A Multitude of Sins (30 page)

“It’s missed
you.
Oh, dear—” this at the slight lisp in her S’s. She pressed a hand to her cheek. “I’m afraid the music, or something, has gone to my head. Jim?”

He was only a pace away, ready to take her arm.

“If you’re going to accuse me of loading the drinks, I plead not guilty.”

At that she turned away, trying to laugh.

“Well, you’ll still have to help your old mother up to her room. Oh, Mr. Flagg, you must think me a terrible hostess. If you need anything…
”

“I’m sure I won’t, and you’ve been a charming hostess.”

Jim put in, “If you do need anything, just ask me. Come on, Mother, you’re tired, and whatever went to your head, maybe it’ll get you a good night’s sleep.”

“Yes, that would—oh, good night, everyone. Please excuse me.”

Isadora smiled stiffly. “Good night, Catharine. You, too, Jim.”

“Night, Sis. You get a good night’s sleep, too.”

“I told you Dr. Kerr gave me some enormous pills.”

“Well, get an enormous night’s sleep. Knock on my door if you need anything, Conan.”

“Thanks, Jim.” He looked down at Isadora, seeing the equivocal hostility doing battle with pity in her eyes as she watched Catharine make her way up the stairs, leaning on Jim’s arm. Finally, they disappeared into her bedroom, and Isadora turned away.

“You know, you almost have to feel sorry for her.” Before he could think of a suitable response, her eyes narrowed coldly and she added, “But she always was a great actress.”

He hesitated, put off balance, not by her antagonism, but because he’d told her nothing about Catharine’s ruse. But perhaps she had nothing specific in mind with that comment.

He asked. “What do you mean?”

“What?” Then she laughed. “Oh, I’m just being bitchy again. Don’t mind me.” She was staring at the library doors, closed as they always seemed to be, and her smile faded. When at length she took a few hesitant steps toward them, Conan tensed with the beginnings of both fear and hope.

“It’s silly to be afraid of a room,” she said, still staring at the doors. “Dr. Kerr keeps coming back to it, as if all the answers were behind these doors.”

“Are they?” He almost regretted the question because it distracted her. But only briefly; she glanced at him, then fixed her gaze on the doors again and slowly closed the remaining distance.

“I don’t know. Perhaps my sanity is there.”

He walked over beside her, but didn’t approach too closely; he only wanted to be sure he could see her face.

“There are answers in there, Dore, but it isn’t a question of your sanity. Dr. Kerr explained that to you.”

“Yes. It helps to understand why, but still, I have to…” Her right hand moved out as if of its own volition, hung in space, and finally rested on the doorknob. She stared at it, the color draining from her face. “I wonder if…if I have the courage.”

He waited, seeing the pulse beat in her throat, feeling its quickening echoed in his own. If she intended to try to overcome the fear instilled in a mock madness, Dr. Kerr should be here. But he wouldn’t discourage her; to advise caution would only reinforce the fear.

She began to tremble, her eyes suddenly wide, haunted with an unknown terror. He’d seen it before.

“There’s something…I remember…something…”

He kept his voice low, nearly toneless. “Words, Dore, put it into words. As it comes, whatever you see or feel.”

“The lamp…” Her lips barely moved. “The lamp on the desk. That was the only light. I—I can see it. Remember it. I can
remember
…
”

Another long silence. Still, she was remembering, and even if it were only the lamp on the desk, it was a beginning; a breakthrough.

“The lamp, Dore.” He spoke softly, trying to make her aware only of the words, not of him. “The lamp on the desk, the light shining on something. On what?”

She seemed paralyzed, incapable even of blinking her eyes, but finally the words came, each one a separate effort.

“Shining…yes, something shining. His—his hair; silver hair. His head down on the desk. He’s only fallen asleep…working so late…only asleep. But his—his hand…” Her face contorted, as if she were in pain, eyes narrowed, focused on something in memory, but still fixed on her hand and the doorknob; her breath came in shallow, whispering gasps.

“His arm…stretched out across the desk. Reaching out for…for help. Reaching out, and—” A choking sound in her throat, and her eyes were wide again, dark with that familiar horror. “Something in his hand…wrapped around his arm…something moving!”

