They drove east, racing the waning light. Dave could not remember feeling so tired, which was saying something. Still, he guessed that he had slept more than Teresa. Her eyes were red and underlined in dark crescents, and her seizure had scared the wits out of him. She seemed on the verge of a severe physical or mental breakdown, for which he would feel responsible. Yet she was also locked in. Almost superhumanly focused on their mission of discovery. If she had been following his lead at first, they had switched roles. She was on a scent, and though he sat right beside her, Dave felt like he was running to keep up.
“What are you thinking?” Teresa asked.
“I thought you were asleep.” The only sleep she seemed to get was in the car, so he had been staying quiet. She sat up and brushed the hair from her face.
“I was, but my dreams are freaky.”
“Teresa, look. Is this safe?”
“Is what safe?”
“What we’re doing. Is it safe for you? I mean, that attack you had.”
“I’m okay. I was able to control it.”
“Should you be trying to control it? Don’t you have medication?”
“Did my mother tell you that?” she asked suspiciously.
“She says you don’t take it.”
“I do. Just not right now, I can’t.”
“What do you mean? Why can’t you?”
“Dave, you have to trust me on this. Do you trust me?”
“Sure.”
“The, um, what you call attacks. The episodes. They’re messages.”
“From who?”
“From...from me, from myself,” she said, though Dave was sure she had been about to say something else.
“And what are they telling you?”
“You’re going to feel like I’m doing tit for tat on the stuff you held back from me.”
“I might very well feel that way,” Dave acknowledged.
“There are things I can’t say until I’m sure. Bad things that I won’t be able to take back.”
“Must be pretty bad. Why are we rushing back to the Owl’s Point?”
“Because Audrey doesn’t want us there. She wasn’t worried about me. She was trying to get everyone out of the house.”
Well, well. And why not? Dave felt sure that Audrey’s concern had been real, but that did not mean it was the only thing on her mind.
“Why does she want the place to herself?”
“Yeah,” said Teresa, running her pale hand across the dashboard. Like an echo of the devious and heartbroken Ilsa stroking the picnic table. “Dave, what if there was no theft? What if the painting never left the house?”
The car slowed until Dave realized his foot had gone slack. He picked up speed again, though it was all he could do not to pull onto the shoulder.
“Like misplaced or something? Come on, Teresa.”
“No, deliberately moved. But still there.”
“The house was searched.”
“How soon, and how thoroughly?”
“I don’t know. I only had the police report and your grandfather’s word.”
“They were looking to see what else was taken,” Teresa said. “Not searching every cranny for something hidden. Right?”
“And after all this time nobody stumbled on it?”
“There are parts of that house where no one goes,” Teresa replied. “Almost no one.”
“So who hid it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You mean you won’t say.”
They hurtled down the steep ravine of 287 and shaped the long curve onto the Tappan Zee Bridge. Traffic was miraculously thin today. To the south, the towers of Manhattan sparkled distantly.
“Now you think Audrey is behind everything,” he complained, not liking his own tone. “This morning it was Ilsa. Who will you accuse next?”
“Do you feel that protective of her?” Teresa asked, turning a sorrowful face on him.
“No.” He fumbled with the E-ZPass scanner until Teresa took it from him, sticking it smoothly into the Velcro base on the windshield. “Yes,” Dave admitted. “Obviously I do. She’s a rude, crude, self-serving manipulator. But I like her.”
“I like her, too,” Teresa said sadly. “I suspect she likes us. But in a pinch she’ll always put herself first.”
“You could say that of most people.”
“If you heard she had harmed someone to get a thing she wanted. Killed someone even. You might be a little shocked, but would you find it hard to believe?”
Dave did not answer right away. And kept not answering until it was apparent that he wasn’t going to. He waited for the mechanical arm to rise, then shot out of the tollbooth like a jockey on a steel horse, racing eastward as fast as he dared to go.
* * *
On the far side of the little bridge, but still out of sight of the house, they pulled over. The lane was narrow. Rhododendrons blocked the passenger door, and Teresa had to climb out the driver’s side. She took Dave’s hand and squeezed it as they walked. He was startled, but did not pull away. Needing the comfort as much as she did. They cleared the last bushes, and there was the great pile of brick, awaiting them silently. The circular drive was empty of vehicles. There was no real way to hide, and Dave would have felt silly trying. Nevertheless, they walked on the grass margin, avoiding the gravel, and did not speak until they reached the front door. Teresa dug for her keys, and Dave touched her hand.
