wondered how Sharon was feeling if it affected him this way just as an observer.
The interrogation continued.
At one point Sharon sat silently, refusing to respond in any way, but Olga just kept pounding, asking the same questions over and over again, never changing her tone, untiring.
“Stop!” Sharon shouted suddenly, putting her hands over her ears. “Please! I can’t bear it anymore!”
“You are not even trying to remember,” Olga said. “If you try, you will be able to. Then we can stop.”
“There’s nothing there. I can’t remember. It’s blank. I swear to you.”
“You are being evasive, Sharon. Look again.”
“I can’t remember!”
Olga changed her tactics. “Tell me about Eleanor Harvey,” she said.
Sharon’s face crumpled. “What… Who?”
“Eleanor Harvey. Tell me why she hates Gregory.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“Yes, you do. You know her very well. She hates Gregory and she wants to kill him. She doesn’t want him to find Brooke again. Tell me what you know about her.”
Sharon was pale, her breathing erratic, her voice faint. “I… I don’t… I don’t know.”
“Why does she hate Gregory?” Olga persisted. “Is it because of the fire?”
Sharon began to sob soundlessly, her mouth opening and closing.
“Is it what happened with the fire that made her hate Gregory?”
Sharon’s hand clawed helplessly at the table.
“Tell me why she hates Michael. Was it the fire that killed Brooke?”
And then something snapped. Sharon screeched. It was a piercing, ear-shattering cry that reverberated through the room.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she screamed, leaning over the table. “Michael killed Brooke! That’s why. He murdered her in cold blood!”
Sharon dropped back into her chair, her eyes wide, shock and surprise on her face at what she had said.
“You remember?” Olga prodded quietly.
Sharon snickered.
The sound was so unexpected that it shocked Gregory. He looked from her to Olga, then back to Sharon again, bewildered. Finally, under Olga’s hammering, she had at last broken down; but who was speaking now? Sharon, or Eleanor?
Sharon’s face was undergoing a subtle change. There was no fear in it anymore. It seemed to grow harder before his eyes, a ruthlessness replacing the uncertainty and fear.
Gregory looked at her with fresh eyes and a sense of dawning horror.
She drew herself upright in the chair and looked boldly at each of them in turn. When she spoke, her voice seemed a shade deeper to Gregory.
“I remember everything,” she said scornfully. “I remembered it all last night after the fire. All of it.”
To Gregory, the moment was timeless, suspended in space. He sat there, physically paralyzed, his mind buzzing.
Sharon shook her head slowly, her lips pinched. “I can’t believe I actually feel sorry for you. Such a pair of pathetic, blundering fools with your talk of possession and spirits,” she said. “You’re so far off the mark, it’s actually funny.”
She paused and then laughed, a forced, loud laugh. “I am not in any danger from Eleanor Harvey,” she said. “I am Eleanor Harvey!”