“What, Dore?” He tried to keep his voice low, but the tension was cracking in it. “What is it?”

“They’re all over the room!” He hadn’t distracted her, she was still remembering, and still terrified. And something more. Revulsion. She was sick with it, “They don’t move, they…
writhe.
All over the floor and the desk and…oh, God, in—in his hand. His
hand
!”

“What? Dore, what are you seeing?”

She shuddered, her head fell back, mouth open as if she were drowning, pulling for air.

“Snakes!” It came out with a hissing sound, and the very word seemed as repulsive to her as what it stood for. The choking sobs began, yet her hand seemed frozen on the doorknob.
“Snakes!”

Conan had to wrench her hand free. He pulled her around, away from the door and into his arms, hearing her sobs muffled against his body.

“Dore, it’s all right, everything’s all right.” He repeated the assurance over and over. The words didn’t matter; only the sound of a familiar voice; a touchstone; reminder and proof that those horrifying illusions had no substance. And gradually, the trembling and weeping ceased.

And in reverse ratio, his rage grew.

Snakes. That was the key Milton Kerr had been seeking; the key to the amnesia. Someone had planted the delusion of snakes in her mind so that every remembrance of her father’s death was associated with something she found unbearably abhorrent, and doubly so in the context of death; someone who was familiar with her phobia for snakes, who recognized its efficacy and used it to lock away a memory, letting her pay the price in terror.

Perhaps Dr. Kerr could make use of this key, yet Conan wondered if she could sanely tolerate walking into that garden of horrors again.

He heard a sound; footsteps. But when he looked up at the top of the stairs, he saw no one. Catharine’s door was closed.

Isadora looked up, too, but at him, and he smiled at her, knowing she was on the verge of an apology.

“It’s too soon, Dore. You need more time.”

She nodded, wiping her cheeks with both hands.

“I guess so.”

“Come on.” He put his arm around her and led her to the stairs. “What you need now is some sleep.”

She didn’t respond, only holding on to him until they reached the landing. It was part of the hall running at right angles to the stairs. Closed doors met his eye in every direction. At the head of the stairs was Catharine’s room; next to it, the one which had been John Canfield’s; down the hall to the left was Jim’s room and three guest rooms, one of which had been assigned to Conan; at the opposite end of the hall was Isadora’s room. The house was quiet; a silence weighted with years.

She said, “I’d better turn off the hall light.”

“I’ll turn it off later.”

“All right, but we leave that little lamp on the table there at night.”

“The candle in the window?”

She laughed weakly. “Maybe the eternal flame.”

When they reached her room, he turned on the ceiling light and left the door open. As he looked around, he was reminded of Jenny’s poignant reference to Isadora as a princess. This was a room befitting a princess; a Victorian princess. White wainscoted walls surmounted by rose-toned paper with a fine figure; the same rose hue in the carpet and damask draperies. The furniture was of dark wood, richly carved, the posts of the canopy bed exuberant spirals. The bed was curtained in a filmy white cloth drawn back around the headboard in graceful folds.

Isadora, watching him, smiled faintly.

“This was originally my great-aunt Emily’s room. She died here at an early age; a broken heart, I think. Or maybe it was typhoid.”

He laughed and took her hand. “Not typhoid; not in this room. It had to be a broken heart.”

“Conan, you’re a hopeless romantic; I knew that when I looked through your tape library. All that Tchaikovsky.”

“You expect sophistication of one of Pendleton’s native sons?” Then he sighed; her eyes were still red. “Are you all right now?”

“Yes. It
does
help to understand why. I mean, these recurrences.”

“Good. We won’t talk about it now. Not unless you need to.”

“No. But, Conan…
”
She looked up at him intently. “I wish I understood more about—well, about everything else; what’s really happening.”

“I’ve told you everything that’s
really
happened since you went back to Morningdell.”

“That’s only facts. I want to know what you think.”

He glanced out the door, keeping his voice low.