“Wait. I’m going to make a quick circuit of the house.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, faster if it’s just me. I’m used to doing this without being seen.”
She did not like it, but said no more, and Dave set off. No one on the lawn or in the gazebo. No one visible in the woods. There was nothing of note until he reached the garage. Through the glass he could see that where the green Jaguar had been, Audrey’s red Lexus was now parked. Carefully out of sight. Teresa’s instincts were on target. Dave leaned his forehead on the little window and thought about Audrey as he had seen her last. Naked and grinning, panting obscenities. An ache passed through him that was equal parts desire and mourning. A dull thump seemed to happen inside his gut. Until it happened again.
He listened closely, but the thumps were more sensed than heard. Powerful but muffled. As if they came from underground. For the first time since a certain night in Miami, he got a bad attack of the heebie-jeebies. Audrey was right, this place was haunted. The fifth thump was the last. Then something caught his eye. A dozen yards into the trees, a figure moved. Tall and shuffling and making no attempt to hide. Dave lost sight of him and moved closer for a better look. This was a thinner part of the wood, less pine, more maple. He ought to be able to see. He thought about Teresa waiting at the door and knew he should go to her. But there was someone out there, and Dave had the jump on him. It was too good a chance to waste.
Within the trees, it was a different story. The lines of sight were poorer than he had guessed, and he heard nothing but his own feet in the dead leaves. No more woods—you promised yourself two nights ago and here you are! After twenty yards, Dave began to turn back when he spotted something out of place. A loafer dangling off a foot. Then a leg, then a man in a beige raincoat, his back against a tree trunk. He blended into the surroundings so well that he was easy to miss. Dave did not think it was the same guy he saw a minute earlier, especially as this one was motionless, but he crept closer to investigate.
“Hey, Philip,” he whispered as the face came into view. The hair was wildly messed, the glasses missing, the blue eyes at half-mast, not seeming to take much in. Yet Dave did not think he was dead. There was old bruising—two days old, Dave would bet—over the left side of the face, but a fresh and bleeding wound on the right temple. And another on the crown. “I see you’ve been having as much fun as me.”
“Duff.”
“Well said.” Dave crouched and waved a hand in front of Philip’s face. The eyes followed. That was a good sign. Which begged the question, why did Dave feel disappointed? Because some part of him had hoped to find Philip’s head cracked open, his breath stopped. Even now, it would be so easy to place a firm hand over his mouth. To pinch his nostrils closed and watch the face turn red, feel the injured body tremble and jerk. Until it stopped. The man was in no condition to resist. And who could then say that the blows to the head were not the cause? Who could say you didn’t have it coming? You sleazy, child-molesting piece of shit. “Who hit you?”
“Dave.” Which was what he had tried to say before.
“I’m Dave, and it wasn’t me. Why are you even here?”
“Peeth. Meeting Peeth.”
“Pete, got it.” So much for him staying away. The ex-Marine lived to dole out or receive punishment, it seemed. It was good to understand your purpose. “Why were you meeting Pete at all, let alone in these godforsaken woods?”
“His gun.”
“What about it?” Dave asked. “He lost it in that park.”
“Freddie took.”
“Fred has Pete’s gun?” That was a bad development, if true.
“No. I took it from Fred.”
“So you have it now,” Dave said, patting down the raincoat but finding nothing.
“Wanted it back.”
“Pete did?”
“Yeah.”
“So, what? You came here to give him his gun?”
It seemed unlikely, but a more credible conclusion occurred to Dave. Pete came to get his gun back, but Philip had a different use of the weapon in mind. Judging by his looks, things had not gone according to Phil’s plan. Which meant that Pete had the gun again. Unless he was lying dead nearby.
“You five-star asshole. Why has no one killed you yet?”
Philip closed his eyes and said no more. Remaining crouched, Dave shifted around and looked out on the trees. Things had passed beyond an acceptable degree of risk. If not for him, then for Teresa. He slipped the phone out of his pocket and thumbed it on. Thirty yards away something swayed, as a thin trunk might do in the breeze. But there was no breeze. Dave looked once at the path he needed to follow back to the house, so he did not walk into a tree. Then he stood, fixed his eyes on the swaying form, and began to punch 911 into the phone as he shuffled sideways. Too many things at once, he told himself. You’re dividing your attention. He had barely time to think it when something loomed to his immediate left and he turned.
“I guess both of us lied,” Pete said, just before everything stopped.