“You have the answers locked away in your head. I won’t tell you what I think because when you unlock them, I must be sure the answers are entirely yours.”

She accepted that, but only in part.

“And you’re worried about how I’d react if you told me what you really think; what I might do.”

“Perhaps. I wouldn’t want to try to predict it. But the first reason still stands. Oh, Dore…” He reached out and ran his hand through her hair, and she smiled.

“I know, have faith. And I do, Conan.”

“Thank you. Now, you’d better get some sleep; it’s late. And don’t forget to take your pill.”

She frowned at that. “I really don’t think I need it.”

“Yes, you do,” he said firmly. “Dr. Kerr’s orders.”

“I know, but I don’t like to—”

“Dore, it’s to prevent any recurrences, and you need the sleep without nightmares. Promise me you’ll take it.”

She paused, a little alarmed at his insistence.

“All right. I will.”

“Now…” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, intending for it to be only a brief, parting gesture, but it seemed to get out of hand somewhere along the way. Fear was part of it, he thought; they were both afraid. It was the remembrance of something else he had to tell her that finally made him draw away. His arms were still resting on her shoulders, his hands clasped behind her head.

“By the way, your bedroom is bugged, and Sean Kelly is in the next room on the monitor.”

“In Dad’s room? Conan, if anyone catches her in there—”

“Sean doesn’t get caught, so she tells me. She’ll just watch over you tonight, and in the morning creep out like the fog on little cat feet.”

“Oh. I was hoping
you’d
be doing the watching over. A
close
surveillance.”

He laughed and kissed her cheek.

“It won’t be too close; I might get distracted.”

“Well, that’s encouraging.” Then she sobered. “Do you really think I need watching over?”

“I don’t know, but if you do, you’ll be well watched. Now, close the door when I leave. And take your pill.”

She walked with him to the door, frowning absently. “Conan, did Bob really…did he kill Jenny? And Dad? You said the same person killed both of them.”

He glanced out into the hall, then touched a finger to her lips.

“You’re asking me what I think again.”

“All right.” She called up a smile and squeezed his hand. “Good night. Thanks for being here.”

“Good night, Dore. Good sleep.”

He walked down the hall, pausing to turn off the ceiling lights, leaving the dim glow of the table lamp. He heard a door close. Not Isadora’s. Catharine’s.

CHAPTER 24

The Seth Thomas on the vanity chimed midnight. Isadora counted the tones, wondering if she’d really been asleep. It was warm; no breeze moved the curtains, dimly white in the darkness. Little of the city light reached the window through the trees, as little sound did; a distant murmur like the whisper of surf at the beach house.

She frowned at the memories that called up.

Still, she knew she could go back to the cottage in spite of the intense regret, even guilt, that shaped her grief for Jenny. It wasn’t like the library.

Don’t think about that. Not now; not in the dark.

She watched the tree shadows on the curtains, feeling a little guilty now about the sedative. She hadn’t taken it, justifying her refusal as reluctance to become dependent on an artificial sleeping aid. But she admitted now that rebellion motivated her more than reluctance. She resented Conan’s insistence and cautious reticence; it gave her an annoying sense of being manipulated.

Dr. Kerr hadn’t been at all enthusiastic about releasing her from Morningdell, nor had she been anxious to come home. Home. The word was a mockery. Conan had engineered that, deftly evading her questions while seeming to answer them, just as tonight he had
seemed
to explain why the bedroom was bugged and Sean Kelly was on guard in the next room; why he was so insistent about the sedative.

She took a deep breath. Have faith. How many times had he asked it of her? And she knew that in some sense he loved her, as she did him. She was being childish, and perhaps she should get up and take the pill now. The memories—no, they were just vague feelings of memories—were lurking behind her thoughts, threatening any hope of sleep.

She turned over on her side, not even wondering why she faced the door, putting the windows, the only faint light in the room, behind her. She closed her eyes and thought about music. The Gershwin
Concerto in F
;
she’d been working on it at the cottage. No, don’t think about the cottage. That one passage—the accents had to be exactly right; a hint of jazz timing, yes, but the
Concerto
demanded as much restraint as any Beethoven sonata…